“Glad I never was one!”
4 Likes
The reporting I’ve seen of this incident hasn’t been very clear, but from what I gather…
There was a crying toddler on the plane with an overwhelmed grandparent.
Two passengers offered to help with the child with the guardian’s consent.
They took the child to what might be a more comforting place (enclosed space away from from overstimulation).
The child DID calm down.
They returned the child to the guardian.
I honestly don’t see a problem here.
The headline I saw from CNN said something like “Strangers lock a crying toddler in an airplane bathroom.” This is BS click bait and from CNN this is dissapointing. Though I shouldn’t be surprised these days. The headline of this article isn’t much better.
For me, that’s the part that’s fucked up. I don’t know if I understand all the details, but if I do, I’m not sure anyone did anything wrong here and the two women were very possibly doing a good thing for all involved.
Editing to add that one of the reports I saw noted that one woman was INSIDE the bathroom attempting to comfort the kid. If the toddler was ALONE in the bathroom, that’s not OK.
1 Like
For some reason I’m still thinking about this and still pissed at the sensational attention and crappy headlines I’m seeing.
I grew up being forced to be Catholic. I remember going to church on Sunday and there were “Crying Rooms” for parents with small children who didn’t want to disrupt the proceedings.
Essentially these passengers made their own “Crying Room” for the distressed kiddo. In this case, it probably also had a comforting effect.
I know space on the constantly more enshittified airplanes is at a premium, but why not actually offer some kind of “chill out” room for parents with upset children or even anyone who has issues with overstimulation?
2 Likes
The incident went viral this week after one of the two women involved posted a video on Chinese social media, which showed them inside a locked lavatory with the wailing girl, who appeared to be about a year old.
“We won’t let you out unless you stop crying,” a woman sitting on the toilet told the toddler as she struggled out of the adult’s lap and reached for the door, according to the video posted on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok.
I am going to assume the reporting is accurate. We cannot view the video.
A parent or other trusted adult taking a child to a separate and quiet room to comfort and calm is a very different situation from strangers taking an extremely young child into an airplane bathroom, which are very loud, and forcefully keeping her there until she stops crying. That was deeply wrong and damaging to the child. Then the woman posted a video of it online. A video of her causing additional distress to a child who isn’t even her child.
I’m sure everyone on the flight was miserable. But a child that young is not responsible for their actions and shouldn’t be punished and purposefully frightened. It is damaging to their minds and emotional growth to do something like this.
The grandparents are to blame as well. The lack of judgement in permitting strangers to take a child in their care anywhere at all is profound. They could have done anything to that poor kid in the bathroom, in addition to this emotional abuse. Women sexually and physically abuse children too. I hope the grandparents are not the guardians of this child and her guardians make sure the grandparents are never responsible for the child’s well being ever again.
4 Likes
I can tell you, my own kid was incredibly shy and had a real fear of strangers. Something like this would have been deeply traumatic for her.
4 Likes
Even for a kid like mine was as a toddler, very social and interested in new people, that would have been traumatizing.
4 Likes
Exactly right… I hope the kid is going to be okay…
4 Likes
The woman who was abducted by Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs quieted down when he threatened to spray her with the hose again. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a traumatizing experience.
3 Likes
Wow. It’s obvious nobody was trying to make a skin suit here (though cheers for the reference).
Maybe I’m reading this wrong. Maybe something is lost in translation. Maybe I’m just being naive and hoping they had the best of intentions…
Something about the reporting on this smacks to me of cultural bias if not outright racism.
I can’t discern anything from that short clip. I don’t know the language they speak or their cultural norms.
What I do know is these viral headlines are like, “Look at these Savage Chinese people and how they treat their fellow humans.”
It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I’m open to being wrong about this, but I still don’t think this is something as awful as it’s being made out to be.
A small child being locked into a small room by a stranger is going to be traumatic… it doesn’t matter the ethnicity of the people involved. It WILL be a traumatic experience.
4 Likes
Which no one here has said otherwise… but sometimes, it’s necessary to take a child on a plane. You can’t take the time to drive for whatever reaons. It’s not fun for anyone, but that doesn’t justify abuse of said child just so others aren’t “inconvenienced”. 
FFS, children are people. Even very young ones.
6 Likes
The Devil can afford his own legal counsel, there’re really no need to offer pro-bono work.
5 Likes
Touche.
Oddly enough, you are the first person in this thread to bring up this aspect.
1 Like
He doesn’t need any. Stop it.
4 Likes
How can you even make that comparison? Were the children who were put into the “Crying Room” at church put in there alone or did a parent accompany them? Was the church “Crying Room” a cramped space where even a toddler would have trouble lying down? Was the church “Crying Room” absolutely filthy and full of surfaces that a toddler absolutely should not touch for health reasons? Were children in the church “Crying Room” at risk of being launched into the ceiling at high speed in the event of turbulence?
That analogy isn’t playing the devil’s advocate. It’s just mindboggling.
5 Likes
FWIW not the first person to think it though. I saw this on reddit first before seeing it here and on a typical rage bait/karma farm sub. Like a lot of this blog seems to be r/popular ranked by “hot” or “controversial”.
I do think news like this hits the noise machines for a reason too. But people react to what they react to and hate what they hate and the world takes form from that I guess.
The internet is a landfill for personality traits maybe?
That being said my understanding is that this became viral first in China so if anything we are seeing the aftermath of whatever Chinese society rejects or reacts negatively to here. If we subsequently choose to be racist about it that’s kind of its own thing…
and no one here was doing that.
I DO want to point out that right now a whole political party is calling childless people disgusting, undeserving of life, and worthless.
I am dehumanized daily in this gavage by people with power who want me to know I am hated and hunted… because I didn’t get pregnant when no one wanted me to!
And while I know it stings that not everyone likes flying with kids hates to be reminded that, in fact, shitty parents do exist… I do think it’s interesting that no one is up there on the pulpit saying parents should fucking die for having kids.
So maybe… maybe fuck this rage bait even if it isn’t racist though?
If not, that’s cool, I’m muting again… just wanted to use my freezed peaches.
4 Likes
4 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
