Unfriendly Skies

I was feeling some sympathy for the couple kicked off an airplane before taking off for home from their Caribbean vacation, although I have to admit I felt a little less generous when I saw them interviewed on television.

Good looking, both doctors, the pair made the ill advised decision to appear on camera with their two little girls in tow. The two year old who had thrown the tantrum to end all tantrums -- and interfere with air traffic -- was relatively quiet. Her older sister, however, squirmed and stretched and resisted all of her mom's meek efforts to keep her still, making her well educated, well heeled parents look a bit incompetent. Apparently, they don't teach you how to control your children in medical school.

I have been that desperate and despised parent on the plane. Years ago, when I was hugely pregnant and running through the terminal holding my almost one year old face out in front of me and tripped, cleverly using her head to break my fall, I had to spend the next two hours on a flight to New York attempting to muffle her screams. The flight attendants were annoyed and supremely unhelpful. I was mortified, but far more concerned about how my parents would react when they saw the golf ball sized bump in the middle of their grandchild's forehead. Frankly, I would have been relieved if they had kicked us off the plane.

More than twenty-two years have passed since that miserable day. My parents went easy on me -- possibly because they remembered with a mix of pity and dread the time I had visited and lifted the same child up only to bang her head against the dining room chandelier and proceeded to bang my own head against it with considerable force so I could gauge how severely I had harmed her. They were horrified, and encouraged me to stop and phone the pediatrician. He told me to put my feet up and have a glass of wine. Which worked wonders for me, but sent my despairing parents into a total tizzy. First some masochistic head banging, then alcoholism. I ask you, if you can't control the behavior of a thirty year old, why do we expect any parent to be able to control a toddler?

The other night, my almost sixteen year old daughter became upset with me -- with good reason -- and refused to look at me, much less speak to me. I was devastated, lost, felt as if I had been left on an island all by myself. My youngest child was acting out, tormenting me in a way that made the idea of dealing with a two year old screaming up and down the aisle of an airplane sound like a walk in the park. There was nothing I could do to make it stop; I could only hold my breath and wait.

I am not a big fan of waiting though, so I used the only tool at my disposal -- my words. As she silently ate her dinner the next evening, I chatted. She listened, but said almost nothing. She told me it would take her some time; I said what I wanted to say, and I left her alone, telling her where to find me if she needed to. It did not take long at all; like her older siblings, she is kind and forgiving. I am very lucky.

As parents, we all make mistakes, and our children are more than willing to point them out and punish us. Maybe Mr. and Mrs. Doctor should have left the kids home and taken a much needed vacation. Certainly, they should have left the kids home for a national television appearance. Then again, there are lots of things all of us should or should not have done. At best, we learn from our mistakes, and forgive ourselves.