The anxiety of being restricted to a plane seat for 5 hours beside a human bundle of energy, curiousity and unpredictable bodily functions is enough to second-guess your entire holiday. We have just returned from a trip from Toronto to Vancouver. On both the outbound and homeward bound portions of our trip we were complimented by the passengers around us on how well behaved our children were on the flights. First of all, “Huh? OUR kids? Well-behaved?” Second of all, “Phew!” High praise, indeed! I have certainly been on business travel alone and been seated around people travelling with their children and thought to myself, “so much for a relaxing flight. The next half day of my life will now be dedicated to pretending I’m unaware of the reality television show happening in row 35”. It occurred to me, however, that this might just be the reason we received such favourable reviews in both directions. The expectations of other passengers when they find themselves immersed in a family of five on a transcontinental flight are cynically low- most people expect to exit the plane with post-traumatic stress disorder. They figure they’re going to have a throbbing headache from the whining and an open sore in the middle of their spine from where the kid behind them repeatedly kicked their seat back. Not to mention the sleepless nights that will follow after the little devil systematically opened and closed their tray-table like they were the function and durability factory tester for the tray-table manufacturer. Maybe our kids were simply better than expected. Good enough. The only hiccup was due to the fact that there were problems in both directions with the in-flight entertainment system, (which, by the way, is something you should count on- that’s the only reason they don’t make you pay for it... yet). Anyway, we had to juggle the kids around so that they each got a chance to watch the only functioning on-demand, seat back movie machine. And they did this with great precision and patience. Then it occurred to me, maybe the reason our kids can handle long haul flights is because they’ve had so much practice watching TV in five hour sittings. Bad parents, bad! But, perhaps I don’t give them enough credit. At the very least, maybe I should just bask in the glory of the gratitude of my fellow travellers and remember to be as grateful on my next business trip.
www.adamgrowe.com