NotUrsula
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2002
Yet you expect a 5 year old child to do this? [Sit between two strangers in a middle seat] If you as an adult who is capable of taking care of yourself don't want to do it why should I let my child do it? I am not picking on you but this just jumped out at me as ridiculous.
Well, I personally wouldn't expect anyone to do it, but then I'm not an aircraft interior designer.
The fact is that sitting in a middle seat (regardless of who is sitting on either side) is much more physically uncomfortable for an adult than it is for a child. It is purely a function of size, both of the seat and of the passenger. When an adult ends up in the middle between strangers, there is a degree of psychological discomfort because of the perceived violation of personal distance, but mostly there is physical discomfort because you feel obligated to scrunch yourself down as small as possible, and we won't even get into the issue of armrest battles. Kids don't have those issues: they are already small, and they don't have a fully developed sense of personal distance yet.
If they have a psychological issue, it is one that adults usually do not have, that of fear of strangers. (Note that NOT all kids have this issue on airplanes. Mine doesn't, though he keeps to himself. Lots of kids will talk the ear off of an interesting stranger when flying, I hear them all the time.)
I personally WILL move to accomodate a small child if I'm not attending to my own at the time, and so will my DH, though if the seat I'm moving into is a middle, I'm not likely to volunteer unless the child is younger than school age or obviously distressed. (And I really don't care if the parent is distressed if the child is calm and fine with the situation -- IMO it is how the child is handling it that counts.) I will also chat with, read to, or play with kids if they want, though DH is much more patient with doing that at length. (My DH is like the Pied Piper -- kids just naturally gravitate to him everywhere he goes. He's very careful about responding, though -- only if the parents signal that it is OK.)
For the record, I actually carry kid-goodies such as Happy Meal Toys, golden books, crayons, paper, and packets of animal crackers in my carryon when I travel on business, because you never know when you'll be in a position to be able to help out a harried parent and make the flight easier for everyone on the plane. When I flew more often there were some FA's who would actually recognize me and knew to ask me to help out if there was an unhappy child on the aircraft.