COLUMN: Why a baby might need to fly

Here's why I've taken my kids on airplanes: For family vacations in Florida, California and Paris. All frivolous excursions, I admit.

Here's why some other families have taken kids on airplanes:

To get cancer treatment. To visit a dying grandparent. Because the parents are in the military. To complete an adoption.

These stories were sent to me along with 1,700 other e-mails in response to two columns I wrote about flying with children.

Some e-mails told of unruly children, howling babies and seat-kickers making flights miserable for everyone on board. Many passengers complained of parents unable or unwilling to try to soothe their children or get them to behave. Many decried a general decline in manners and courtesy across all age groups.

But other e-mails told stories like this.

"I'll never forget a flight I was on when the gentleman seated next to me complained to me because my baby was crying and he felt I wasn't doing enough to fix the situation," said Suzan Carter of Boise, Idaho. "I handed my baby to him and invited him to soothe her and cease the crying. He looked at me like I had just slapped him in the face. True, my baby was sick. She was being treated for ear infection and strep throat. You are probably wondering why I would take her under such conditions. I just wanted to see my mother one last time before she passed away from colon cancer. I was able to spend six wonderful hours with my mother before she slipped away from us for good."

"I have flown home from China five times with a baby or toddler and will be headed there again in September to finalize our sixth adoption," said Mike O'Neill of Troy, Mich. "The girls have ranged in age from 10 months to two years when we brought them home. Some have been great travelers. Some have been nightmares. They, at least, are children and not congenitally rude. Most of the time, my experience with flight attendants has been better than with other passengers."

"I had to travel on a very frequent basis with my child from the young age of 8 months on," wrote Sarah Reschke from Memphis, Tenn. "He has cancer and we had to travel out of state for chemotherapy. I hate it for everyone that sometimes children are unpredictable and cry on flights. My son cried on take off and landing more than once. I provided a goody bag and did my best to keep him busy, we also premedicated him in an effort to keep him and everyone around him comfortable. He was extremely ill for years, we made the flight for years and sometimes it was extremely unpleasant, sometimes he was really sick on the flight (chemo tends to make people sick). We flew so often the airline staff knew us by first our first names."

"I myself, in the first part of next year, would like to fly home with my infant (due in January) when I get out of the Navy," wrote Elizabeth Bentley. "I am stationed right now in Pearl Harbor and there is no other way for me to go back to the mainland. I do not want to have to stay on this island just so that a few people are not inconvenienced by my potentially crying child. I would like to apologize to anyone who may have to endure an uncomfortable flight with me and my child in the future. However, keep this in mind, especially if you have grandchildren and still complain about the crying baby, that baby may just be on his way to meet their own grandparents for the first time."

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Here are links to the original columns: http://tinyurl.com/23ndsl and http://tinyurl.com/2q9naw.

E-mail: [e-mail].