Dear Amy: I have been a flight attendant for more than 25 years. I would like to talk about “lap” babies.
A lap baby can travel with an adult, without a purchased ticket, up to 2 years of age. Parents board with their toddlers, expecting accommodations – i.e. a free seat made available for their child’s use. But unused seats are rare these days.
Often they are next to passengers who have paid full price for their ticket, only to be forced to share the limited space next to a squirmy child who weighs 30 pounds.
On occasion, the child may even be older than 2. We’ve been heard to mutter, “If that kid is under 2, I will eat my wings.”
Also: it’s not safe! These parents would not put a child on their lap to drive to the grocery store, yet do not secure a child in a vehicle that travels three times as fast down a runway or which can encounter turbulence in the air.
– Also a Mom
Dear Mom: I did a great deal of traveling with my daughter when she was a baby, and I learned the hard way that purchasing a seat was necessary for us (no one in our row will ever forget a certain flight from London to Budapest). So yes, perhaps the FAA will change the rules regarding lap babies.
Until then, ticket agents and flight attendants need to do everything possible to accommodate families traveling with babies, no matter how “neglectful” you judge them to be.
Muttering snide comments about these families isn’t helpful. It is quite unprofessional.
…
Dear Amy: The letter by “Perplexed” regarding the appropriateness of a bride wearing white illustrates a big misconception.
The color white for wedding dresses has nothing to do with whether the bride is a virgin. It has to do with the holy sacrament of matrimony. The color for receiving sacraments is usually white to denote the grace received during this ritual. We dress babies in white for baptism, and we put a white pall on the casket to remind us of the departed soul’s baptism. These colors are religious symbols, not certificates of purity.
– Gloria
Dear Gloria: “Perplexed” was spending a lot of energy worrying about the prospective bride’s virginity. I thought that because this bothered him so much he probably shouldn’t bear witness to this particular ceremony.
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