Originally Posted by
mikeef
Hi, welcome to FT.
tl;dr: file a complaint, but don't expect anything.
The TSA is not going to make your life miserable if you file a complaint. In fact, you'll be lucky if anyone even pays attention to it. I'd advise filing the complaint and using your real name.
They should have kept their hands off your kid and truthfully, there's no reason for a pat down of anyone. I've been where you are, with a TSO insisting on patting me down on the basis of unopened baby formula. Why one has anything to do with the other is beyond me. Obviously, your parenting skills are none of her business.
Where you're going to lose sympathy here is when you started swearing at the TSO and insulting her. Even if they were to pull a tape to see what happened, you wouldn't come out of it looking particularly good.
Mike
That should have nothing to do with anything; any screener worth his/her salt, will let that behavior off his/her back and TSA management should not consider such behavior on the part of passengers to be a reason to not look into a complaint of mistreatment.
I swore at someone at DMV the other day and let him have a piece of my mind about the imposition REAL ID puts on innocent people while any person determined to do so, can get around REAL ID. I was not retaliated against; the clerk said to me "you can write your governmental representatives about your feelings", all while keeping his cool.
TSA clerk certainly had absolutely no business commenting on OP parenting choices, as you said