Mom and Chatty Toddler Removed From Flight

Yeah, I always thought Nimh was kinda snotty, now that you mention it.

totally snotty.

I'd like to smack the snot out of him .... which end does the snot appear?

Just try whichever end you think seems most promising to you...

that will be the end of you! sound promising enough?

One thing I don't like is snots!

Yeah, whether it's in big kids or little kids.

Yeah, snots have no age

God! Enough with the snot-talk! I have been sick for a year, I don't want to even hear about any snot - school's out!

Speaking of snotty

Ok, I'll stop now

Is the snot talk really over then?

I'll go way out on a limb here in support of those that say "you don't know till you've been there".

I was 42 years old when a nearly 2 year old was left here.

I thought I knew this kid, having spent a minimum of 48 hours each week with him over the previous 2 years. (And this was not the first ever child I had been exposed too for longish durations.)

And I didn't know ****.

You DON'T know until you've done it. Honest to god you don't know.

You might think you have an informed opinion. I thought I did. I really thought I did.

Until you've done it, you don't know.

I'm sorry, Boomer, but you assume all others just cannot understand. I'm really tired of that mantra, much as I'm an admirer of you and others here.

Apparently human empathy is of no use. We all have to undergo each others' trials and tribulations. We can live, oh, say, eight decades sans a child of our own, and be assumed to not understand the nuances of a toddler's behavior. Or, some other examples JoefromChicago gave.

The primacy of motherness? (um, fatherness? rarely is fatherness mentioned.)

I'm aware this is off topic. I'm not the first.

One of my cousins told me that people without children led selfish lives.
Really. I can see some with children leading the lives of martyrs in their minds.

You don't get a secret packet. Usually you seem to know that.

I am certainly not trying to diminish anyone by what I said. All kinds of people who aren't parents can have a huge impact on a child's life.

But when come hell and high water, they're yours and nobody is going to ever come and pick them up it changes things. It changes everything.

I wish they came with a secret packet of information. Lord knows I could have used one. I thought I knew too and I didn't know squat.

Empathy doesn't have anything to do with it.

But that's just my opinion.

Go ahead, live in the tunnel. No one can ever be you and suffer what you have suffered, or glimpse your joys.

Indeed. I hadn't seen that.

There are elements of truth on all sides of the argument. Now, if the damned airline would make a definitive statement, we could get a better look at the actual situation. Probably awaiting the inevitable lawsuit.

It seems to me that it is this sentiment, this opinion, that you are now, here, emotionally responding to. That you see it looming as the 'real' subtext behind what Boomerang is saying. But it is not actually part of anything that Boomerang said. I'm sure she wouldn't agree with it. And neither do I, having taken part on the other side of the discussion here as well, agree with it.

It seems that there is in general a lot of misdirected anger/frustration going on in this discussion - people responding to what they emotionally associate with what the other is saying, rather than what he/she actually is saying. Lot of triggering going on. But it would be good to return to basics and not read more in someone's post than what he/she actually literally wrote.

For example, there is nothing in Boom's posts that suggests she sees herself as some kind of martyr. She merely said that exactly how it is to have to parent a child for 24/7, you don't know until you do it (whether it's your own kid or someone else's, obviously). That's all Linkat said too. And unlike some foolish assertion that childless people are selfish, or - as Set tried to put words in Linkat's mouth - that everyone who's given birth can automatically lay a claim to being a competent parent, that in itself is really a rather commonplace observation. I dont see why people have got to act like she or Linkat or I or whoever "really" was saying those other things.

I think, boomer, linkat , soz, CJ ... and nimh should get a special, small and windowless cage with plywood chairs when they fly.