<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Analise:
If parents buy tickets too late in terms of getting seats together, it is arrogant to expect that other passengers who were planners to move.</font>
I think its arrogant to criticize others for not being perfect planners. So I guess in your view parents with kids shouldn't dare plan a last minute trip? In real life, getting seats together can be totally beyond the parents control.
One time I even had boarding passes for specific seats together, only to find that someone else did too. Since they were there first, we were out of luck. And no one volunteered to switch even though everyone nearby saw what happened.
Another time was on the new Pan Am, which uses a system similar to SW. We had one of the highest (last) boarding numbers even though we arrived at the airport 2 hours early. In that case, at least, one passenger switched with my eleven year old so she could sit accross the aisle from my eight year old. I had to sit about 10 rows further back. If my normally well-behaved but sometimes fidgety kids kicked the back of someone's seat, I didn't see it and so I couldn't do anything about it. I suppose I could have arrived four hours early to ensure a low boarding number, but I imagine that would just make kids more restless and likely to annoy you.
Separate seats can happen for many reasons including schedule changes, higher level elites bumping lower levels, etc.
Anyway, arrogant parents or not, if people refuse to accomodate parents trying to sit near their kids (which may not be applicable to helenka), someone else may get their seat back kicked as a result. You can't have it both ways, even if you technically have a right to expect it.