Toddler kicked off plane...nobody's right

By now you've probably heard of the talkative todder: a 19-month old child gets ordered off a plane because he wouldn't stop saying, "Bye bye plane." Apparently he was looking at a plane through the window, awaiting takeoff. Most passengers were sympathetic (although one suggested the child's words were drowning out the flight attendant announcements).

Not being a parent, I can't comment on the mother's inability (or unwillingness) to quiet her child. I would expect she could get the child to hush. But after 11 hours in an airport, with no sleep, I suspect most people's parenting skills would be compromised.

While it's clear the flight attendant overreacted, I have to admit I sometimes empathize with her. In my years as a college professor, I began by genuinely enjoying my students. Most of the time they were wonderful.

But after years of listening to excuses and whining, I had a hard time being sympathetic. In one week, three students came up to say their grandmothers had died, so they needed more time on assignments. Another time a student told me she had just discovered her husband was gay. One at a time, each complaint holds a human interest story, deserving of feeling. Taken together, they begin to seem comical. I had to remind myself to act appropriately.

So I can see where this flight attendant had one too many. If I had been on the receiving end of her anger, I would want her fired (and she probably will be). But airlines, like so many employers, put their people under increasing stress. The crew has to enforce rules that seem nonsensical, even to them, just as I did in a university.

Everybody's schedule gets disrupted. The weather seems hot. It's hard to do everything right all the time.

In an ideal world, the airline would compensate the family. They would give the flight attendant some time off with pay and access to stress management training.

But in the real world, I would cite this story as an example of finger-pointing. As a society (and perhaps as humans) we tend to blame individuals, not situations. We underestimate the impact of environment on behavior, as Philip Zimbardo documented brilliantly in the Stanford Prison experiment.

Both the flight attendant and the mother could have behaved better...in different circumstances.