Mom Says Kids Should Be Banned From Flights
Some parents don’t “ever acknowledge that to everyone but them, their kid is largely a nuisance,” journalist Kelly Rose Bradford tells Yahoo Parenting, defending her comments on a U.K. talk show Tuesday, when she said she believes children should be banned from planes. (Photo: Offset)
One British mom wants all parents to ground their babies, literally.
During a visit to U.K. talk show This Morning on Tuesday, journalist Kelly Rose Bradford sparked a heated debate that continued on Twitter Thursday when she fumed that moms and dads should not bring young children on planes, and lobbied for child-free flights and separate child-free seating.
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Kelly Rose Bradford told U.K. talk show This Morning that children shouldn’t be allowed on planes. (Photo: Rex USA)
“Surely that would be better for everybody,” she said. “You’ve got miserable, moan-y people like me who do not want your delightful children wailing in my ear for my flight.”
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Bradford — a mother of one — said that when her son, William, now 12, was young, she didn’t travel with him. “I didn’t travel, I didn’t fly with him, simply because I didn’t want the grief and I didn’t want to subject everyone else to it as well, because I know how irritating it is when you are the person sitting next to that family, behind them or in front of them,” she said. Is it really necessary, she asks, to take a baby on a long flight? “I think there’s an element of selfishness from parents who insist on not changing their lifestyle once they have their children,” she railed, “because there are some things that just aren’t practical.”
But another guest on the show, journalist Emma Taylor, told This Morning that banning children was “discriminatory,” and retorted, “It’s not selfish to go around in society with children; children are part of society. They’re not mini adults. They are … people in their own right, and they have a right to go places.”
Under the hashtag #ChildFreeFlights, the back-and-forth continued on Twitter after the show. “Amazing idea!” wrote one Bradford supporter. Another respondent said that she “totally” agrees, “having been kicked and vomited [on] last flight.” Opponents, meanwhile, shamed the adults who wish to fly less noisy skies. “If screaming children are an annoyance to you, you might as well never leave your house. Period,” tweeted one.
One commenter even turned Bradford’s idea on its head, fuming: “I have been sitting in front of badly behaved adults, kicking chairs & talking overly loudly, ban intolerant adults.” And another incensed individual railed, “A child has a right to fly #bankellyrose.”
Yet even with all of the backlash, Bradford tells Yahoo Parenting that she stands by her argument. “The thing is, there is a finite time in life when you are pro-babies, and it’s usually one to five years into your own parenting career,” says the mother from England — where, it should be noted, a survey recently revealed that more than one-third of U.K. adults would be willing to pay higher fares for child-free flights. “As the mum of a now 12-year-old, I’ve been there, done it. I’ve been the obnoxious parent thinking that the world revolves around me and my child. It doesn’t, though, and sometimes a good debate is needed to remind people of that.”
Some parents, she continued, “really do think that once they have a child in tow, other people need to make allowances. They don’t like to be told, advised or criticized, or ever acknowledge that to everyone but them, their kid is largely a nuisance.” And for the record, she adds, her own son agrees with her. “He is 12 and hates noise,” she says. “Even I’m too noisy for him.”
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