This woman won’t fly private or first class with her kids. And there’s a reasonable argument here, but this one’s so over the top I’m actually not sure if it’s parody?
She’s a Delta mom, saying they “only fly Comfort+”. Her children “are privileged” because of their activities, and she thinks her kids are lucky which is a bit of an odd way to put things. (Somehow it’s her kids that are lucky, but she’s not fortunate? She gave up her law career to become a stay at home mom and content creator.)
Her concern is that her kids might think they are “better than” hardworking adults, seeing those adults in the back of the plane when they’re in first class – and that the effect is even greater flying private. Yet is seems odd for her to focus on flying as what creates “social hierarchy” for her kids when she sends them to private schools? And most people don’t get to visit all of the “beautiful places” she takes them to at all!
I think she’s missing the point: the risk is teaching kids that comfort is their birthright, that inconvenience is an injustice, and that people serving them are beneath them. A lie-flat seat does not do that. Parents do.
I do think there’s something to wrestle with here, but I do not think it is “it is good to let your kids.. struggle” as they jet off to Turks and Caicos, St. Barth, Nantucket, Aspen and Jackson Hole.
In my family, we fly a lot more than we otherwise would because we can do long haul business class with points. It makes the travel so much easier and it’s far less grueling. It’s also easier with kids – since my daughter was three it’s let us keep our routine easily – bedtime means changing into pajamas, reading books, telling stories and my daugher goes to bed. I’m looking forward to my son getting to that same point.
She understands some planes have beds and others don’t. She sits where we tell her to, and often (especially on shorter flights) that means coach. But extra space with two kids is extra nice (I’ve loved having an extra seat in coach for my son rather than traveling as a lap infant – my wife and I used promotional companion passes on Southwest to do this for instance0.
I certainly haven’t seen her comparing herself to others, seeing herself as better than passengers in the back of the aircraft. Flying long haul business class she never actually sees those passengers. She also doesn’t see the passengers in front as better than her when we fly coach.
It’s also weird to hang your argument on kids seeing adults walk past them to the back as reinforcing relative status, but then say the effect is greater flying private – when they don’t see passengers walking back to the poor section?
We’ve talked about points, but she doesn’t really understand them yet. We talk about work, and she understands exchange – you do something for someone else, they give you something in return. But I am not sure she gets the more conceptual concept of interpersonal exchange. Jobs may earn money. Money lets you buy stuff. But the way that it represents value provided to one party, which can be exchanged with someone else offering their own value in exchange, may be a bit of a leap too far at her age. (There’s nodding acceptance and actual understanding and those are different things.)
I actually struggle with the larger point. My kids fly premium cabins because that’s convenient to me. But more often I worry about the tension between providing more for them than I had growing up on the one hand, while not creating a sense of entitlement that undermines their hunger for achievement. I don’t want them taking the world for granted.
You don’t want kids not to feel like they need to work, because you’re there to give them everything. On the other hand, being there to provide for them can also be liberating so that they can take big swings in the world without the risk of failure being existential. In other words, how to make it enabling of success rather than undermining.
More broadly, I think there’s a big difference between material happiness and satisfaction, and that there’s something fundamentally human about work and achievement. I want to invest in my kids so they can live a life where they’re driven to pursue goals, create things and succeed – not to undermine their drive for these things.
But I don’t think flying business class, which means we travel more and see more of the world and stay connected to friends and family abroad, will be limiting for them. I believe it’ll help expand their sense of what’s possible, it’ll give them a greater understanding of the world and the people in it, and it’ll make the world a place where they’re confident moving about rather than something intimidating to them.
I think about this a lot. I don’t want my kids to think luxury is automatic. I want them to think the world is big, navigable, and worth seeing.
- Coach does not build character, and business class does not destroy it.
- The moral hierarchy of the airplane cabin is mostly adult projection. Kids understand “this plane has beds” long before they understand “this cabin embodies social status.”
