WHEN my daughter was a tot, I took her away with me for work, and experienced one of the most distressing flights of my life. It was a three-hour journey that could have been 100 hours. She had an earache due to cabin pressure and screamed and screamed, and vomited. She was in my arms squirming while people around me cursed. The poor businessman beside me was polite and kept reading. But then came the piece-de-resistance. I gave her a berry log to calm her down. She looked up at the businessman and rammed the log right into his blue shirt, leaving a huge red stain full of spit and weeping fruit. "Sorry, sorry," I begged while wiping the stain with her bib, making it so much worse. I often think of this trip and the sweat that was dripping down my body each time she howled - caught as I was between maternal care and worry over social approbation. Interestingly, there was a story in the paper last week about a man in first class who demanded a woman with an infant be moved to another part of the plane. She was moved, but it caused a kerfuffle on social media about whether kids should be allowed in first class. As a mother, and economy-class passenger, it might surprise people to hear me say: "No, they shouldn't." I believe people have the right to pay a premium for peace. I wish, I wish, on that fateful flight I'd been forced down the back with other parents so we could all offer support, and the kids could scream and kick seats, and run about, instead of us being peppered throughout the plane driving everyone crazy. It is a good policy that would make everyone happier including new parents, like I was, who choose to sit anywhere, not realising what cabin pressure does to infant's ears; or how badly fellow passengers react to the crying. Several airlines are doing it, rolling out child-free quiet zones on planes that disallow kids younger than 12. Having been thumped and bumped by restless kids, I would definitely upgrade to a child-free "mid-section" on longer flights to guarantee none of it. I feel I can write this controversial point because, having parented and step-parented, no one can accuse me of not getting it from a mother's viewpoint. On a recent overseas flight, I asked a woman behind if she'd swap seats with her son so he could kick the empty middle-seat in my row, instead of me. She sneered, and the kicking continued for eight-hours, resulting in me taking a Valium. Let's get some intelligent conversation going here. Comment: ruthostrow.com