You know, the shoe thing *is* annoying, and TSA's website says that you are not required to remove your shoes, but as a mom I pick my battles, and the shoe fight is one that I'm not going to pick when I have kids with me.
BTW, the pocket check is very important with kids, so I do it twice: the first time when we get out of the car at airport parking (for any pocket knives, etc.), and the second time when I get out the baggies before we enter the security line. For all that DH is a very frequent flier, he is still prone to loading up his pockets when he leaves the house, so we have to have a GALLON size ziploc available for all his pocket stuff. (He says he feels "off balance" with empty pockets.)
Regardless of what the website says about required shoe removal or about being asked to separate from your kids, both things *do* happen, and fairly frequently, because TSA agents get into a routine and deviation from it puts them off balance. I've been been asked to walk away from my kids, too. The key thing to do if they want to separate you from your child is to try never to say the word "no". It's like red to a bull, and tends to make them defensive and less likely to be amenable to reasonable accomodation. Stay polite, but ask for a supervisor immediately, or even a law enforcement officer. I was once threatened with arrest when I politely said that I would leave my 2 yo (so that I could be wanded) just as soon as they were finished wanding his father, so that he could take charge of the kid. I suggested that I would be happy to speak to a police officer about this situation, and suddenly, waiting those 2 minutes until Dad was cleared was not a problem for them.
As for the folks behind you, they *do* deserve some consideration. (Granted, it's not polite for them to get audibly snarky.) I always make a point of prepping as much as possible for security so that I will not *unnecessarily* hold up the line, and I don't think I'm wrong to expect the same consideration from others. A couple of days ago a man in front of me at MCO had a cell phone, a metal water bottle, a hat with a pin band on it, his wallet, 4 pockets full of change, and a camera hanging from his body when he approached the arch. He then proceeded to begin to take all this stuff off very carefully (counting his change as he put it in the bin, yet) while at the same time blocking access to the bin stack for everyone behind him, so that none of us could bin our shoes or laptops while we waited for him. To top it all off, when he finally finished this process he was still wearing shoes, which the agent then had to send him back to remove. Was I justifiably annoyed with him? You betcha! (And yes, he also decided to put all this junk back while standing right at the opening of the scanner. This time the agent told him pointedly that he needed to get out of the way immediately, as the items on the belt were beginning to pile up on top of one another and the bins were in danger of getting dumped.)
