I'm a lousy human being

[veronica_rich]

And I am most certainly going to the Bad Part of the afterlife, because all I can think reading this is Thanks a lot, lady, for being drunk and throwing things at the adults and compromising your case. That really helps those of us who are peaceful and polite and would stop at only dangling the three-year-old upside down by an ankle over the aisle until he turned red. (I'll take my whacks on the head now.)

By Jolie McCullough, The Arizona Republic

Phoenix police are investigating an incident on a Southwest Airlines flight where a woman allegedly grabbed a child who was kicking the back of her seat in March.
James Holmes of the Phoenix Police Department said a mother is pressing charges against a 42-year-old woman who allegedly assaulted her 3-year-old boy while they were on Southwest flight 582 heading to Las Vegas at the gate of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on Mar. 21 at about 7 p.m.
No arrests have been made because police are still gathering names of witnesses from Southwest Airlines, but the mother described the incident to police:
Her three-year-old son either kicked or put his feet up on the back of the woman's seat when she turned around and grabbed him. The woman told the child, "You're not going to be kicking my seat all the way to Las Vegas," while she shook him and then slammed him back on the seat, the mother told police.
She and other passengers began to argue with the woman after the incident, and both parties were taken off the plane to discuss the situation.
Staff had assured her that the woman would not be allowed back on the flight, and she returned to her seats with her children, Holmes said. The woman, however, did board the same plane again, and chose to sit in the same seat over other empty seats.
During the flight, the woman harassed the family and threw garbage at them. The mother told police that the woman appeared to be intoxicated.

I dislike a bratty child, and I dislike even more the bad parents who sit aside slack-jawed and let it happen (we would've had our asses spanked for that behavior). But I really, really hate people who go too far in trying to rectify the situation, who make it worse on those of us who have legitimate complaints about the little jer- I mean, darlings. ;-)

Comments

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

I wonder if we're getting the whole story, if the woman perhaps did ask the mother to control her child first. Some parents don't take kindly to that no matter how politely you ask - they see it as a slur on themselves or an insult, rather than correcting something every kid probably does at some point. And yeah, I've had to deal with a lot of kids in my life, and had to come up with ways to distract/deter them from doing things they shouldn't. My biggest challenge was learning to deal with a former boss's small daughter, who had all kinds of behavioral problems because she wasn't disciplined very well at home. When she was with me, I made it clear there were consequences if she acted up, as well as rewards if she obeyed. Yes, I spanked her 2-3 times. It was really all she needed to understand how I rolled. I knew her when she was four years old; by the time I left that job, she was 10 and a well-behaved young lady who did what I asked and I could have reasonably adult conversations with while taking her places or having lunch with her. (I still send the kid a present on her birthdays; she just turned 13.)