Originally Posted by
PTravel
By your paradigm, young children should be permitted to disturb patrons in theaters and fine restaurants, should be allowed to vandalize art museums, etc., all because "children are allowed out of the house."
Only when you choose to ignore what I've said about normally being able to remove the child from the situation. I've carried my daughter out of more than one store/restaurant when she wasn't acting as she should and I'm by no means certain that the lesson has fully sunk in yet.
Originally Posted by
PTravel
I really don't care what you do, but saying, "well, I'm doing my best -- sorry if I can't stop my child from doing a pile-driver imitation on your seat," isn't sufficient.
So we've moved from occassional kicking of the seat to pile-driving? Quite a difference between those two behaviors in my mind. The latter infers an unbelted child slamming into your seat, probably with a running start, or at the very least a kick delivered with deliberate force intended to anger the PAX in front.
I thought we were talking about foot contact made due to inattention, not deliberate acts. If my daughter deliberately kicked seats, then we wouldn't fly, except in cases where it was absolutely required.
Originally Posted by
PTravel
book bulkheads or fly in F, ... or don't fly.
And just how many bulkhead seats are there to book? And how many of those are even made available to non-elite flyers? Never mind... "not my problem."
As for fly in F, right, then the .....ing and moaning starts about kids in F.
Don't fly... to, say, India from the US? Child doesn't get to meet his/her elderly grandparents, who can't fly due to health reasons? Quite the limitation in the 21st century, global economy.
Originally Posted by
PTravel
However, as I've noted, it seems that the overwhelming majority of kids have no trouble negotiating a flight without making life miserable for the person seated in front of them.
I really only think we're debating the limits of the undesired behavior... when does occassional contact - whether inadvertant or due to inattention, but with correction - escalate from acceptable, or least tolerable, to miserable?
Originally Posted by
PTravel
Don't let your kid kick the back of my seat. Period.
Looks like we have the answer... it's never acceptable for a foot to contact a seat. Doesn't seem to matter if the parent stops the behavior or not based on this quote.
Originally Posted by
PTravel
Telling me that I have to accept it because we live in a society in which "children are allowed out in public" is an entitlement demand.
No, it's a request for tolerance of the fact that sometimes, despite the parents' attempts, children act up. Learning is a process, it usually takes more than one iteration for someone to "get it," kids included. Hence, I would not take my child on a long-haul flight without having worked through some of the "kinks" on shorter flights, preferrably on low-density flights (do any of those even exist these days?).
I doubt my daughter will see a flight longer than 3 hours (scheduled) before she's logged 50-100K miles. Even our trip to west coast had a stop so that we could all have a break from the tin can.
Originally Posted by
PTravel
How is this, in any way, about control of the environment?
The environment includes... seat pitch, ergonomics, other PAX, airline personnel, etc. How can those be totally excluded from the discussion?
Originally Posted by
PTravel
Perhaps so, but I find it interesting that, when these "kids on planes" threads start up, a common response from parents is, "well adults do annoying things, too." That's a complete non sequitur and, apparently, you agree.
That's why I threw it in... my sarcastic humor at work.