There’s a story that I’ve seen a few times on social media. It seems sorta cool at first. It shows a picture of a bag with candy and ear plugs and a cute note – parents apparently have started passing these out when they fly. It’s meant to make the other passengers feel nicer towards the crying baby on the plane, mollified with sucking candy and earplugs and a note explaining that the baby can’t help it but doesn’t mean any harm and that people can come visit in seat such and such. It was a cool idea, I thought at first.
Then I saw an article against it, saying that babies will cry on planes, it’s just that simple. And to apologize for it is the same as apologizing for any other aspect of travel that everyone has to live with. Sure, it sucks to be next to a baby that cries for hours of your flight. But the reality is that most babies only really cry during takeoff and landing, and maybe a bit in the middle bits. The rest is normal baby stuff, normal life stuff about spending time in close proximity to other humans while you move around the world. It might be a cute idea, but it sets up a strange kind of expectation for parents to make other people okay with their baby’s crying. Why do we all apologize for it, and when should we?
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