Traveling with kids is no easy task, especially during this season of peace and good will overbooked flights and cranky passengers and employees. Traveling with babies and toddlers on a good day is challenging, but the holidays take on a whole other level of crazy. Which is why this guest post on Free Range Kids struck me. It's basically the solution to all travel problems: The parents who are stressed out by crazy normal kids who don't understand the concept of sitting in one place until you're back on the ground, and those child-free passengers who hate them.
It's simple, really. If you're not traveling with a child, why not help those who are?
I can hear the nasty comments now: "You had those kids, you should take care of them." As if having children were akin to wearing strong perfume or eating stinky cheese in a closed compartment. Instead of shooting daggers, why not try and entertain the little hellion who is sitting behind you? You diffuse the baby or toddler meltdown, and peace is restored on your flight. In other words, make an effort.
Last spring I was traveling back home with my daughter after a harrowing trip and was getting a little bit (or a lot, really) exhausted by entertaining her and her short attention span. The lady sitting next to her pulled out her iPhone and thus my daughter was introduced to "Talking Tom." Even as I tried to give the lady an out by saying, "Okay, iPhone time is over!" while looking at her with an incredibly grateful expression, she would constantly reassure me that she was more than happy to let my daughter play with her very expensive phone. It was a miracle.
Not only 'tis the season for some neighborly love, we should always think like this rather than hiding in our corners and condemning those who aren't as lucky as we are to be traveling with ease. It's nasty behavior, and it has no place in a civilized society. We're all in this together people, especially when you're thousands of feet above the earth locked into a moving object. Try a little compassion, and a little fun, and you'll get where you're going much easier.
Have you ever helped out a mom to young kids on an airplane?
Image via Christian Haugen/Flickr
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Comments 43
I have often been happy to play peek a boo over the seat on a bus, or plane with young kids. I travel with my son a lot, and find that having kids sit near eachother provides good entertainment too. But I am always hapy to help out a mom, even before I had my own son, because it maes everything easier on everyone, and kids are cute!
Karma.
i love kids. i really, really do. they are fun to play peekaboo with and i would never even think about not smiling/saying hello when one is trying to catch my attention and some things (like their ears popping causing discomfort etc) are out of their hands, so i can handle that with little more than a slight jump when the decibel level gets a touch high....
HOWEVER are you suggesting that because i'm happy to be nice to your well behaved, just having a bad moment child, that i should also be responsible for the fact you are traveling with them? i really hope that the sense of entitlement i'm getting from this article is all in my head, but it sure does sound like "help me with my kids or they will ruin your life"- and to that i say, if you cant manage to not raise a demon, me refusing to share my game of fruit ninja isnt going to help them.
I love it when a mom puts a crying baby over her shoulder and I make silly faces at it and it stops crying. The mom has no idea I'm back there silently entertaining her baby, she just knows he got quiet! Babies, even toddlers really respond to just quiet eye contact or funny faces from a face they've never seen before. It's fun and I do it in long lines all the time.However, I don't think I would offer help to moms nowadays, they seem to take it as an insult and then we're both pissed off!
Last time I tried that, dad acted like I was going to walk away with his six year old. Granted, it could be because she’d asked my about my tattoos and I was answering her questions honestly.