Letters to the Editor
-
Give and Take
I've never asked for much from my fellow passengers. I don't recline my seat because I don't like it when it's done to me. I leave the mutual armrest for the other person. I don't use the bathroom very often, if at all and I willingly move when asked. I switch seats so traveling companions can stay together and I don't get stuff in and out of the overhead compartments during the flight. I bathe. But now I have a child.
When she was 3 mos., we took her to meet her aunts and grandparents and I was in agony the whole trip. Broadsheet had *just* posted another of these articles, bringing out all the nastiness, and I looked at the faces around me, scared that I was going to see it on them. She did OK, my kid. She fussed a bit, I nursed a bit, her dad took her into the bathroom for a bit. On one leg, we had an excruciatingly polite soldier next to us. I offered to buy all of our seatmates drinks. I apologized each time she peeped, and my husband was downright angry that I was so afraid of causing discomfort to others. I'm not asking for license to let my kid run the aisles, kick seats, or the like, but I am asking for the bread I cast on the "good passenger" waters to be returned, for people to remember that many parents don't want their kids to be an inconvenience any more than you do, and that in just a few hours, the flight will be over.