The trouble with children

It's Friday afternoon and after navigating our way to Gatwick Airport and all the check in procedures we're finally relaxing with a small tipple in the executive lounge. Actually I'm enjoying the tipple particularly as I find a Langmeil red and its not often you find a decent Aussie red wine in Blightly. Meanwhile, Hamish is frantically trying to finish last minute emails before the laptop is switched off for the weekend. 

At the gate for the British Airways Flight to Rome I look around at the people cuing for the flight and realise there are quite a lot of kids and a couple babies. I hold my breath hoping that wherever we sit is no where near the babies in particular, as there is one thing that gives me a really bad headache and that's a screaming baby. Particularly when you're about to start a holiday, it's just bad karma. 

You will share a sigh of relief with me when I realised we were not packed in next to babies. The only children in my direct vicinity was a mother and two children sitting directly behind. 

Shortly after take off and as we all settle into cruising at x'000 feet some little feet start kicking the back of my seat. Initially I think, well this is a small child, he's likely to get frustrated sitting down longer than 10 minutes and the mother will control him. But as the flight progresses it gets worse and the mother is doing absolutely nothing to tell him off or control his movements.

I decide a little nap will help the situation, escape into my dreams and hopefully I will wake up as we land. I do nod off for a while however are startled back into reality when the back of my seat receives a really big kick catapulting my body forward into the seat in front. That is about it. Hamish turns around and asks the mother to please control her child as he will not stop kicking the seat. She abruptly responds that she cannot control a 4 year old child and refuses to converse any further.

I know I'm stepping on tender ground talking about children and discipline but it's got to be said and I have to get it off of my chest. Where is the discipline and control that parents should have over their children? Not even that but basic manners. I doubt this child even knows please and thank you. Of course you can't control your child if you're not even trying to teach it right or wrong, the mother didn't even ask the child to stop kicking the chair. 

I don't doubt it would be difficult to travel with two small children however mothers need to adhere to the basic principles of teaching manners and discipline not just for their own sanity but the rest of the adults in the nearby vicinity of their offspring.