It seems that all parents think their children are the ones who aren't a problem! :-) And maybe all the parents here are right about that - most of us are frequent flyers and know the ropes of travel better than the average person.

But I will say that as a childless person, I do my best to be patient with and polite to any parent who is trying to manage the situation, even if their efforts aren't successful. The instances I have little patience for are the ones where the parents simply don't care. On a flight from Paris to New York, I spent 7 miserable hours in Business Class with a family of four. The parents put on their eyeshades and slept the entire way, while their toddler ran amok and their baby screamed the entire time. Repeated complaints from both passengers and flight attendants didn't phase them a bit. These parents simply didn't care about anyone but themselves, and they are the type that I think most of us in this thread are objecting to.

sggolf, no offense to you intended, but I believe you may have erred in your judgment by upgrading yourself and your husband and leaving your parents and your child in Coach. If your child is going to need you during the flight, it's my opinion that you should be sitting with him. Your child is certainly entitled to ride in First Class if he's ticketed there. But it is a disturbance to other passengers when people "play musical chairs" between Coach and First, and most flight attendants won't allow it. While some FAs might permit you to trade once (and you should always ask permission first), more than that will generally get you a reprimand. In my opinion - which granted, isn't worth much ;-), if you couldn't upgrade your child and you knew he would be unhappy away from you for that length of time, you would have been better served to upgrade your parents and sit with your child in Coach. If that situation ruined your experience in First Class, imagine how others around you must have felt.