After all, if you're traveling with children, you're likely unpacking and re-packing practically the entire contents of your three carry on bags in the span of a few minutes. Simultaneously unbuckling your pants, taking off your kids' shoes, and ensuring the kids' DVD players--so desperately required for the 12 hour flight--doesn't get confiscated because you neglected to put it in its own bin on the conveyor belt.
Ditto for the emergency boxes of aseptic milk you packed.
And if you or your child find the prospect of a pat down by the TSA agent a tad unsettling, you might want to read this article.
The only thing the Family Security Line at the airport really does is protect you from the irate glare of the business travelers behind you. I suppose that's worth something, because if you really want to know how passengers feel about children on a plane, read this.
You might think, as I have, you'll feel less stress in the company of other traveling families. Yet airport security is always stressful, in part due to its quick pace and because there's an element of unpredictability about it (as in, will the TSA agent confiscate my breast milk and the 6 oz. bottle of children's liquid ibuprofen?).
It used to be that flying was the hardest part of traveling with kids. But for the past few years, airport security has become such a cumbersome and stressful procedure that my anxiety builds while we wait in the security line, and only once we're through (with all our shoes, liquids, and plane food back in their proper place) do I then allow myself to stress about the flight itself.
But there are ways to ease this stress, if not eliminate it entirely, as Delicious Baby's Debbie Dubrow points out in her article.
For more resources on traveling with kids, visit our Resources section.
