There's about to be a flight attendant opening at Continental. Anybody need a job?

Fired.

Wow, media at its finest. You know that this is just a mash up of words making you think that the baby and mother were all innocent. Basically put, if you have a kid, you have to shut him/her in public, or else it's indecency towards others. You don't have a right to let your kid start ranting wildly. These days, parenting sucks because mothers have bitchy attitudes and think that we all have to conform to her and her child's lives, which is the total opposite.

Meg, check out this video of the mom and kid's appearance on Good Morning America. The kid incessantly squirmed, whined, and screamed throughout the piece. Even Diane Sawyer couldn't take it any more.

"The flight attendant told the captain that Penland had threatened her..." Yeah, right. It's all any airline employee having a bad day needs to say since 9/11. The flight attendant should be fired for making what was obviously a false statement. What was the mother going to do, force her way onto the flight deck with her kid's binky?

@hallik: Read the article please. You don't know what you are talking about. Many witnesses on the plane have said the baby was not loud, just repetitive.

The Continental Stewardess needs to be fired, and this Mother and her child deserve compensation from Continental.

P.S. Kids squirm. Grow up.

Of course the mother is going to play it off like her child is the baby Jesus and that it was innocent and cute. If I was the person sitting next to the kid after about 30 seconds of that bullshit I would have been ready to throw the kid out the emergency window airlock personally.

Parents taking children on flights, heres a personal message from me to all of you: "We hate your children. We do not want to listen to them. Even if I have headphones on, I don't want to have your child kicking, flailing, or being insane next to me on a flight. DRUG your child with baby benedryl, keep it up ALL night so it sleeps on the plane, or bind it like Hannibal. Your children are annoying, 100%. If you think your child is as deserving as any other adult to be on the plane, I'll kindly tell both you and your child to 'Shut the F*@k up' if you begin to annoy me."

@SecureLocation: "What was the mother going to do, force her way onto the flight deck with her kid's binky?"

Yeah, no kidding! What's that grocery stock-boy gonna do, hijack the plane with his box-knife and fly it into a building killing thousands of people?

Oh, wait....

Do you guys think you're funny or cool making comments like that? How old are you, 14?

@axiomatic:

It is you who doesn't know what he's talking about. I did not mention the kid's loudness. To play devil's advocate, I highly doubt the kid was saying softly "bye bye plane." Knowing kids (and the mother), you can most definitely tell he was jumping up and down and saying his phrases like he was snorting sugar. Either way, whatever he does, if one person has a complaint, the mother must comply.

There are apparently a lot of Pedophobic's who read consumerist. Especially if you look to the other threads on this story. Sad really. Especially those who say kids shouldn't fly. Thats just not realistic, seeing as you can't drive across the oceans.

Stop being so self centered and share the world please.

can we please end this? it's not getting anywhere, just more people bitching back and forth at each other about how they can't stand the other party. ugh.

@hallik & DASHTHEHAND: When you come up with a solution that is fair to everyone and not just fair to you, I'll start listening. But until then, you're being pretty insensitive.

@PELAGIUS

The kid in the video you linked to is much more representative of the kids I see on flights.

I like how the mom laughs when she talks about the "fit of the century" that he threw on the later flight. I'm sure it's an everyday occurance to her, but it isn't to all of us.

The flight attendant sounds like a real class-A pill, but we haven't heard her side of the story.

I'll have to reluctantly agree with Hallik, in all reality the mother should have taken care of her kid and while it was going to far to put her in police custody, flight staff have full authority of the plane. From personal experience I take a commuter bus very often and it just irritates me when mothers let their kids do whatever while I'm either trying to lay back and sleep or silently read a book. One time time I had this little kid constantly poking me through the back of the seat,after a while I had to restrain myself from yelling at the mom to watch her kid.

@DashTheHand: As soon as I can be assured of no sitting next to the talkitave old lady, the person with bad BO, the loud snorer,the 400lb woman, drunks, talkitave teenagers, and the seat dancers, you will also have to deal with our kids.

@hallik: Either way, whatever he does, if one person has a complaint, the mother must comply.

You smell. I would like you removed from the plane.

You're fat, I'd like you removed from the plane.

I don't like your shirt...oh wait, that one happened to with the arabic script...

You're white/black/etc, I'd like you removed from the plane.

One complaint? If you honestly believe that then you're an idiot, and I'd like you removed from Consumerist.

I said it before and I will say it again. All children should be required to travel in pet carriers down with the luggage.

The woman was flying from Dallas or Houston to Oklahoma City. It is a 3-6 hour flight depending on what city it was. Either way that is not a horribly long drive. So why was she flying? I can see people flying with small children when it is a very long distance or a transcontinental flight.

I have kids, but I had enough consideration for others and desire to keep MY sanity that we never flew with our young kids. I would not want to subject others to hours of screaming baby or whining tantrum toddler. I also didn't want to be the one responsible for trying to deal with solving said situation.

I guess I just expect other people to have the same consideration and common sense. Silly me. I also didn't take them to any restaurant I was not able and willing to quickly leave if they got cranky or out of line.

