Flying With Children

04.07.2010

Today I was finishing up breakfast and caught the beginning of The View. I used to watch this show all the time and then they got Elisabeth and after a while, I just couldn’t take her anymore and so I stopped watching. But, once in a blue moon, I’ll catch the show just to check in and see what’s going on. Today was a blue moon and boy was I glad I did.

One of the hot topics was children on planes. Surprisingly, Barbara Walters was all about how kids are annoying on planes and there should be a separate section on planes for parents with children. Well, this comment threw Elisabeth and Sherri into such a tizzy, defending parents who travel with their kids and how wrong Barbara was for her opinions, etc, etc. Elisabeth actually confessed that she hopes that other people on the plane will entertain her children so that she can catch a glimpse of a magazine. (This is how she reminded me of why I don’t like her. “Please, just don’t talk,” I want to continuously tell her.)

I hate to say it but those two (Elisabeth and Sherri) have quickly forgotten what it’s like for those without children to be on plane with children. First, before I go on, I want to say that I know that, in the end, parents do have it worse than I while traveling with their kids. I only have to deal with and listen to the child while flying, but the parent has to deal with the child before the flight, during the flight, and after the flight. I get that. But, now having said it, as a passenger, it sucks.

My sister and I got stuck sitting behind a woman and her two children on a direct flight from Paris to L.A. Let me repeat: Direct. One child was a toddler of about 2 or 3 and the other was about 1. The mother got so tired of dealing with her hyperactive toddler that she eventually just let him lay on the floor in the aisle blocking the path so passengers and the attendants had to climb over him if they wanted to pass by. The mother did absolutely nothing to curb his behavior or to make any kind of a gesture to move the child. When he wasn’t on the floor, he was standing in his chair either kicking it or staring at me in between the cracks of his chair and his mother’s. You would think that on a 10 or 11-hour flight a toddler would want to nap, but apparently that was too much to ask for. I won’t even go into the child across the aisle that was crying for a good portion of the two hours that we were waiting to take off. Again, I know that it’s hardest on the parents but if they’re in a different section or a completely different flight for parents only (as suggested by Whoopi), then there can be a child-parent party where everybody understands where the other is coming from. It’s kind of like when I go to a restaurant and a child is screaming and yelling or running around and the parents are doing nothing about it. I am not out to be a witness to this. Flights are getting increasingly expensive and people are getting increasingly cranky. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with separating parents and kids from the rest of the passengers.