Satan's spawn

I had the demon child on one of my flights recently. He was about 2, maybe 3 years old and was sitting in the second row. I was in the VERY back of the airplane and I hear a high pitched continuous sound. The passengers are also looking around wondering what the heck that noise is. I'm thinking the seal on the door isn't tight and it's whistling. But then I see both the other flight attendant's feverishly giving row 2 all kinds of things, like a coloring book, some juice, some snacks, whatever. We haven't taken off yet, so I decide to go investigate.

What I find to be the source of all the commotion is a pudgy little kid, dressed in red sweats, writhing his back in and out of an arch, SCREAMING. No tears, just screaming. And it's not one of those "I hurt" screams. Or a "I'm hungry" screams. Or an "I'm tired" screams. It's a "I want to annoy the hell out of you and I want my way" screams. The parents were doing NOTHING. N-O-T-H-I-N-G. Just looking at him.

I know I don't have kids. But if I did, and they pulled this, I can guarantee you, I would do something. So I looked at the kid with the most meanest look I could muster (and you know I can muster some mean ones, ask my cousins) and still look like I actually (kinda) sympathized. He stopped moving and stopped screaming. So I told him he needed to quiet down because on the plane we have to behave like a big boy. He looked straight at me, waited a couple of secs, opened his mouth, and just wailed. No tears, and he never lost eye contact with me.

His wailing was so high pitched, it hurt. People were holding their ears. I had no patience for this obviously spoiled child trying to test me. So I just called the Captain and told him we were not taking this child on a 2 hour flight if he was going to be like this the whole way. I went back to the family and told the parents that unless they got their son under control, we were going back to the gate, and they could take a later flight once he had calmed down. The mom says to me, "But he's just a baby. He doesn't like to sit". I can understand babies crying. I really can. They're babies. That's what they do if they're in pain, or hungry, or tired. They can't express themselves any other way. But this kid was NOT a baby. He was clearly seeing where the limits stood. What do you do in the car? Let him run loose because he doesn't like his car seat? Who is in charge here? You or him? I told the mom that I also had to think of the comfort of over 130 other people and based on what I saw when I looked back at the rest of the passengers, they wanted this kid to shut up. I don't know what happened then, but the kid magically shut up. Maybe because his mouth was full of Pringles, and apple juice, and he had a plethora of toys surrounding him. But he was quiet.

We ended up leaving and there was no peep from the kid. But I know he's going to grow up thinking he's owed something just because he throws a fit about it. In his life, bad behavior is rewarded. He gets what he wants. Shame.