@enm4r: Right on Enm4r! These self centered jerks who want to boot the kids from the plane don't "get it" that we tolerate their eccentricities and we are nice enough to not point them out to them either. Why can't they tolerate everyone else's?

@sonichghog: Exactly!

Here we go again, baby plane article #3. Consumerist, are you aiming to jack up your comments quota, or what?

Solution (for the bazillionth time): divide the plane into 3 sections: first class, quiet coach, and family coach. Very, very simple. Parents can stop ragging on the childless and hang out with their noisy baby-clad peers, and the childless can stop griping about baby noise and have a more comfortable flight. See how easy? Now, to the incessant whiners on both sides, how about a nice big slice of STFU? It's fresh from the oven.

@Pelagius: The funniest part of that video is the guy continually saying, "I have the balls! I have the balls!" Someone needs to make an audio mash-up of that plus the kid's creepy "bye-bye plane" doom chant. See, art can come from anything!

@hallik: Hahahaha...I like your imbecilic comments.

Every business traveler I see always has more than one carry on bag. Lets get these jerks booted from the plane too! I mean, come on! There are even signs that say "only one carry on please."

(playing devils advocate, I'm a parent and a business traveler myself, just trying to exemplify how silly some of you sound)

No one else will do it? Really?

Okay, here it goes.

"Enough is enough! I have had it with this motherfucking baby on this motherfucking plane!"

:-)

It's a baby. He's two years old. He doesn't know any better. Get over yourselves. His mother paid just as much money for his ticket as you did, so turn up the volume on your iPod and get over it. It's not like the baby was running up and down the aisle. Personally the person that yells at the mother is a bigger disturbance.

Now if the kid was setting off fireworks instead of talking, he'd just be celebrating America and freedom, yes?

@msb2: this is more a Deadspin thing, but - +1.

Yes, "grow up" and "share the world with everyone", I agree; but children are born as savage animals, and their everyone-hood only develops over time.

Children deserve a little leeway on their behavior every bit as much as I should expect their parents to be able to control them, as they mold them into eventual people I can stand to have next to me on a plane.

I'll do my part by not seething like an a-hole, and you parents do your part by learning how to outsmart your three-year-old, and we'll all get along fine for a few hours.

Sigh.

This thread will end in the same debate:

Parents who think that they have the right to burden everyone else with their children because "that is the way that kids are" will tell everyone to shut up and deal with it.

People who travel without children will vent about unpleasant experiences with previous flights.

This debate goes nowhere. parents will continue to let their children act like little monsters in public, because whenever anyone tells them to shut their kid up our society freaks out and they end up on Good Morning America.

@Pelagius: Sure, he whined; it's early in the morning, he's in this really distracting studio, *he's* not being interviewed, and there's nothing for him to do. Then, they give him a space shuttle to play with, it drops, and nobody gets it for him.

I feel bad for the kid (who, did you notice, was not put in a car seat by the police when they took him away), and for the mom, who has no choice about traveling with her child, regardless of his issues. Flight attendants have seen a lot worse than annoying kids, to be sure.

its a 4 hr flight from Toronto to Vancouver. It takes 4 days to drive there. Flying would be preferable to being trapped in a car with a screaming child for four days.

@SecureLocation: PS: teach your kid to not squirm in public. It's called "parenting", and if you have kids, you should do some parenting sometime.

@professorjonathan: "Sure, he whined; it's early in the morning, he's in this really distracting studio, *he's* not being interviewed, and there's nothing for him to do. Then, they give him a space shuttle to play with, it drops, and nobody gets it for him."

Gee, stuck somewhere he didn't want to be, nothing to do, sounds like BEING ON AN AIRPLANE....

Theres a difference between adults that you can tell to shut the hell up and mind their own business on a plane and a child which you basically have ZERO control over because they are SUPPOSED to be under their parents control.

I HAVE ZERO problems telling the 80 year old with no friends that was flying to las vegas to blow her nest egg to either find a magazine to read or to O/D on her pills, either way stop talking to me. That goes the same for people talking obnoxiously loud, constantly bumping me with their newspaper, or any other disturbance.

If you don't have the nerve to tell someone else they are bothering you and ask them to politely stop once or twice and then progressively upgrade to telling them that you're going to break their ankles as soon as you're outside of the airport if they don't stop, then thats your problem. If I could lean over and tell your brat that if they don't stop freaking out, being annoying, or kicking my seat or I'm going to toss them into traffic without the parent going apeshit (the person who should have said what I did to the child in the FIRST PLACE), then maybe I could tolerate children on a plane because guess what - Kids DO get scared of being threatened by other adults. Half the kids today don't give one shit about their parents because their parents don't want to be embarrassed by beating the hell out of their children in public. In reality, EVERYONE gets a smile with an annoying brat gets spanked in public, because THEY would have done it themselves.

I've done more flying recently, and am going to add my thoughts.

Children's screams, shouts, repetitive phrases etc will cut through any Ipod effort. And it sounds like, in this case, it was in the 'no electronic devices' phase of the flight, where headphones are useless.

