When asked how having a child had changed her life, comedian Amy Poehler deadpanned, “Now no one wants to sit next to me on an airplane.” Barbara Walters concurred with that opinion last week on The View when she suggested that families with small children should fly on separate airplanes, or better still a different airline.
While some strangers are quick to judge families flying with young children, others may show tremendous compassion. For example, the Dalai Lama recently recognized how challenging it can be to travel with small children.
On a flight from Tokyo to Seattle, the Dalia Lama was sitting behind Seattle mother of three, Jeannie. Her toddler stayed awake all night, shouting, crying and moving. Despite battling a cold, Jeannie did her best to comfort him and keep him busy, spending a majority of the 19-hour flight trying to keep the noise down and walking the aisles with him.
Throughout the flight, she was mortally embarrassed that the Dalia Lama was observing her child in poor form and passing judgment on her parenting.
Much to her surprise, his Holiness wasn’t harshly judging but compassionately admiring her patience. While accepting an honorary degree at the University of Washington, the Dalai Lama said compassion needs to be cultivated from birth and used the flight as an example. He even praised Jeannie’s patience in the speech.
Have you ever had a bad experience flying with a young child? What happened and how did you handle it?
3 Comments
my children are bigger now, but that hamac in the picture looks great! Never seen one on a plane before, however…
meanwhile, on an 8 hour flight with Air India when my son was 2 I had finally gotten him to sleep lying across my and his seat. I settled myself onto the floor for a nap with my head on the seat… suddenly a woman behind his seat shrieked “he’s going to fall off!” I started to move into action. Next to my seat was a rather elderly Indian man with whom I had exchanged smiles. As I went to adjust my son’s body the man looked at me raising his two hands palms toward me to say stop. Then he held them above my son’s body palms down and moved them in configurations and my son’s body followed his gestures and settled into the seat comfortably to sleep for a few more hours. It was beautiful.
my little girl hats airplanes I have a 5 hr flight coming up in a few months either that or 5 days driving in the car with her screaming the whole way the other option is to not take her to grad school with us and let her be raised by cougars in the wilderness. I guess we will take her with us since ya know she is pretty cool and we love her and all but I do wish we could teleport so I think that is the answer to our problem some one needs to get on that technology so we can all be spared some headaches
Why absolutely! Once I flew to chile, which was a 9 hour flight, and let me tell you.. there was a women with 2 young children in front of me, and one behind me. It wasn’t too uncomfortable when I took advantage of my ear phones and plugs, but oh my gosh.. I think these children were secretly having a contest of who could scream the loudest. It drove me nuts at times! The positive thing though was plays with the kids when I was bored since i had two window seats by myself, and they were in the middle, so sometimes they’d come over and look at the window. Of course I like making faces and smiling at them. So I dont necessarily mind young children that can provide some entertainment for such a boring fligt! But fussy babies i’d rather not….