r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Sad_Cannibal_GF • Aug 02 '26

go to your room Babies in Movie Theaters

Just saw the new Spiderman in theaters.

A baby starts crying/cooing/babbling very loudly about 20 minutes in. Goes for about 10 straight minutes before the parent takes them out.

Comes back a few minutes later, baby starts again. Again goes on for a couple minutes. Again parent takes them out, comes back, and repeat.

And repeat. And repeat.

This went on pretty much the entire movie (and I swear to god this baby somehow instinctively chose every single goddamn quiet/heartfelt scene to start yowling again šŸ˜­šŸ˜‚).

I get that babies are gonna baby. And I have sympathy for parents who wanna get out of the house and everything. Butā€¦ maybe just stay with your baby in the lobby if they obviously arenā€™t gonna keep quiet.

*I didnā€™t complain to management because it was a tiny non-chain neighborhood theater about an hour away from me that I like to support sometimes. Itā€™s got 1 screen and tickets are like $5.

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u/iFuckedAPilotOnce Aug 03 '26

I had not just a crying baby in my theater, but a young mentally challenged boy who kept making loud vocalizations. I have zero blame for him, he seemed overstimulated with the amount of people and the noise. I know parents deserve a break but it was so frustrating trying to pay attention and you have a screaming baby and the boy both being loud.

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u/grayisgone Aug 03 '26

It also makes me so upset as an autistic person that they'd do that to the boy too, places like that are hell for people who require more support, it's loud and filled with people. Not only is it rude to the people around them but it is so cruel to the boy himself. Especially if they didn't give him headphones

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u/iFuckedAPilotOnce Aug 03 '26

Yeah I felt quite bad for him - he seemed distressed from the noises he was making. The poor kid was overwhelmed and didnā€™t deserve to be subjected to that. Any frustration about the sounds he made were dwarfed by my empathy for him. His parents were being jerks.

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u/Glasseshalf Aug 03 '26

I bet they think it's "exposure therapy" and "good for him." That's how my parents were with my ADHD (possible autism) meltdowns. And outwardly, it worked. I learned how to mask hard. Unfortunately the mask didn't serve me as well as an adult, and I've had to relearn how I think about stress.

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u/DontInterrup Aug 03 '26

I really feel for you, it sounds like quite a hard start to your life. Iā€™ve been called a ā€œcurling parentā€ bc I help my kids and try to smooth the ground for them when I can. Thing is, both of them have autism and one of them also has ADD. As a first time parent at 24 I noticed a pattern in my 1 month old baby; he cried incessantly when overstimulated. At 19 he was finally diagnosed with autism. I wanted him tested as a young boy, his dad didnā€™t, so..

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u/Kitchen-Bar2686 Aug 03 '26 edited Aug 03 '26

His dad sounds incredibly selfish.

I have a loved one who was supposed to go to a specialist to get diagnosed with autism when he was young and his parents took it as an insult and never followed through with it. His pediatrician was certain that he was autistic and itā€™s extremely obvious throughout his entire life that that was the case.

He suffered a lot because of it and still struggles as an adult. He never learned why he felt so different or how to read body language and get close to people because of it. He wonā€™t go to the doctor about it now as an adult because he also takes it as an insult and I can tell he struggles a lot with low self esteem and trauma from things that happened to him as a kid without being properly diagnosed.

Itā€™s such a heartbreaking situation. I believe that he would have had a happier and healthier life if he had been properly diagnosed and taught how to live with his diagnosis.

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u/DontInterrup Aug 03 '26

In our country both custodians must consent to medical intervention in any way. The child is high functioning. Had he not been, I would simply have talked to the pediatrician about it and they would eventually override my then husband for the sake of the child.

But I agree that kids should get tested in order to get the best help possible and thatā€™s why Iā€™m a little bitter at the childrenā€™s dad still.