The crash of Flight 1549 came just when the nation needed it – a crisis averted, a hero in our midst, nearly two hundred people saved. Next to the inaguration, it’s the brightest spot what’s been an otherwise bleak American horizon of late. 

But we’re a country that thrives on some sort of scandal – so it’s no surprise the heroism of Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger has quickly turned to criticism of the age-old (at least one hundred and fifty-some year-old) standard of evacuating people in case of tragedy: “women and children first.”

To be fair, I’m biased. I am, after all, a woman. I’m also a mother. So women and children rank pretty high on my list. By all accounts, I should be rushing to the defense of the mandate Jezebel aptly dubbed “strangely quaint” and “old fashioned.”

A lot of what Jezebel’s Sadie said made sense – there has to be some organizational basis for getting people moved from here to there, and few would argue with a child’s right to be cut the line in light of a tragedy. Children first, at least, is almost irrefutable. They still have a chance at a life. They still have time left to make a difference.

But Sadie makes one very salient point – kids need caregivers when they’re rescued. And last I checked, caregivers come in all forms – daddies too. So what happens when we stick to “women and children first?” If a child is traveling with their Dad in tow, is the screaming tot ripped from his arms and thrust into those of a stranger, wriggling and crying? Add a toddler torquing his body in frustration to an already stressful situation, and you’ve just lost precious moments.The organizaton you’re striving for can be dealt that fatal blow with the moments lost calming them down. 

Yes, I would want to get off a sinking plane as quickly as possible – and with my daughter in my arms. But as important as I would hope someone thinks I am in my daughter’s life, so too is my husband, my father, my brother . . . I am not a he-man hating feminist (yes, some of them still exist). If one of them were there with my child, I would hope that an able-bodied adult would be willing to let child and “male relative caregiver” take the place of “mother/woman.” 

Perhaps the more appropriate choice is children – with appropriate caregiver – first, to be followed by whomever the pilot and his crew thinks can be gotten to next in the most organized fashion?

Image: AP

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