Recently, I’ve come across quite a few posts where adults go into great detail about how much kids bother them. Crying on planes. Whining in restaurants. Running around in shopping malls. And in the comments, there’s always a chorus confirming it:
yes, kids are annoying, parents are irresponsible, and the world is unbearable.
I’m not sure what these posts expect—sympathy? Understanding? For me, they trigger neither. On the contrary, they quickly convince me that the author is the one whose presence I probably couldn’t tolerate for long, say, during a conversation.
I get it—crying is loud. After a long workday, we all want some peace. A tantrum at dinner isn’t exactly ideal. But this is where adulthood begins: realizing the world isn’t a personalized service.
A Child Is Still Learning How to Exist
They’re figuring out how their body works, how to handle hunger, tiredness, disappointment. They’re learning to manage emotions, social rules, when to be quiet and when it’s okay to be loud. This isn’t a quick update you download overnight. It’s a long process full of trial and error. Lots and lots of error.
Crying is part of this learning process. It’s about overflowing feelings and undeveloped self-regulation. It’s not manipulation or deliberate annoyance—it’s immaturity. Not a flaw, but a stage.
What’s harder for me to understand is when an adult feels entitled to expect that public spaces always and under all circumstances cater to their comfort. As if cafes, planes, parks, or restaurants were soundproof, sterile bubbles where only their needs matter.
By definition, public spaces are shared. “Public” means others are there too—people with different life situations, nervous systems, and priorities. Seniors, teens, tourists, babies.
Community spaces aren’t luxury services—they’re about living together.
It feels ironic when someone writes a long, angry post about how outrageous it is that a three-year-old can’t sit silently for forty minutes. Then the same adult can’t handle ten minutes of discomfort without feeling the need to complain online.
If someone truly believes the world should adjust to their comfort zone, to me, that’s more like a tantrum-throwing kid than the child who’s learning how not to be one.
You can dislike kids’ noise. You can consciously choose a childfree life. You can seek quiet places—restaurants, hotels, cinemas made just for adults. Those are valid choices. But you can’t reorganize society just because a developmental phase bothers you.
Kids Aren’t Guests in This World
They’re not temporary nuisances to be kept behind closed doors until they become “ready” adults. They’re just as much part of the community as anyone else. Their presence can be noisy and chaotic, but it’s still legitimate.
So to those who regularly write about how much they can’t stand crying kids, I can only say: maybe it’s worth reflecting on who’s really acting immature. If minimal discomfort shakes you this much, that’s not the child’s problem.
And if someone really gets that upset just because there are other people around, maybe they should take their own advice and stay home. Because if an adult can’t accept that the world doesn’t revolve around them, maybe it’s not the kids who need to cry more quietly—it’s time for them to grow up a little.