I would love it if someone who was on the flight would get their thoughts in. Was the child only in verse 11 or 12 of 'bye bye plane' or had it been ten minutes? Had the mother made any attempt to indicate 'indoor voice' or 'that's enough honey'? Or, one of my favorites (used by my mom on me on many a car trip), something to put in my mouth? (Gum on flights is useful for that ear popping.)

I'm thinking that this incident is more a pointer to the greater issue of those with kids vs. those without that has risen in recent years. See the restaurant in NY that requires children to be properly behaved, or the number of books on the subject. There are a lot of parents who think they're children are perfect, cute, and everyone should love them and give them their best (see lawsuits to get child into this activity or get that grade). And there are a lot of non-parents who wish there was more 'seen and not heard' to children. It used to be that those with children outnumbered those without. Now, there are a lot of adults who have no tolerance for the sticky loud child that wants to talk and touch them.

Apparently he didn't "drop" the toy, either. He threw it to the ground in a fit:

[www.wsbtv.com]

"Mom Booted From Plane Goes National; Kid Kicks, Whines At Interview

POSTED: 9:12 am EDT July 13, 2007
UPDATED: 12:07 pm EDT July 13, 2007

NEW YORK -- The Gwinnett County mother kicked off an airplane with her 19-month old son tried to tell her side of the story Friday morning, but her son's crying and whining drowned out the interview.

Garren Penland, 19-months old, got so unruly during his mom's chat with 'Good Morning America' anchor Diane Sawyer, co-anchor Chris Cuomo had to take the toddler off the set.

While Kate Penland explained her child was well-behaved on the Continental Express flight, little Garren kicked, wiggled and squirmed out of his mother's arms.

At one point he climbed up on a coffee table and rifled through Sawyer's scripts.

When Sawyer handed him a model Space Shuttle to distract him, Garren flung it to the ground.

Kate Penland said she and Garren were booted from the flight last month by a flight attendant who suggested she use benadryl to calm her son down."

This is what toddlers do. We were all that age once and acted the same way. His behavior on GMA was entirely unoffensive--he was squirming because he didn't want to be held down doing nothing while his mom chatted. No screaming, no tantrum. Grabbing at papers? Yup, that's what kids that age do. A short-lived tantrum the next day? Yup, that's what kids that age do. Children--they're a part of life and, oh yeah, a prerequisite to achieving adulthood. So the mom should have driven for hours and hours with a toddler confined to a carseat because someone might be offended at the sound of his voice??? Let us hope that the flight attendant and posters who can't bear the normal behavior of children will spare the world any further dissemination of their own intolerant genes and refrain from reproducing.

@axiomatic: Actually you're allowed one carry-on and a personal item. This basically translates to one item that fits in the overhead bin and one that fits under the seat in front of you.

@MommaJ: No, mom should have been prepared to keep the kid quiet on the flight. With a pacifier. Or with Baby Benedril. Or some other way if she doesn't want to "drug" her child.

The people around her paid the same for their tickets that she did, and you better believe that if one of the adults was throwing a temper tantrum they would have deplaned the adult too.

If this was a special needs kid, then sure, I would understand. But a regular old kid that's acting up because his mom is raising a spoiled brat? Off the plane.

Regardless of whether the kid was irritating or out of control, I think it's clear that he was not a threat, which is the only reason I can think of to remove a paying customer from a flight.

@DashTheHand: I think we know who the real child is here. Seriously. . . grow up and get over it.

@IRSistherootofallevil: "It's a baby. He's two years old." You're absolutely right on that. Which is all the more reason why he probably shouldn't be flying. Except in emergencies, there is no reason to put a small child on a plane. It is uncomfortable for the child and potentially annoying to other passengers. Anyone who has ever been stuck sitting next to a parent with a baby in need of a diaper change has got to wonder why that poor child has been forced to endure a flight.

I gave my daughter Rescue Remedy Sleep last time we flew.It worked like a charm!

That mom needs to stop acting holier than thou because she wont "drug her kid". That kids cant sit still on a large couch so its obvious he cant stay in a small airplane seat.

and his sweater vest is ugly.....

If this stewardess is fired she should get herself a paypal account and accept donations.

I would send her $50.00 right now for doing what I have dreamed of seeing on hundreds of flights.

If I was on that plane I would have been cheering her on.

"Poor single mom has no choice but to fly with her little baby" Bullshit.

I see these "poor single moms" on planes every week. The kid(s) goes crazy and the mom gets this stupid "gee I can't do anything about it" look on her face.

@Mom2Talavera: "and his sweater vest is ugly....."

lol

He's a brat AND his momma dresses him funny....

Clearly there seems to be two sides here. The parents with whom no fault will ever be associated with an out of control kid and an apathetic parent. Then there is "everyone else" who get accused of being un-knowledgeable about raising kids. While I agree that until we have all been there, it is hard to determine what can and can't be done with a child; I can say personally that I always cut a parent who is actually trying, some slack. What I don't support are "I could care less" parents.

@Spaceman Bill Leah: Apparently.

She should have told him to chant "USA! USA!"