Bryan W. Alaspa 1Lock down the kids
March 4th 2010 14:22
Once again, it seems like a logical thing to me. There are just certain places you don’t want kids running around. You know how kids are, no matter how well-behaved you think yours might be, they love to get into trouble. I remember when I was a kid and I was always looking for things to do because the regular adult world looked so galactically boring to me. Nothing adults did looked like much fun to me. I hated watching the news and I hated all of the chores that my parents made me do and all of the chores and things they were doing didn’t look anymore exciting. Neither of my parents had particularly exciting jobs and, half the time, they complained about them anyway. What was fun about hanging around with adults?
So, the idea of bringing kids into a place where adults really need to focus, well, that seems kind of crazy. I mean, I had my gallbladder removed a few years back. If - in the moments before the anesthesiologist started the drugs into my system that would put me into unconsciousness in mere seconds, - I had looked over and seen my surgeon walk in with his 8-year-old kid in scrubs behind him, I might have been upset. Granted, I probably would have still fallen unconscious, but I would have awakened in the recovery room screaming “NO!” Had I then found messages written in crayon on my stomach, I might have been even more so.
To me there are just certain places you don’t want to see kids walk in. You don’t want to be giving a description or statement to the detective who is going to be investigating your case and see his young daughter taking notes. You don’t want to call the fire department and watch as the fire chief lets his six-year-old hold the water hose. You don’t want to look up and see your dentist’s kid getting practice time with the drill. And, mostly, you DON’T WANT TO KNOW KIDS ARE IN THE CONTROL TOWER AT THE FREAKING AIRPORT!
Of course I am talking about the recent incidents at JFK airport in New York where an air traffic controller apparently brought his young son to work one day and let him make announcements over the wire. Then he, the next day, brought his daughter to work with him and allowed the same thing to happen.
OK, so the kids were just parroting what the controller was saying. The kids were not actually making the decisions and deciding where the planes should go and what level at which to fly. So? Why brings kids into that environment in the first place? Again, you know how kids are. While you are busy trying to bring that jumbo jet full of 200 people in for a safe landing, junior is bored and over there pulling control panels apart to play with the pretty colored wiring. Even if they were never let near a microphone, wouldn’t kids be a constant distraction in a place and for a job that requires nothing but laser-like concentration?
Once again, proving that we live in a time when people just like to argue about EVERYTHING, there seems to be a divide on this issue. Some actual pilots have stepped forward shrugging and asking what the big deal is. As a guy who is already afraid of flying, let me tell you, I know that if I found out a kid was in the control tower during a flight I was on, I would be giving Amtrak a helluva lot more of my travel dollars in the future.
So, the idea of bringing kids into a place where adults really need to focus, well, that seems kind of crazy. I mean, I had my gallbladder removed a few years back. If - in the moments before the anesthesiologist started the drugs into my system that would put me into unconsciousness in mere seconds, - I had looked over and seen my surgeon walk in with his 8-year-old kid in scrubs behind him, I might have been upset. Granted, I probably would have still fallen unconscious, but I would have awakened in the recovery room screaming “NO!” Had I then found messages written in crayon on my stomach, I might have been even more so.
To me there are just certain places you don’t want to see kids walk in. You don’t want to be giving a description or statement to the detective who is going to be investigating your case and see his young daughter taking notes. You don’t want to call the fire department and watch as the fire chief lets his six-year-old hold the water hose. You don’t want to look up and see your dentist’s kid getting practice time with the drill. And, mostly, you DON’T WANT TO KNOW KIDS ARE IN THE CONTROL TOWER AT THE FREAKING AIRPORT!
Of course I am talking about the recent incidents at JFK airport in New York where an air traffic controller apparently brought his young son to work one day and let him make announcements over the wire. Then he, the next day, brought his daughter to work with him and allowed the same thing to happen.
OK, so the kids were just parroting what the controller was saying. The kids were not actually making the decisions and deciding where the planes should go and what level at which to fly. So? Why brings kids into that environment in the first place? Again, you know how kids are. While you are busy trying to bring that jumbo jet full of 200 people in for a safe landing, junior is bored and over there pulling control panels apart to play with the pretty colored wiring. Even if they were never let near a microphone, wouldn’t kids be a constant distraction in a place and for a job that requires nothing but laser-like concentration?
Once again, proving that we live in a time when people just like to argue about EVERYTHING, there seems to be a divide on this issue. Some actual pilots have stepped forward shrugging and asking what the big deal is. As a guy who is already afraid of flying, let me tell you, I know that if I found out a kid was in the control tower during a flight I was on, I would be giving Amtrak a helluva lot more of my travel dollars in the future.
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Comment by Sarahlynn
1) A lot depends on the age of the kid. I've only ever seen "young child" and "home from school" listed in the reports I've read about this incident.
2) Most workplaces have "bring your child to work day," and I don't see how this is any different.
3) Numerous reports have listed the several other responsible adults in the control tower at all times (people using binoculars, people watching the radar, another air traffic controller, a supervisor) so it's hardly like the sole responsible air traffic controller was splitting his focus during rush hour and endangering passengers.
4) Most elementary school aged "young children" can focus quite well and behave themselves for periods of time. Assuming that this extremely well qualified air traffic controlled is as responsible as he's said to be, I have no trouble making the logical jump that he carefully:
a) determined that his kids were capable of behaving themselves and
b) were ready for such a responsibility
c) didn't leave them sitting in the control tower bored for hours at a time
d) monitored the situation.
None of the data suggest that there was ever any trouble or risk. It - meaning visitors in air traffic control towers - might happen every day at airports around the world for all we know. And why should we know? We didn't even know that pilots get so distracted watching porn on their laptops that they can fly hours out of their way on a domestic flight without noticing. (And supervised KIDS are the problem?)
None of the other adults around (in the control tower, flying the planes) have suggested that the situation was ever distracting or dangerous. Kids aren't little monsters. They're not really even all that scary or unpredictable.
In fact, a shocking number of them grow up to be adults who have jobs and need to be prepared for them. I can think of quite a few kids I'd rather have in an air traffic control tower (as compared to some adults of my acquaintance).
Pilots do let kids sit in the cockpit. (Ditto engineers on trains.) Doctors do bring their children to work. Kids visit construction sites, ride in police cars, perform monitored experiments in science labs, and so forth. Largely - as in this case - without incident because the children and the adults are prepared for the situation.
There are lots of potential benefits to giving children a taste of various careers, and these benefits far out-weigh any perceived risk from outsiders who do not know all the details and whose concerns are rooted in fear or ignorance.
A lot of people are more afraid of flying than driving, even though the statistics show that cars are far more dangerous. I get that. (And, consequently, any peek behind the curtain of what happens behind the scenes on airplanes and in airports is unsettling.) But it's important to keep these fears in perspective.
You know, they allow kids to be in cars?! With access to the driver and his/her attention? How can a person drive on public streets, knowing that the driver in the next lane over might be picking up thrown sippy cups, changing DVDs, and monitoring a full-on sibling brawl? We have no control over whether or not that person swerves into us.
<i>Hide the children away until they turn 25, then allow them a gradual entrance into society</i> is a compelling little soundbite but ultimately both ridiculous and based on unreasonable fears.