Earlier this month, AP travel editor Beth Harpaz wrote a column suggesting there might be a growing backlash against traveling families, and specifically, kids on planes. She pointed to recent news reports of a nursing mother ordered off a plane and a mother and boy booted off a flight after the boy repeatedly said, “Bye, bye plane.” Wrote Harpaz: “Sure, I have heard kids babbling, singing songs and playing games on airplanes. Yes, I have heard them complaining or crying when their ears hurt or they are bored. But that’s OK. I don’t mind. A world without children and their sounds is not a world I want to live in.”

Then came the e-mails from angry and supportive readers, nearly 1,700 in all. Harpaz couldn’t believe the outpouring. “I have been a journalist for more than 20 years and I have never gotten anywhere near this level of response on anything,” she told me in an e-mail. “I used to cover Hillary Clinton and she was not nearly so controversial as the issue of a baby crying on a plane, apparently!” Intrigued, I put a few questions to Harpaz about the issue. She replied via e-mail.

World Hum: Given the post-9/11 terrorism threat, it would seem that noisy children should be the least of our air-travel concerns. Do you sense that some people are more frustrated than ever by noisy kids on planes? Or that they have less patience for children than they once did?

Beth Harpaz: More people are flying than ever before, children are a part of public life as never before and there are more delays than ever before. More of us are encountering more children, for longer periods of time, in airports and on planes. With the new carry-on restrictions, security ordeals and delays that are now routine, all of us—kids and adults—are in worse moods than ever. What used to be an hour flight is now a five-hour drama. I got notes from folks who couldn’t even get water on board because the flight attendants were rationing it.

There also seems to be a general coarsening of manners across all age groups. Many folks wrote to describe incidents where strangers were rude, abusive or out of control. Sometimes the offender was a parent, sometimes it was a flight attendant, sometimes it was a childless adult, sometimes it was a kid.

I can’t tell you how many people started their notes to me by saying, “When I was little, my parents would never have let me run wild in a ...” store, restaurant, airport, or whatever. Well, I don’t know about you, but when I was little, my parents never took me anywhere. Working-class and middle-class families today think nothing of going out to dinner, or flying to Disney, but it wasn’t that way a generation ago. It’s only in the last few years that flying became so cheap and easy to book that people of average means could fly everywhere, and yes, they are taking their kids along. Many readers wrote to complain that parents are selfish to believe public spaces should be made child-friendly. But the genie is out of the bottle on that one. Life is complicated, and there are 1,000 reasons people travel with children. Hint: It’s not always for a vacation. Kids also fly to visit parents in the military, to get medical treatment, to see dying relatives and to be adopted in other countries.

You have kids, right? Any tips for parents flying with children to make the experience as positive as possible for everyone involved (parents, kids, other passengers)? Do you have any tricks up your sleeve?

My boys are 9 and 14, old enough to handle a long flight. But we do take children’s chewable Benadryl to sleep on overnight flights. Otherwise, we try to fly airlines with TVs, and if movies are available at our seats, I spring for the extra $5 or $10. I try to bring little snacks, crossword puzzle books and the like. We’re big on games, too, and have been since the boys were little: I Spy, Geography, 20 Questions, Hangman.

For seat-kicking: First, remove their shoes. That way, if their foot does hit the seat in front before you can intervene, it won’t be so bad. It sounds silly, but try massaging their bare feet or even playing “this little piggy” with their toes. It’s not OK to let them bother other people on purpose. You just have to keep grabbing their feet and saying no. Many parents and experts also say babies and toddlers are less likely to melt down if they’re in their own car seats. When they’re a little older, simple games like “Which hand is the penny in?” will keep them happy for hours.

Many times when my boys were younger I would say “This is not a playground” if they got rambunctious in an inappropriate setting. It’s a useful phrase that helps draw the line. But what if they don’t settle down? I’ll probably get a lot of hate mail for this, but hey, BRIBERY WORKS. A 3-year-old cannot scream his head off if he’s sucking on a lollipop.

You’ve noted a survey showing the majority of respondents would like to see a family section added to airplanes. Do you think airlines might one day take that step? Any other potential solutions that could help keep the peace?

Southwest Airlines, which does not have reserved seating, is currently experimenting with different ways of seating and boarding families, including the possibility of designated family rows. Southwest says this is not being done to segregate families from business travelers, but it will be interesting to see what kind of feedback they get. I got a ton of mail from families that would rather sit with other parents, and also from a ton of people who don’t want to be anywhere near the kids. An airline that wanted to introduce family-friendly flights to Orlando could make a fortune. In the meantime, as parents, we obviously need to take responsibility for our kids and try our best to keep them quiet on airplanes. On the other hand, if you don’t have kids, cut the parents a little slack. You never know what personal difficulties might be forcing someone to make an international trip with a crying child.

Thanks, Beth.

Related on World Hum:
* When Are Children Old Enough to Travel Abroad?
* Traveling Books for Kids: A ‘Passport to Imagination Land’

Photo by xersti via Flickr (Creative Common).