Make children visible again
We survived our first flight with a baby last week, and in preparation I read (probably too many) message boards and posts about why people think it’s not a big deal to bring children on flights or why they think it’s something that should be avoided at all costs. My stance is basically that of course children are allowed and welcome on transportation. As a parent I do put a lot of effort into trying to calm our child when in public because I just like to cut down the attention on us in general, but acting like children in public is some big obtrusive negative externality because you forgot your noise cancelling headphones is a pretty weak take. You don’t have to love them, but it’s pretty funny to act like you’re outside of humanity and you can’t imagine why anyone would bring their kids anywhere.
Something that cities do, at least in Canada, is make children more visible by having them be on public transit more often, probably walking around and seeing more people, and just being seen in more public places. I think this normalizes kids being around and involved in a way that doesn’t happen when kids only go from home to the car seat to the playgroup and back.
