Before I go ranting - I thought I’d come here for some insight in case I’m missing something obvious.

Background: My 7 year old son, myself and my wife flew from Nome to Chicago for the weekend to watch a Cubs game. Because of the way the trip came together, we all flew under separate reservations. My sons reservation was linked to mine.

Today while boarding our Chicago to Anchorage flight we were scanning our boarding passes and when the gate agent scanned my wife's pass last and saw she was in an exit row she said we can’t sit apart from one another. I explained that my son and I are in 10 D and E and wife is in 17A and that we are all under different reservations. (I thought she was confused thinking our 7 year old son was trying to sit in an emergency exit row) But she again said it doesn’t matter and that if there was an emergency as a parent we would want to be there help our kids.

The gate agent then told us to step out of line and we did the walk of shame over to the podium where I again explained to another agent, thinking it was all still a misunderstanding. She too says it doesn’t matter - both parents must fly next to their kids. All families have to fly together.

So I ask if they’re going to tell the person in 10F they need to move to 17A and she says yes. And then we are dismissed and told we can get on the plane. Once we board the lady in 10F has no idea what I’m talking about. She in-fact wants to sit in row 11….with her family. I apologize profusely to this lady trying to explain and said someone would be down to talk to her but in the meantime my wife would take her originally assigned seat in 17A. Then some dude comes up and says he’s assigned to 10D which is my seat. You can’t make this up. The entire boarding process was a bad joke. What a mess!

Back to the “all families with kids must sit together” I say, since when? I cannot tell you the number of times we have traveled where my son and I sit together in premium economy (I’m a Gold75k) and my wife (Gold, traveling under separate reservation) sits in a different row, usually an emergency exit row. Never been a problem. Just last month Kona to Anchorage, no problem. Coming down to Chicago my wife and son sat in first class and I sat in premium economy - again no problem. I guess if this is true and the agents were doing their job correctly, to beat the system the only thing we need to do is get in the plane at separate times Hhhmmmm… We’ve got a fairly unique last name so it might be obvious we’re a family, but what are you gonna do with everyone with last names of Smith, check birth certificates??

So what does Flyertalk say?