Screaming baby at ski resort -- who's right and who's wrong?

The fact that the baby being up sucks for the parents, too, doesn't mitigate the inconvenience to others. The parents chose to bring the child there. The person in the next room had no choice in the matter.

But as I and others said earlier, the proper response would have been to complain to the resort.

 

Yeah, that's pretty much my take on it.

SportsJournalists.com ... where I'm sometimes outofplace.

 

Thought the original letter writer was a douche, and the blog post is spot on. Shit happens that is not always in your control, especially with young children. Complain to the front desk or STFU. Or maybe knock on the door and ask nicely if there's anything you can do. Maybe the kid seeing a new face would cheer him up or take his mind off whatever is making him upset. I don't have kids, but my sisters do, and I can't imagine how anyone who does have kids wouldn't have some sympathy. I might be aggravated at the situation, but I wouldn't take it out on the parents.

 

The blogger was at least as bad, if not worse, simply because much of his argument seemed to be based around the idea that the parents should be able to do whatever they want because the guy is a brain surgeon.

"He saves lives! He's more important than you!"

Bullshit.

 

I didn't completely read it that way, and I expected to after reading the bulk of this thread before I read the blog post. He did come across that way at the start, but his overall point was 100 percent correct. The angry hotel patron needs to grow a pair and not make the parents feel like shit after what was probably a rough weekend for them too. They had no control over the kid's crying, obviously.

 

No, but they can control who else has to put up with it.

 

Just because you can do something doesn't mean it's a great idea. Our children are more than a few years removed from the uncontrolled crying stage.

When we would travel, I would think of the setting and... would a meltdown disturb others? We would plan accordingly.

Taking a kid under 4 to a ski resort puzzles me. It's not like you'll build any lifelong memories at that age. If you absolutely must take them skiing, go do a day at some local bunny slope. Get them on the skis and teach them a little bit.

For the ski resort, tell your wife's sister (or some other trusted family member) to watch your little darling. If that can't happen, don't go. Wait until your kids are past the uncontrollable crying phase. Two reasons... they'll remember the experience and they won't keep other guests up.

 

Not really. What are they supposed to do, just check out in the middle of the night and go home because someone next door is too much of a puss to go to sleep? I can't imagine a baby crying in the next room could keep me from sleeping if I had been on the slopes and drinking all day. This guy was just an asshole. I could see the argument that maybe the kid shouldn't have been there in the first place, but that's not for me to say. And surely, if they had foreseen the kid acting like that, there's no way they would have wanted to go on the trip in the first place. Maybe the kid was sick, or maybe he just started teething, or whatever. Shit happens. Color me shocked that so many of the holier-than-thou posters here think these folks shouldn't enjoy life because they have a kid.

 

I certainly get all this, and you're right. Maybe they should have waited a few years, but they didn't. It's their life, and who knows why they took the kid to a ski resort. Never been to one, but it apparently isn't all that uncommon. The guy could simply have called the front desk and tried to find a remedy, but he chose to be a dick.

I was at a local fair this weekend, and it was jam-packed in the midway and uncomfortably warm. The folks with strollers to push around their young kids and people riding scooters/wheelchairs were just clogging the shit out of the walkways. I was mildly annoyed, but who the hell am I to say that these people shouldn't enjoy the fair because they are old or disabled or have a young child? Funny that folks on here are talking about considering others around you and being tone deaf, yet they think they are so fucking important they should not be bothered by a child crying in a hotel room.

 

So they have a right to enjoy life at the expense of others?

Nobody suggested they could do anything about the child crying once they got there, but they certainly had the choice not to go. The person in the next room had no choice.

And if you can't imagine noise from the next room such as a screaming child might keep you up at night, your imagination is far too limited.

 

Depends on the level of expectation you put upon an event or setting.

When I go to a fair... I expect strollers, muffin tops, meth heads, pregnant teenagers, cotton candy and Tilt-a-Whirl. 2014 Americana.

When I go to a place like a ski resort -- a destination vacation place that people usually plan months for - I would be bothered if I'm trying to sleep and there's a crying baby. I certainly wouldn't go ballistic but it'd bug me.

Some here say "call the front desk". Yeah, like that will do anything.

I've left asshole notes for people before but only when it's justified.

If a car alarm goes off in Chicago or Detroit, I get it. That's fine. I was at a public library in a town I lived in ten years ago and a car alarm had been blaring for minutes. It was there when I dropped my books off. It was still going ten minutes later.

"Dear Taurus Driver: Our city has had one homicide in 19 years and has one of the lowest rates of car thefts and violent crime in the nation. Why the FUCK do you think someone is gonna steal this Taurus?"

Again, depends on setting.

 

IF the resort is nice enough that noise like screaming babies coming through the walls would be considered unusual, it probably would.

Real nice joints (even only reasonably nice joints) usually want to keep customers happy if it can be done without losing any money or requiring overtime.

If it's after midnight, odds are good few other guests will be arriving that night; if all you have to do to defuse a pissed-off customer is offer to switch them to an empty room, probably 95% of hotel managers will tell the clerks to do it.