Children Should Be Seen And Not Heard

That's what my mom used to say when my brother and I were kids. She said it an average of 4-5 times per day. I'm reflecting on her parenting mantras as I fly out to Indiana to spend the weekend with her for Mother's Day.

The first flight was on time, I had an exit-row window seat and I shouldn't be complaining. My spidey-sense started tingling when the 4-year-old behind me started relaying private conversations between herself and her teddy bear to her mother.

“Teddy doesn't want to go on a lot of airplanes today.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“He says it's too much waiting.”

Tell Teddy to shut his pie hole because life IS waiting.

Kids are great and all and even I am sometimes delighted by a chubby and gurgling little dumpling that can't swing its arms far enough to do any damage yet – but being trapped with unhappy children in a small space is deadly. This one was a screamer. Dang, parents, didn't you bring her handheld Nintendo so she could play black ops version 8 to occupy her attention while the rest of us napped and read?

“Teddy wants to get off NOW.”

“Teddy can't get off until the plane lands.”

I'll break Teddy's legs if he doesn't calm the hell down.

She had the middle seat and I watched the man next to me get kicked and jostled through the entire flight. It became a gentle rocking when she twice tried to squeeze herself into the seat-back pocket where most people jam their trash. When the flight attendant had to come by and ask her to tighten her seatbelt, her mother told her she would go to jail if she didn't. Bawling ensued. My nap was ruined.

I think those casual little parenting flubs, born of getting up at 4:30 and coaxing your child to not act like a feces-throwing monkey at the airport while the child needles at your every last nerve about the lack of apple juice, the sky being white instead of blue, there not being a television or room for all her toys. . .just happen. Going to jail is better than what my mom used to say: that she gave me life and could therefore take it away whenever she wanted. I wish I'd watched more national news coverage when I was 5 because I quickly would have discovered that mothers who take the lives of their children for being annoying actually get into a lot of trouble. It could've saved me some mild anxiety.

On my second flight of the day – there are seven little ones. I get it, it's Mother's Day and everyone wants to fly off to see Grandma – or an out of town mom that, judging by some of these kids, is going to be visited in the family rec room of the state penitentiary. I leaned over to my seatmate on this flight and whispered, “Don't people drug their kids anymore?” He said not since we were kids.

I used to work with children and now I work with the elderly. A lot of similarities there. They both like singalongs that involve clapping, chocolate pudding cups and writing their names on their belongings. However, I'd like everyone on my flight to be between the ages of 14-65, continent and patient. I'm most of those and they should be, too.