Reply #184: Yes. Just like I really believe that dude keeps his kids in the attic, I absolutely let my kids run

[Warren DeMontague]

wild when we go out. In fact, I especially enjoy going to fancy restaurants, letting them climb in total strangers laps, preferably spilling hot soup or coffee into their crotches. And there's NOTHING I enjoy more than taking small children on an airplane- see, the lugging of strollers, the hassling with security, baggage and long-lines while simultaneously making sure they don't run off into a crowd or endanger themselves or others... it's ALL WORTH IT so that I can get the perverse pleasure of pissing off someone who believes their plane ticket entitles them to not be exposed to any children, ever, or even reminded of the unpleasant fact that some humans insist on reproducing.

Actually, leaving aside your broad-brush smears about what "American Parents" think and demand (I wonder, really, where these issues come from) in answer to your question, no, I don't take my kids out and let them "raise a holy stink". I'm extremely aware of not letting my kids bug other people- and the restaurants, etc. that we do go to are all very kid-friendly. Otherwise, it's just not worth the psychic strain. And at this point, I would sooner get a root canal than put my family on a plane- and we've got family all over the country, including my wife's old and not-terribly-well parents in the Midwest.

As I said upthread, I'm seriously considering buying a Winnebago.

Now I haven't seen the Dianne Sawyer video, maybe if someone can post it in a format that won't continually crash my browser, I can watch it. For some reason, Youtube is able to get video out there in simple, embeddable, easily playable format.. but these news channels have video that doesn't want to run. Probably because I have all kinds of adblocking plugins in Firefox. Oh well- I'm not going to disable all my adblocking just so I can watch ABC's stupid ad-laden video.

But that said, I've seen the pictures from the interview, and it looks like the kid was crawling around and maybe whining. Also however he was behaving at the interview is not necessarily indicative of how he was on the plane. Do 19 month olds whine, climb around, behave unpredictably? Yes, they do. Like I said, the mom on the plane had a responsibility to keep the kid in his seat. Expecting him to "shut up" and "stop talking" is something else.

The bottom line is, a toddler saying "bye bye plane" is NOT "raising a holy stink". Other passengers on the plane have backed up the mother's account. It sounds to me like the Flight Attendant was the one with the problem. And if airlines don't want to accomodate families with babies and very small toddlers (and if passengers are so rigid, uptight, or issues-laden that they simply cannot stand to be around babies and toddlers acting like babies and toddlers) then someone should start a baby-free and kid-free airline service.