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And the best place to take a child is…
July 25th, 2010 by Clarice received 6 Comments »The Royal International Air Tattoo, of course! How could anyone think otherwise?
A little back story
I was so excited about going to RIAT this year. I hadn’t been since 2007 and was desperate to go again. I don’t believe in war, however I think that the necessity of such things brings out the amazing human ability to be creative and engineer some amazing things. This airshow proves that with aircraft from such a huge range of times. This year the closing display was of a Supermarine Spitfire flying alongside its modern day replacement, the Eurofighter Typhoon. These are things to be marvelled – that we, as human beings, have been able to create such things. It utterly astounds me.
So, I think it is absolutely fine to introduce children to feats of engineering from a young age. There is nothing wrong with that at all. In fact, by doing that people may be inspiring the next generation of engineers who create the next generation of aircraft. All well and good. It’s good for young people to have a focus, especially when so few young people now want to do anything other than become managers, parents or work at McDonalds.
The point of this post.
Now, I’m an adult. I can cope with noise. The damage that aircraft noise does to my ears is pretty minimal, if non-existant. In children, however, that’s a completely different story. Not only can such loud noise for prolonged periods of time (the total time of the displays on each day was 8 hours) damage their hearing, but some children don’t respond well to loud levels of noise. And it’s not only the sound that can be a problem – with some of the more modern aircraft there is a lot of vibration. So much vibration that you feel your lungs rattling inside your rib cage.
So it’s absolutely fine for me to sit by and watch the F-22A Raptor do a slow and dirty flypast. But for a toddler, it’s a completely different story.
But what did we see continuously throughout the day? Parents with toddlers and other young children without ear defenders. It’s not as though every couple of minutes during the amazingly long walk from the car parks to the entrance you weren’t bombarded with recorded messages about how you should get some ear defenders for your young children because of the very high level of noise throughout the day. They have thousands, probably tens of thousands of ear defenders on sale throughout the day, and they only cost a few quid. Did we see many kids with them on? No, of course not.
Were people coming to this show expecting the aircraft to be quiet, like a hybrid car? Yeah, of course. We all know that the Avro Vulcan was a really quiet bomber, and the Argentinians didn’t see (or hear!) it coming! And that the aforementioned F-22A Raptor, because it has stealth technology, is now completely silent like an unmanned drone! Or that the sheer size of the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress means that it’s as quiet as a mouse! Did people really come to this expecting it to be a quiet day out?
Not only that, but the “crowd line” is quite literally just that: a few wooden sticks with a bit of rope at about my waist height. High enough that a kid could run underneath it. Were parents paying attention to their kids? Do parents ever really do that? One year, I swear it’s going to happen that a kid breaks free of the crowd and runs towards the runway. Yeah, let’s see those parents sue the MOD. Let’s seem them (undoubtedly) win and the organisers are then required to put 10 foot high fences up, topped with barbed wire so that no-one can get past. We might as well just line the road outside RAF Fairford. Why bother even letting us in to see the static displays? Nah, just keep everyone out! All because someone didn’t bother paying attention to their kid, who should have been…hmm, let me think…their own responsibility. It’s going to happen, I tell you.
I have a specific example of the noise problem.
Responsible parenting
The guy above has ear defenders on his kid, and he’s lifting his kid up to give a better view of a display of how modern aircraft technology is used to bomb a base. In fact, I think it was a strategic demonstration of what the RAF are doing in Afghanistan. Absolutely fine. If I was that kid I would be expecting my Father to lift me up to show me this thing. I would also expect to have my ears covered. I’d be loving every minute of what was going on, but I wouldn’t be in any pain.
Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of the flipside, as I was spending too much time taking pictures of the aircraft I was there to see. However, directly in front of me was a family of three. Two parents and one toddler who couldn’t have been more than 2 years old. The boy’s Father barely paid the slightest bit of attention to the kid or his wife, he spent most of his time fiddling with his camera. This kid’s mother was more interested in the aircraft too. Especially so when the Harrier Jump Jet did its signature vertical hovering (thrust vectoring if you doubt my understanding of such things!) immediately in front of the crowd. She was so engrossed in this, and the noise from this thing barely 20 metres away was so loud that she couldn’t see or hear her toddler screaming his damn head off, and seemingly ignored it clawing desperately at her leg in what looked like pain caused by the noise.
I just don’t get it. Why would you bring your 2 year old kid to what is considered to be Europe’s (possibly the world’s) biggest military airshow, sit 10 meters back from the crowd line and leave your kid to scream in pain without ear defenders. Candidates for parents of the year, you think?
Tags: Airshow, Childfree, Children, I see dumb people, Idiots, RIAT 2010, RIAT2010, Royal International Air Tattoo, Stupid People
Posted under: Childfree, Idiots, Stupid People
On a boring everyday note, why do people take children who are clearly very very bored shopping? children dont like food shopping but still the places are teeming with them, I was left with my other parent or a grandparent when my mother went shopping is that so difficult? I get so mad I want to ram my trolly into them!
Not a dull point at all. I often wonder why people take their kids to all sorts of places that the kids find boring. The kids out shopping thing is one of the reasons that we get our groceries delivered. I don’t see why everyone else should be subjected to some kid having a tantrum in the chocolate aisle because they’re bored and they’re not allowed any sweeties. Argh, it’s when you get parents with kids out shopping who expect you to make an exception for them because their kid is pitching a fit and they want to queue jump to get out of there. I don’t think so!
I even extend it to things like The Tube. Ugh, why take your kids from virtually one end of the Central Line to the other? It’s a long, slow journey. They never sit the hell down, they scream, shout, barge into other people, behave stupidly when the doors are open, and some of the gaps between train and platform on the Central Line are huge. Then of course it’s everyone else’s fault that little Johnny got stepped on by another passenger – had nothing to do with the fact he was bored after having been on there for half an hour and was trying to do a pole dance in the middle of the carriage. FFS.
My biggest gripd is seeing kids about when they blatantly should be at school and I mean out with their parents (little kids not teens) I can remember school hols well and I KNOW they should be there not screaming in Costa when I want peace, I feel like running over and screaming ‘why is your child not at school’!
Maybe you should? That would be awesome, to see the look on their face and watch their brain ticking over for an answer. I guess their little Johnny must be sick…yeah…so why are they out somewhere?
Frankly, schools aren’t militant enough about parents taking their kids out during term time. I’ll admit, I was taken out each year during term time, but it wasn’t for a jolly – it was because I used to compete in international competitions and they always fell during the term. But to take your kid out of school for two weeks during term to take them to Disneyworld, just because it’s cheaper, is not on. They’ll then complain their kid isn’t getting enough support to catch up when they return. Well, if they hadn’t gone away…
Its not that I hate children so much its the parents I dislike, and when friends have children, its goodbye friends too, they turn into massive bores, oh well. Id rather have a dog!
Damn straight. Dogs FTW. You may have to pick up their shit but they don’t bleed you dry until the day that you die.