COLUMN: Debate over families on planes

By BETH J. HARPAZ, AP Travel Editor Mon Jul 23, 5:38 PM ET

I've been lucky while traveling by air. Kids haven't kicked my seat for hours or kept me awake with their crying.

But after I wrote a column saying I'd rather fly with kids than grown-ups, more than 1,600 readers contacted me. My original column - which you can read at http://tinyurl.com/2kz4ht - mentioned a Maritz Research survey showing 73 percent of respondents would like to see family sections on airplanes. Personally, I want to be with the kids. I'd rather hear babies crying than cell phone conversations, and I'd rather sit next to a toddler than a drunk or rude adult. I also wondered whether airlines might provide play packs.

Many readers disagreed. Many applauded. Here are some of their comments.

"I don't know too many adults who incessantly kick the seatback for most of the flight, but I've had it happen several times by children sitting behind me," said Sean Hinchey, who lives in Los Angeles. As for the play pack idea, he added: "Airlines are cutting back on food and beverage service and you want them to provide a play pack? Why should others' ticket prices go up so parents can get this freebie? Somebody has to absorb the cost. Maybe parents could be better prepared by - oh I don't know - bringing their own play pack."

Christopher Rillo, an attorney who travels 180,000 miles a year, says when he was a child traveling with his parents, "I was never permitted to engage in behavior that is altogether too common. For example, on one recent overseas flight, a parent permitted her toddler to run up and down the aisle of the business class section. The kid tripped one flight attendant, ran into an elderly woman as she was leaving the toilet and created general mayhem. ... Similarly some parents do not restrain their child from kicking the seat ahead of them, from screaming for minutes on end and from throwing temper tantrums."

Steve Barton, who lives in Orlando, Fla., writes: "Children are to be seen and not heard and most certainly not kicking the back of my seat. I think everyone knows for a variety of reasons, that crying infants (really don't know of any other kind) shouldn't be flying on planes. There is NOTHING so important and pressing that should require an infant under 2 to be on a plane to fly/cry."

Larry Tedrow and his wife are Americans who work in Saudi Arabia and often take flights where no one can sleep because of "yowling children whose parents apparently have no regard for the other passengers on the flight. On a recent flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, the entire midsection of the plane was treated to six hours of nonstop high-pitched screaming by two infants and I can assure you that every single person on that flight would have applauded a decision by the flight crew to divert the flight and discharge the two infants and their families from the aircraft. This is a scenario that international travelers endure frequently."

"It is the parents, not the airline, that have the responsibility to prepare their children for travel in confined spaces," said Dick King of Corpus Christi, Texas.

"Our culture already allows kids ridiculous exemptions from learning manners, behaving in public, and generally respecting any group space," said Stacy Sawyer of Fort Collins, Colo. "... Airplanes are small spaces and they aren't intended to be the kiddie bus. If kids can't rein it in for the length of a flight, they should not be on one."

"What is the expectation that I must be considerate of families at every turn when they are not considerate of myself? It is such a common occurrence that poorly behaved children invade my surroundings and their parents are entirely unconcerned about how that might be affecting me," said Erik Breese of Anchorage, Alaska.

"Parents need to understand that the rules apply to children just like adults," said Joshua Eartly of Kankakee, Ill., who says he wears headphones when flying to block out both babbling kids and loud adults.

Robyn Coffey lives in Fort Worth, Texas, loves children, is a Big Sister volunteer and once worked in a day care center. "It is true that one hears self-indulgent cell phone conversations on airplanes before takeoff and at landing, but those people are generally not kicking my seat through the entire flight," she said. "... People with children need to realize that the world doesn't revolve around them and that every public venue does not have to be made 'kid-friendly' because they don't want to raise their children to be civil and well-behaved."

Ann Readshaw, a teacher, musician, parent, stepparent and frequent traveler, says that rather than teaching kids to behave, some adults raise their children with an "entitlement mentality": "I'm entitled to be boorish, because I've always been the center of everyone else's universe; I'm entitled to inconvenience others, because I'm being inconvenienced and others should cut me slack so I don't have to deal."

On the other side of the debate, Joe Hawk of Willow Grove, Pa., was one of a number of readers who said they are more often bothered "by rude adults than children on a plane." If there was a family section, he added, "I would happily go there, because it would be a lot more fun than with the judgmentals in the back."

"I have been flying for years, both alone and with my children, and I have had more disruptions from adults then I have ever had from a child," agreed Jessica Pettus of Slidell, La. "...You wouldn't be the only one in the 'family-oriented people' section."

Michelle Kornelly of Scottsdale, Ariz., said kids have actually made her flights "more enjoyable and less stressful. I can get rather anxious when I fly but having a child nearby that is smiling, coloring, or just happy helps me realize that there is nothing to freak out about."

Several readers recalled an era when airlines handed out coloring books, cards, and other small distractions, and when airline workers tried to help struggling parents. Lucille Mashburn, a grandmother of two from Los Angeles, remembered flying from New York to California in the 1960s with two young children, when "an angel appeared in the form of an off-duty flight attendant" who helped distract her toddler with a cookie, a walk up and down the aisle, and a little extra attention.

Juliette Fiechtner of Tucson, Ariz., thinks "cell phones should be banned from planes." But she doesn't mind the sounds of children.

"Babies," she said, "make the world a new place."

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If you have a question, comment or a story to share, e-mail bharpaz@ap.org.