I think the point of contention is that the user you debate is under the (right) assumption that when a child cries in public, this is just a small snapshot out of all the time the parents took them to any public place. A child crying is not a bug, it's an inherent feature. They sometimes just do that, they don't even know themselves, so it's not the parents fault that their mini-human isn't behaving like a fucking Gucci bag. Everything volvoxvsmarla said is true, children learn through trial an error and yes, you need to sometimes take the brunt of this process, I'm sorry little one. When children don't learn how to behave in (for example) supermarkets because you banned them, then you get teenagers who didn't learn to behave. You can't pass the problem on forever. I'm a teacher and it really fucking shows when kids never learned how to exist in a public place.

BTW., this is not an excuse for parents who evidently don't give a fuck or even worse, motivate their children to be brats so they entertain themselves. Scum of the earth. But it's perfectly possible for parents to try their hardest and still fail sometimes.

Honestly, the judgement of parenting is not my main issue here. It's the hypocrisy of at the same time saying "this is your problem, not mine" and "you have to deal with your problem so that I am not inconvenienced."

Like, you can't have it both ways. Either you don't care, and then other people deserve the right to also not care about your opinion, or you do indeed care, and then it is your problem too. Your quote about not being part of the village is the one that I am saying fuck off to. You want to take yourself out of society and of the context, yet expect the other part to not take themselves out of society. You don't even decide to look away, you decide to look with destructive criticism. I don't see how this is supposed to help anyone, you included.

You come off as the type of person who will look at both the kid and the parent in disdain for being a nuisance even when they did something absolutely minor that you could easily avoid, ignore, or get away from. Are you assuming the kid will differentiate between your reaction towards them and their parent? Or that your reaction has no effect on the parent's treatment of their child, perhaps in a more negative than positive way?

As for the judgement part, as I have pointed out somewhere else, you are seeing a sniplet of a day, of a life, of an hour. Yet you feel like you have enough information to rightfully judge. It's correct that the kid might be subjected to bad, neglectful parenting and the parents do not care if their kid behaves awfully. Or you might have just met them in a vulnerable, bad moment. Somehow you know tho. Why not give them the benefit of the doubt or, God forbid, ask whether yoh can help? Offer a supporting smile to someone struggling? Why be hostile instead?

Because even if you took a perfect parent who does everything according to textbook from beginning to end, the kid will still have meltdowns in the most inconvenient and absurdly embarrassing moments in public.

And I have seen way too many parents who devote an insane amount of time and effort to their parenting, are reflected and have the best intentions and approaches, are incredibly level headed and collected (definitely not me tho), and give it their all, still being talked down upon by absolute strangers if they cannot make their preschool kid calm down within ten seconds. If these parents don't stand a chance in the eye of public scrutiny, then I just don't even know how a normal parent who doesn't spend 24/7 thinking about their parenting choices has a chance.

I've also seen cases of what I would call bad parenting. Shaming, yelling, ignoring cries for help. But at least I can realise that I don't know the full story. So unless I have a direct offer of help (tissue, water, bandaid, carrying something, etc) I let them be and hope that they know what they are doing and handling the situation to the best of their ability. I also know a kid who died of shaken baby syndrome because the new partner of their mom couldn't handle the cries. I'd much prefer he ignored the cries and tantrums instead of killing the two year old boy.