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Throw Momma From the Plane?

Photo Credit Wesley Bedrosian

Unfortunately, sometimes children must be forced into confined spaces: subway cars, buses, elevators. All of these are potential scenes of epic public meltdowns, but prolonged air travel is the Big One, the one that strikes fear in the hearts of everyone involved.

Plane travel with a child, as caretaker or bystander, is at best stressful, and at worst involves bouts of weeping and acute tinnitus. Which is why, I suspect, the story of a woman who comforted a stranger's infant on a flight to Atlanta went viral last week.

The infant's mother, Rebekka Garvison, was traveling to visit her husband, a serviceman stationed in Alabama. When her daughter Rylee wouldn't stop crying, her seatmate Nyfesha Miller, a mother of three, offered to hold the baby. The child was immediately calmed and slept in Ms. Miller's lap for the remainder of the flight.

Ms. Miller "kept saying it wasn't a problem at all and it was actually a comforting feeling for her. She even carried [the baby] off the plane and held her so I could get the stroller and carseat put back together," Ms. Garvison wrote in a lengthy account she posted on Facebook along with two photos of the event.

"You could've just rolled your eyes and been irritated like everyone else, but you took her and held her the entire flight and let me get some rest and peace of mind. It brought tears to my eyes while I sat there and watched you and Rylee sleeping next to me. I just couldn't believe how that ended up working out and how caring you were to us," Ms. Garvison wrote before going on to thank her savior with multiple exclamation points and emoji.

As it spread, it picked up headlines proclaiming that the simple act of kindness would "restore your faith in humanity!" But it also raises the question: Are we really all such jerks at 36,000 feet that this qualifies as news?

I should admit two things: One, that before I had a child, I wrote an open letter to children on planes and referred to them as "minions of Satan" in a 2009 blog post, so I can relate to my ear-budded brethren across the aisle who may not be as naturally gracious as Nyfesha Miller.

And two, if I had been sitting next to Ms. Miller and she had asked if she could try to console my child, I probably would have said no. When you're already run ragged, a sincere offer to help can sound a lot like passive-aggressive judgment of your parenting skills. So it is also to Ms. Garvison's credit that she was able to put her pride aside and accept the support. Both of them are examples to aspire to.

But most of us aren't there yet. "People do pre fer not to sit next to babies," says Sivan Shilo, 29, who was a flight attendant for El Al for three years. "But whenever I was asked by a passenger to switch their seat, I always said, 'I would love to help you, but why don't you wait and see if the baby sleeps after takeoff?' That always worked, and they never asked again, so I think the intolerance of children is a misconception, and a very common one."

Still, do an Internet search for any variation on "crying child airplane" and you will find accounts of midair brawls, grown men slapping toddlers and mothers forced off planes because of noise complaints.

You will also find numerous articles urging the childless to remember that kids are neurologically underdeveloped, or instructing parents on how they may best avoid the humiliation of being "those people" with the inconsolable hell spawn. As a result, many people traveling with children take for granted the fact that they are universally loathed.

"I avoid eye contact, assuming people dislike me already for bringing kids on a plane," says Amy Steinhauser, 40, of Grosse Pointe, Mich. "So maybe I am getting the side-eye, but I wouldn't even know."

Bajir Cannon, 36, of Brooklyn says: "Now that I'm a parent, when I see another child suffering a tantrum, I'm mostly grateful. I imagine all the other passengers thinking to themselves: 'If only that screaming kid's parents were better at raising a kid. You know, more like that guy with the 3-year-old daughter who is only crying at a reasonable volume.' "

But the paranoia isn't all irrational. "My husband takes our older son to sit in the bathroom when he has tantrums," says An i Kame'enui, 36, of Silver Spring, Md., who regularly travels with her two toddlers.

Shalayne Mayfield, 32, of Sonora, Tex., once had a woman make an obscene gesture after her almost 2-year-old "scream-cried" through a flight. "I was mortified that I couldn't console her," Ms. Mayfield says.

While there are many online petitions urging airlines to offer child-free flights, the right to bring children on planes is not something that will likely change anytime soon.

So we all have to do more to make the skies we fly friendlier to passengers of all ages. I'm not arguing for group lullabies or Benadryl cocktails, but I do insist on believing that once we reach cruising altitude, our hearts and minds don't have to be quite as cramped as our legs, or as hopelessly disconnected as our beloved 4G networks.

After all, everyone wants to reach their destination with as little turbulence, and as few tears, as possible.