Baby on board?

I've only flown with kids once, and that was quite unintentional: we had a sudden adoption placement two weeks before a long scheduled trip and it was either take the baby along or stay home.  She snuggled down in her baby carrier and slept most of the time, even with a packed flight, a long layover, and a late plane, she did just fine, but that was a newborn.  This time around she'll be two and just past the 'lap baby' window and this time her brother is coming along.  We got a great deal on tickets, which is nice since we now need four of them, but this will also be only my second time flying Basic Economy, the biggest hitch of which is not being able to choose your seat.  I was quite surprised on our last flight to be separated from my husband, I didn't even know such a thing existed!  It wasn't a big deal, as the baby and I shared a seat, but what happens when they decide to place my 2 year old five rows up from the nearest parent or my socially anxious, first time flying six year old has a panic attack because he's alone with strangers?

I did a google search on the phenomenon and came up with two very different answers: one camp was really annoyed that parents would dare buy 'economy tickets' and then burden everyone else with their problems.  The other consensus basically said you can trust the goodness of people (or their innate desire to not sit next to someone else's unsupervised kid) to accommodate the situation.  The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.  It would be nice if they had a 'family economy' ticket that would seat a parent by young children by default, not necessarily the whole family together but at least one parent by the little kiddos.  Of all the groups that might take advantage of a Basic Economy ticket, besides for college students, families with multiple kids would be high on the list, because not only are finances a little tighter if you are raising kids, but you must also purchase several of them.  And the idea that only rich kids should be allowed to fly (those whose parents can afford the exorbitant luxury of choosing their seats) is snobbery indeed.  I might as well counter that if you don't want to be bothered by the unwashed and illiterate masses and their drooling spawn, you should fly first class.  Does anyone else see visions of the hatch slamming shut on the lowest class passengers as the Titanic was going down?

But happily this has not been my experience.  On our last flight, the flight staff did everything they could to make it a happy flight for everyone.  One of the four legs of our journey was dreadful, we had anticipated a five hour layover but it became seven as the plane was late, it was overbooked and crowded, we were all tired and just wanted to be anywhere else.  They packed us in like cattle in a trailer but they got us where we were going and that was all we paid them to do.  Thankfully that was a rare exception, usually things go much more smoothly, but I know it is a risk.  We won't be doing layovers this time, we'll just drive to the major airport, so that will help quite a bit, but it still may be an adventure.  We also plan on getting there early to make it as easy as possible for everyone.   I'm just puzzled why this is even a 'thing?'  Either have an accommodation for parents of young children or don't make the tickets available to minor children.  They'll accommodate someone's internet certified anxiety animal (which may or may not be legitimate) but my two year old is just another passenger who can fend for herself?  Curiouser and Curiouser!