Originally Posted by
CDTraveler
Are you claiming personal knowledge of that? Do you have kids? Have you had much first hand, extended experience of providing direct care to little kids, especially in an unfamiliar situation or when the child doesn't know you?
Unless there was a ratio of of no more than 2 kids under 5 to 1 FA who had other duties as well, it was casual assistance. Most 4 year olds would need adult directed entertainment, periodic reinforcement of what to do and not to do, help finding the bathroom, help in the bathroom, hell, some 4 year olds still weren't potty trained. Assistance with the meal, from removing the foil covers that came on food back then to cutting up their meat and buttering their bread. A bedtime story on a night flight, help arranging the blanket and pillow. Protection from being trampled in the rush to exit the plane, and yes, people pushed just as hard to get off the flight in the '60's as they do know, the only difference being they had far fewer carry-ons back then.
It's called preschool, it dates back to the industrial revolution and it exists in lots of countries, not just British colonies.
Boarding school for 4 years olds in the 1950's? Can you actually substantiate that? And does it have to do with the OP's question?
In the 1950s it was way more of a given (than today) that four year olds were fully potty-trained. Even most three year olds.
Boarding schools, sometimes inclusive of a limited set of day schoolers, with what the Brits then sometimes called “lower KG” in some parts of the world, are not what I as an American would call a preschool. Even when the schools had 4 year olds in class.
If kids at age 4 were considered sufficiently capable to go to school at 4 years of age (without diapers) in various parts of the world, and perhaps even be boarding students, then the idea of such children being flown with just FA as the delegated companion to a child shouldn’t be considered as globally unlikely as some may believe.