AP Editor: Kids on Planes More Controversial Than Hillary Clinton

Travel Blog  •  Jim Benning  •  07.30.07 | 3:13 PM ET

imageEarlier 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).



6 Comments for AP Editor: Kids on Planes More Controversial Than Hillary Clinton

Paul Chacko 07.30.07 | 4:46 PM ET

Rhetoric Vs Reality: Think again and you will see how some despite being not in DC can be smart enough to lead.. like JFK and Bill.

Barack Obama’s experience: CHECK THIS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4x_KnWEDjs

Clinton’s experience:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyqAR4lJCmw

Terry Ward 07.30.07 | 5:43 PM ET

As I type this, I am sitting on the floor at a crowded gate in the Norfolk airport, where my flight to DC is delayed by nearly two hours. Most likely I will miss my connection from DC to Orlando.

There are a handful of kids running wild all around the gate, and their mothers (where are the dads? in line trying to get re-routed?) are trying to keep them calm. One kid keeps yelling, ‘Shut up, shut up!’

I hear the parents fretting about how they’ve missed their connections to Munich and Verona. And as bad as I feel for myself, as wind-up cars careen into my legs and threaten to knock over my coffee, I feel infintely worse for these parents who still have to cross the Atlantic with their little ones in tow.

Frank 07.30.07 | 7:52 PM ET

Indeed, as someone who flew with a (well-behaved) 16-month-old last week, I can assure you the parents are having a lot worse time than you are. But they gotta get there somehow. Besides you can always get some reality canceling headphones:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vwOfNfwWPo&eurl=http://www.kasperhauser.com/skymaul_site/html/skymaul_videos.html?user=KasperHauserComedy

Caril Evans 07.31.07 | 9:57 PM ET

A separate section for families with kids is a great idea.It is not an airlines function to monitor children/or infants.Because there are parents who do not set boundaries,yes, kids will be out of control.Flying is stressful for many people;the typical business traveler tries in vain to get some work done in spite of the distractions.Having worked in the airline industry,I’ve observed hundreds of parents with children.It is
NOT the child at fault,so don’t imply that other travelers are “anti-children.”
Passenger safety is the airlines priority;the flight crew must be alert& able to make decisions if they observe problem behavior.For those passengers too self-absorbed to consider those around them, next time pack up the kids& drive to your destination.

carrie 07.31.07 | 11:33 PM ET

You are correct. Airplanes have become flying buses. They’ve squeezed more seats in, creating less and less room (leg and body) Every seat is taken. When you get into these tight, hot spaces, where almost everyone is already irritable, the last thing you want is to hear kids crying, screaming, whinning and throwing tandrums, especially on a cross country flight.

What can be done?

I used to have an employee who gave her kids dramimine before they traveled. They pretty much slept the whole trip. Not that I condone “drugging up” the kids…

AM Olsen 08.01.07 | 2:33 AM ET

All these people griping need to realize that while they’re harping about their “rights,” they’re trying to take away someone else’s rights. Families have every right to travel for vacation or to visit family, not just for emergencies. How is it fair to force families to wait until their kids are grown to travel or do anything special together (if they can afford it). And everyone seems to be forgetting that the airlines are taking more and more of the carry on items away that parents use to calm their children. You can’t take food or juices they like, and soon they’re going to take away carry on bags and items. What are parents supposed to do about diaper bags? Are the airlines going to provide diapers, wipes, pacifiers, or games and movies and coloring books and crayons? And if they do offer them, everyone knows they’re going to charge an arm and a leg for them. How is THAT fair?? Parents won’t be able to provide for their own kids’ entertainment, and forced to either buy the airlines’ stuff at the airine’s overinflated prices, or deal with other people’s refusal to have compassion or understanding. True, there are a lot of parents out there that don’t care and let their kids do whatever, but not all parents are like that, and that includes a lot of the ones with the noisy kids. Kids don’t like being cooped up, and they get affected by the long delays the same as adults do. And be glad when they’re blowing their energy by running around in the terminal. It’s less energy they’ll have on the plane itself.

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