Inattentive Parents Are Not The ‘Worst Fliers’ Out There

A new survey reports other passengers regard “inattentive parents” as the most annoying passengers to share a plane with. Yes, I think they are annoying – but the most annoying? Hardly.

I may just be sensitive because I constantly feel like a few bad apples ruin it for the rest of us in this situation. I honestly can not remember a flight that I have been on where a kid was acting like a total jerk and their parent wasn’t doing the best they could to stop them. Maybe I was just glad it wasn’t my kid, so I was more relieved than offended.

I do know that in the many years I have spent traveling I have had some horrific flight experiences, none of which had anything to do with other children. Well, except that flight to Hawaii when a mom didn’t secure her bottle of breast milk in my overhead bin and it leaked on me. That sort of had something to do with a child. But apart from some unhappy, crying babies – I can’t recall ever being tormented by children on a flight. I can recall be tormented by adults, though.

There was my incredibly overweight seat-mate who fell asleep upon take off with his giant arm covering the controls to my TV. I’m a nervous flyer who purposely books travel on planes that offer TVs because they help me relax. I was stuck watching a Scooby Doo marathon for three hours. I tried slipping my fingers underneath his flesh to get to the controls – but no luck.

Then there was the flight to Vegas in which I was completely surrounded by the cast of Boiler Room. Not the real cast, but you get the picture. They were celebrating a bachelor party, drinking “J and C’s,” calling each other “Broheim” and high fiving each other for two hours. Can you say hell on earth?

Then there was the time I sat next to the woman who was so afraid of flying she was white-knuckling the armrest, crying and praying. That makes a nervous flyer feel very at ease. Oh my god – it was the worst.

I get it – kids are annoying. But can we please stop pretending that they are the only annoying travelers out there, or that their parents enjoy traveling with them when they are being impossible? It’s really not fair.

(photo: Getty Images)