OUR VIEW: No good dad goes unpunished (vote in poll)
We gotcha, Glenn Duffy. You’re going down. We sullied your career and reputation, and put your entire family in jeopardy. That's what you get for trying to be a good parent in a parent-hostile culture.
That’s the apparent mentality of the blogosphere, as people feed on the gotcha story about Duffy, the air traffic controller who let his young children speak to pilots at New York’s JFK Airport.
Media stories say Duffy allowed his children to direct air traffic, which isn’t true at all. Hearing the misrepresentation, the public has reacted with dismay.
Duffy and his supervisor have been placed on paid suspension, pending the outcome of an investigation. Reporters have been camped out at the Duffy home, shoving microphones and cameras in the faces of all who come and go. The New York Daily News reports that Duffy’s children are devastated over their father’s troubles.
Yet professionals in the field, including an array of veteran pilots and air traffic controllers, insist Duffy did nothing to put anyone in danger. Here’s a defense of Duffy representative of many others, and it makes sense:
“As a professional airline pilot for 40 years, I’ve been dealing with air traffic controllers on a daily basis and I find them to be the utmost professional group of dedicated individuals,” wrote Ross Aimer in a Washington Post blog. “I have listened to the air traffic control tapes and in my opinion I can assure everyone that at no time was safety compromised. This was a slow time at JFK, and the air traffic controller in question was at all times in full control. In other words, with his finger on the button. If anything had gone wrong, he would have stepped in immediately. And in fact, I’m certain he was coaching his kid on what to say. Believe it or not, the kid said it perfectly with precise air traffic control lingo.”
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Duffy merely took his children to see his work and allowed them to speak to pilots, while he told them exactly what to say. He allowed them to say “cleared for takeoff.” He was right there, along with his supervisor and many of his colleagues. He was being a good parent, sharing his profession with his kids.
Does anyone really believe Duffy wasn’t in full control of the situation at all times? Does anyone think he walked away and left the children in charge, to make decisions about air traffic? Does anyone really believe he created one iota of danger for air passengers that day? Of course not.
Chances are most people don’t feel genuinely threatened by this in the least. They just want to see someone hung out to dry. Next week they’ll move on to someone else.
Glenn Duffy is nothing other than the latest subject of a culture obsessed with gotcha-style sound-bite controversies. A far greater threat to our country are the fathers who never take the time or care to share their professional lives with their children. Leave this man and his family alone, because they did nothing wrong. — Wayne Laugesen, editorial page editor, for the editorial board
