Why do parents bring their babies on early/late flights?

I know this topic has been beaten to death but why aren’t child free flights available? I took a short 2 hour flight tonight and it was the second to last one of the night from 8-10. There was a toddler behind me and the whole time it would not stop making noises or crying. He also would not stop slamming the table from the back of the seat down. His parents didn’t do anything to keep it down so he would stop, so the whole flight he kept slamming the table down and the parents kept putting it back up.

I became even more enraged when the person next to the parents said “You’re doing a great job, keep it up.” How exactly are they doing a great job? By letting their child annoy everyone in the surrounding rows because they failed to consider their kid would be exhausted?

I put my headphones on and went to sleep because I understand all flights are noisy. I did the best to ignore the chaos but it went on for almost the whole two hours. When he wasn’t slamming the table down, the kid was whining and screaming.

Finally, we’re landing and he starts whining/screaming loudly because of course he’s over tired. I’ve known many children in my life so I know you’re not really supposed to try and push a child’s regular bedtime unless absolutely necessary. These parents did NOT seem to care or know that because they could not understand why he was so desperate to get off the plane.

I really wish they would make red eyes or last flights childfree. I would gladly pay extra to not hear a screaming child while I’m trying to get some sleep while parents are being praised for the bare minimum. Lately it seems that less and less parents want to properly travel or care for their children on flights. I feel like people just have kids and drag them along regardless of age. I know many parents who waited until kids were 5-6 to begin traveling, so I’m not sure what the necessity of bringing a 2 year old on a 8pm flight is. I’m tired of mediocre parenting from my generation and ultimately, as much as I prefer not to be around children…I definitely prefer to not be around selfish parents who can’t be bothered to pay for an earlier/more reasonable flight. If they can’t afford to do that maybe they can’t afford to travel and have kids.