Parents should act when flighty kids take off

Last week, when my plane landed in Chicago after flying from San Francisco, it looked like it had been caught in some serious turbulence.

Chunks of fruit were stuck to the fuselage and one of the window shades hung at a precarious angle. The floor was sticky and wet from spilled juice and soft drinks; pieces of newspaper and magazines littered the aisle.

The funny thing was the turbulence was confined to one row of the aircraft -- and it wasn't caused by strong winds. It was caused by two hyperactive children and one comatose mother.

Here's what happened. As soon as they boarded, the mother handed her children plastic sandwich bags filled with cavity-inducing treats. Then she closed her eyes.

Before the aircraft reached cruising altitude, the children had polished off several sugar-laden snacks and a couple boxes of fruit punch. As soon as the fasten-seat-belt sign went off, the children took off.

For most of the trip, they were flying higher than the aircraft. The aisle became their speedway track while they ran missions back and forth between the in-aisle cart and the lavatories.

When a flight attendant asked their mother to keep them buckled in their seats, she replied that the seat-belt sign was turned off and the boys needed their exercise. And then she returned to the land of nod.

"Those kids don't need exercise," said my seatmate. "But their mother needs to exercise some authority."

Steve Cross, a frequent traveler from San Diego, agrees. He remembers flying to New York next to a 3-year-old who thought Steve was a jungle gym. The child crawled on his lap, pulled on his tie and spilled apple juice on his pants.

When Steve told the mother he needed a little space, she got huffy and told the child that Steve was "a bad man." The child crawled on his mother's lap and Steve fell asleep.

Apparently, the child decided the bad man needed to improve his image. When Steve woke up, he found the sleeve of his dress shirt was a rainbow of magic marker design. Steve felt like the outside of a New York subway. When he complained, the mother told him not to worry, the markers were washable.

My old flying partner, Nancy, remember a child standing on her mother's lap and pouring tomato juice on the head of the woman seated in front of her. The mother nervously wiped it up and apologized for the child, but it didn't placate the victim, who saw red in more ways than one.

Then there are the kids who become obsessed with the call buttons. "On one flight, a little girl rang the bell 30 times without taking a break," said one flight attendant, who added that the father refused to stop the child. "We finally asked the captain to turn off the system because it was driving everybody crazy."

It's the kickers and bangers that send Courtney Cameron into orbit. When Courtney flew from Dallas to Chicago on a recent business trip, she felt like a punching bag. A young boy kicked the back of her seat for almost an hour. When Courtney complained, the mother said she was doing all she could to control the lad.

While parents need to be more cognizant of what their children are doing when they fly, it's the youngsters who are wandering in the aisles that are the most worrisome. It's not only irritating when they squeeze past a cart filled with hot beverages, but it's dangerous.

And if there is unexpected turbulence, that child could be flying without the high-sugar snack -- and it won't be just sticky food that we'll need to peel off the walls.

Gail Todd, a free-lance writer,worked as a flight attendant for more than 30years. She can be reached via e-mail at gailtodd@aol.com.