Just Saying | Enough of toddler terrorists in the air, put them on special flights and let us travel in peace
Yonden Lhatoo says, after enduring too many journeys with squealing toddlers on board, airlines should offer special flights for parents and ill-disciplined kids
Children should be seen, not heard. I would usually agree that this archaic saying belongs in some dusty, 15th-century book of homilies, but its modern-day relevance hit me like a sledgehammer recently when I was on a six-hour overnight flight to a holiday destination.
Trapped in an economy class seat with the usual lack of leg room or back support for basic human existence, I was surrounded by at least a dozen young children who had been placed strategically around me to turn the torture dial all the way up to 11.
Every time one of these tiny terrors let out a wail of entitlement or frustration, or whatever fleeting, self-indulgent emotion was the driving force for the moment, it would be picked up like a chorus by the others, producing a cacophonic orchestral effect that gave me a splitting headache.
They kept up their relentless aural assault throughout the night.
Before I’m labelled a child hater by the global Mothers Mafia, let me clarify that I love children. I just don’t share parents’ conviction that their progeny are cherubs descended from heaven when they behave like the spawn of hell.