- Actually normalizing business class helps them to not be impressed by luxury, to be comfortable in the world. My job then is to make sure they don’t feel entitled to that.
As a parent, my own success can help remove frictions that allow my kids to use their gifts to succeed. But the balancing act is to make sure removing frictions doesn’t suppress their own drive to do so.
Gary, Since the subject here is raising children and morals, have you ever altered your solo or family plans because of flyings negative impact on the planet’s habitability (climate change?) Your personal carbon footprint must in the top 0.1%, How will you justify this when your children are older and learn about climate change?
airline baggage story. i flew from so to bologna on ita business class. i onlly checked 1 bag when i could have checked two. 5 days later i got a call from bologna baggage saying my checked bag was still there but i had my bag. so ita sent a 2nd bag to bologna under my name. so someone at
ita sent an extra bag to bologna. i assume sending a bag to italy is worth money to someone. the strange thing is that the bag was never picked up.
i meant sfo, not so.
Ah, I see, the influencer just wants her children to know that it’s okay to fly in the sixth row of the plane (comfort+) instead of first class. When this person flies basic economy and sits in the last few rows of the plane that are sometimes blocked off for families (you know, the nice ones by the bathrooms…) maybe she can have an opinion about her kids growing up “grounded”.
Gary is correct, values are instilled by parents, not class of travel. When we travel first or business with the kids we simply remind them that these are the “special” seats, that we’re not always flying these seats, and that most people never do. Not exactly walking behind our children whispering “thou art but mortal” in their ears, but there’s a way of guiding your children to not being a jerk even though they might have or experience nice things.
Very thoughtful. The generational parallel (that I think about a lot…) is inheritance. How can I leave something to my grandchildren that may provide a “safety net” in a world of AI-dominated employment, while not turning them into “Trustafarians” ?
My kids fly up front 2x as much as in the back. They are 6 and 9. They rarely ask in advance where we will be sitting, and when we walk past the big seats to the ones on the back no one complains. That’s just where our seats are for that flight.
We say please and thank you and treat people with respect, whether they are the manager of a 5 star hotel or the maid at a Hyatt Place.
Her poor kids…
“…especially my fellow Upper Eastside moms.” Makes it sound like there is a committee of her neighborhood moms that she thinks about gaining approval from on her parenting choices.
On a regional CRJ, I sat in 2A. There was teen girl sitting in 1A. She was rude to the FA’s and never uttered the polite “please” and “thank you” key words.
Does Tim Dunn’s mother let him fly J/F on delta?
Completely agree. I’ve known parents who say the same thing, but spoil their kids in lots of other ways – the private school and country clubs being prime examples. Besides, I have explained to my kids over time that you can be smart, use points, and be in business class for very little money. One of them is a miles and points aficionado already, frequently flying J on saver awards.
@Bill – simply no substitute for spending time with your children or grandchildren and instilling your values in them through words and deed. Then you can pass on a legacy that is more than dollars.
you’re channeling your inner Buffett again –
Warren Buffett famously advocates leaving children “enough money so that they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they would feel like doing nothing”.
Through a long story, we (2 adults 4 kids) were upgraded to FC for a trip to Hawaii. Y on the way back. When we discussed how to use our huge airline credit, one of my sons says “not unless it’s FC” They stayed home, mom and I went to Rome FC. Turned out to be great adults tho.
Both things can be true.
Growing up in the 70s I was one of very few kids that had parents that flew as a family. And even that was just 2-3 times a year. Other than the smoking I’d go back to those days in a minute. No Frontier Airlines crowd around anywhere in sight. Us kids being lectured about the dos and don’ts when on the airplane. Say please and thank you to the then called stewardess, not loud outbursts, staying engaged either looking out the window or reading a book, and making sure we were properly showered and dressed for the flights. No suit and tie but no dirty jeans pulled out of a laundry hamper either.
@ Gary “I’m looking forward to my son getting to that same point.” Haha, your daughter has your expectations skewed…he’s a boy and it just might take longer, much longer.
And Jon F for the win.