I am reluctant to be outraged one way or the other about cases like this, because unless I see them first-hand it's impossible to know who is being unreasonable. There are people who have a fit about the slightest annoying behavior, and there are parents who are completely blind to the fact that their children are unholy terrors. Which was it in this case? Who knows.

I think a reasonable guideline for the airlines would be "would an adult be thrown off the plane for this type of behavior?" If an adult were quietly repeating a phrase (other than "bye bye plane", which sounds like a bomb threat!), probably not. If an adult were shrieking a phrase while kicking the back of the seat in front of them, probably so.

There is no easy answer to this, but as someone who travels a lot, it gets really old having kids scream the entire flight. Those of us who aren't the parents are in no place to tell the parents what to do, but those responsible for the screamers need to do whatever they need to do so that everyone else can have a relatively quiet airplane.

http://www.11alive.com/news/article_news.aspx?storyid=99986

It includes corroboration from another passenger on the plane.

"It was ludicrous," one of the passengers, Stacey Watts, told 11Alive News on Thursday, from her home near Oklahoma City. "I even heard somebody from the back of the plane call out there, 'You telling me there's a switch on kids all these years?'"

Watts was in Row 6, just behind Penland and her son who were in Row 3.

My toddler just turned two. His grandfather, who lives 2000 miles away is very ill, so I have carted the little guy on airplanes countless times over the last two years. We have also taken a couple of vacations with long flights. The little guy HATES flying; its pure torture for me, my husband, and those sitting around us. In all honesty, on not a single flight with my screaming baby now toddler has a flight attendant been anything but helpful and sympathetic. Never has a flight attendant suggested that his clear discomfort results from our parenting skills, etc. Never has a flight attendant suggested medication or that we get off of the flight. While I don't doubt the stories, I would guess they are unique and isolated. I would speculate that you got a really bad fight attendant on a really bad day.

Oh, what bliss that would be.

The sublime wisdom of, "Children should be seen and not heard" starts to reveal itself once we normal people reach age 30 or so.

Can flight attendants be fired? I'm thinking it's all based on seniority, so they can get away with being nasty and it doesn't affect their jobs. If you ever go to a socialist country where people are employed by the state, you'll find the same sort of attitude. They don't give a shit about anything. They are miserable and resentful.

I've been treated so horribly by so many airline employees, it's just shocking. They'll say any old nasty thing they can. They roll their eyes, they snarl, and yes, they hate children. The most reasonable requests are met with seething hostility. Are they all emotional teenagers?

My guess is that they have way too much power and very little brain wattage. I think their jobs are boring as hell and yet they can't quit because what else would they do? Wait tables?

Or at the very least, can parents with kids be seated in a separate section of the aircraft? Flying is irritating enough without screeching babies and seat-kicking children.

you just aren't supposed to bring little children into that kind of closed environment. if you're going to have children be prepared to make the requisite sacrifices that go along with having them.

Okay. I think I get it. And mostly, the contingency-fee lawyer just wants a substantial monetary settlement. Apology, Schmopology.

But let's stipulate that the flight attendant was way, way out of line. And just for the fun of it, let's assume hypothetically that the flight attendant was, as someone commented below, "A young man who appeared to have no children." (Don't you love that delicacy?) But let's also assume that the flight attendant was never instructed to do anything like this, and did so in this case without any sort of sanction by the airline; that the flight crew supervisors were as surprised and dismayed by the whole incident as the passenger was.

The contingency-fee lawyers are not intersted in suing the flight attendant for everything he and his partner own, which is limited to their hairdryers, their complete Judy Garland discography and their tickets to see Rosie O'Donnell on Broadway.

No, they'll sue the airline. The airline that never wanted any of this to happen in the first place. (The airline might fire the flight attendant in question, and then get sued for that, too.)

This is where the great divide sets up between Republicans and Democrats. For Democrats, this kind of thing is business as usual. Trial lawyers are their great benefactors. For Republicans, this kind of thing is where we draw a line.

I'm not going to judge the merits of the individual cases mentioned as I don't have enough information. I do know that in many cases, parents don't realize the impact their child has on others, especially when the other people cannot get away (and vice-versa).

If a child can't behave themselves on an airplane then they shouldn't fly. There are certain things that we do and don't let kids do based on age, flying might just be one of those things. We don't let kids play unattended by the river alone until they are, say, eight years old. That eight year old, unlike the one year old, doesn't run around without clothes on (no discussion about nudism please, 'nother subject).

I've had to sit for eight hours flying to Europe near a kid who screamed and thrashed for the whole, entire flight. Maybe there was nothing the mother could do to comfort it and maybe the child was too young to clear his ear buts again, maybe he was too young to fly.

There have been cases where I have avoided taking a long bus ride such as when I was sick with a stomach ailment. My potential fellow passengers would have been happy had they known. Again, would I adversely impact other people who had no escape? Yes and I avoided impacting them. Perhaps parents need to do the same.