I know I'm probably about to anger lots of moms and dads, but as a single woman with no children (not the human kind, anyway, my cat is my kid), I have to ask this question. And it's not just a single woman thing, either. My married friends who have not (yet) propagated the species wonder, too.

Even some of my friends who do have kids are curious as to why other parents seem to be of the opinion everybody owes them or they're more important just because they have kids.

I've been thinking about it a lot lately, but yesterday's story about the airline that kicked a family off a plane because the parents couldn't control their child really brought it home. (Read the story.)

Don't get me wrong. I love kids. (Despite one rather unfortunate incident on Election Day.) And I'm no stranger to kids. I have close family friends who have kids -- six, soon to be seven between them, the oldest of whom is 10. But those kids are well behaved. When the parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and nearly aunts (me and my sister) tell them to do something -- say, sit down and be quiet -- they do it.

I have no problem with breast feeding in public, which some people find extremely offensive.

I do have a problem with children disrupting everything around them and parents doing nothing about it.

Years ago, my mom and I were on a flight to or from Orlando. Long flight. There was a mother and her little daughter seated in the row behind of us. The girl was maybe 4 or 5, very cute. But once we were in the air, she went wild.

She was yelling, banging the tray tables on the backs of our seats, kicking both of our seats, jumping up and down. The child's mom did nothing. Nothing at all. It was shaping up to be a very long flight indeed.

My mom turned around and gave the girl The Look, the one that struck fear in my heart growing up. (I think it's something only moms can do.)

The girl got very quiet. Her face started to crumple and she was half a second from crying when my mom smiled at her. The little girl lit up, beamed back and was quiet the entire rest of the flight, engaging in intermittent games of peak-a-boo through the seats. No more kicking. No more banging the tray tables. No more jumping. No more yelling. All with a look. It was truly impressive.

I bet had she been on the AirTran flight, she would have had 3-year-old Elly Kulesza in her seat and smiling in nothing flat.

Rules are there for a reason. Children older than 2 have to be in their own seats on a plane. It's a safety thing. Everybody has to be buckled into his or her seat when the plane takes off. It's a safety thing. There's no way around it. The rules aren't there to be inconvenient.

The parents -- Julie and Gerry -- said they weren't given enough time to calm Elly down. The flight was already delayed 15 minutes. What had they been doing up to time to push back from the gate? How much more time would it have taken?

And why did they think they have the right to delay the flight even more? What about the other 112 people on the plane? I don't know if there were other children on the flight, but there were, they were not throwing temper tantrums.

On a flight back from London a couple of years ago, I was dismayed to see a baby a couple row ahead of me. She's could not have been more than 10 months old. I was not looking forward to 11 hours of baby crying. But she was soooo good. The only time she got a little fussy -- and it was just a little -- was when we started coming down into Phoenix and her ears were hurting her.

Based on the 3-year-olds I've known, Elly is old enough to behave when she's told to behave.

I think the airline did the right thing. It even went above and beyond, in my opinion, by reimbursing the family for three tickets and offering them three additional tickets anywhere AirTran flies. The family refused that offer.

Yes, I'm sure the Kuleszas were inconvenienced. And that's too bad. But why should their problem affect more than 100 other people, people who either had kids who behave or no kids at all. They all paid for their seats, too.

By the way, an adult who refused to take his or her seat or comply with directions from a flight attendant wouldn't have been simply kicked off the plane. He or she probably would have been arrested.

No, I'm not saying the family should have been arrested. Not even close.

All I'm saying is rules are rules. They're there for a reason, and they apply to everybody -- even parents.