Families Deserve Our Respect on Airplanes

I’ve worked in bars that were mostly bars (and one family restaurant).

One place I worked at was a club.  We started opening on Sundays for the football games.  We didn’t serve any food.  We were just a bar.

Occasionally, parents would bring their small children in.  We never would have anyone with children older than toddlers (and I think my boss would say something at some point).

The crowd would get pretty rowdy at the games sometimes.  Which I guess is apt to happen when you are in an establishment that only sells alcohol.  And they would start cursing at the games.

Did I mention this was Michigan circa 2007?  The Lions definitely gave everyone reasons to curse back then.

But it never seemed wrong that all these people were screaming obscenities at the screen in front of the children.  The establishment was the type of establishment you would do that in and the parents could leave at any time.

There’s a video that came out that is getting a lot of attention.  An airplane full of people burst out into songs and “partied” in the sky on the way to their destination.

The flight attendant gets on the speaker and asks them not to swear because of the children on board, which gets a laugh.

warning: language

But in this case, I think it is disrespectful to be yelling obscenities in front of the children.

Why is it so different on an airplane?

The parents don’t have the freedom to leave in this case.  Besides the singing being really disruptive generally, the parents have no control over whether their kids are sitting and listening to the song.

Hopefully they don’t know which words are which.

But as I write this, it is also making me rethink the video of the cast of Lion King singing on the airplane (second video).  Very different, obviously.  There are no obscenities and their singing is much more pleasant.  And when I saw the video, I was jealous of everyone on the flight.

But if you look closely, there’s a guy in the background who looks like he has a headache and just wants to go to sleep.  I’ve had days like that.  Who knows if I would have had one on the flight?  (And ain’t no baby sleeping through that.  Well, maybe.  My friend’s baby did sleep through an impromptu bagpipe playing at a restaurant we were at once).

About Jeanne Marie Hoffman

Former bartender, still a geek. One equal part each cookies, liberty, football, music, travel, libations. Stir vigorously. +Jeanne Marie Hoffman Jeanne on Twitter

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One comment

  1. Oh my goodness yes! Granted the kids are older now them sleeping on a short flight is more of a blessing than a necessity, but when #2 was much younger and needed to nap on a flight, I was afraid he was going to be woken up by a REALLY loud passenger a few rows back. Luckily he didn’t wake up, if he had I was tempted to hand him back to that passenger and be like, YOU woke him up, YOU deal with it. Okay, I probably wouldn’t have actually done that, but I would have considered it for a minute or two.

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