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Hey!
It was one shout too many.
We were returning home from a weekend celebrating the marriage of a dear cousin of ours. As we entered the jet plane, we saw lots of families and kids, so we anticipated the possibility of angry infants and restless toddlers. As I settled into my seat, I heard a shout—hey!—from the child directly behind me, who was neither a toddler nor an infant. I took a deep breath and hoped he’d settle down.
He didn’t.
As the plane took off, the little guy behind me randomly would just shout “hey,” followed by a shush from his mother, which was tolerable while I read on my Kindle. But after several times of drifting off to sleep and his voice jerking me awake, my patience finally vanished into thin air. I undid my seat belt, turned around, kneeled on my seat and glared at the little guy and said HEY! I asked, did I scare you? Followed by, when you shout hey, you scare me!
My heart jerked for a moment. He was a little guy, a flaming redhead with coke-bottle glasses. His head turned to one parent, then to the other. His mother then spoke up and said, he’s only four and this is his first flight. I responded with, well, I’m old. And then in my indoor voice, I repeated, I’m old. During this entire exchange, the little guy’s father, with his bizarre haircut and his arms covered with tattoos, kept his nose buried in his book.
I turned around and sat down, snapped on my seat belt, and waited to hear the next hey from behind me.
Not a peep.
I drifted in and out of sleep. As we approached Orlando, about 1.5 hours after the incident, I heard the little guy murmuring to his parents, asking them if the lady was still sleeping. I suspect they reassured him that he could speak at that point. So in a not-so-loud voice, I heard him say, zip it! Several times. I don’t know if it was directed at anyone in particular, and I suspect he was imitating a regular retort from his parents. I considered thanking him for not shouting anymore before I disembarked, but I felt I’d sufficiently made my point.
* * * *
This incident brought up so many issues for me; I can’t stop thinking about it. I thought about whether I should have kept my mouth shut. I wondered if his parents often indulged his inappropriate behavior. I asked myself if he was old enough to understand the implications of his actions. (I didn’t raise children myself.)
Isn’t it important for children to learn early the limitations of their freedom? That shouting on the playground is wonderful, but not in a crowded airplane? Aren’t we preparing them for life when they learn to be respectful of us old codgers? Do parents worry too much about looking like “mean” parents?
All in all, I think my reaction was understandable. But appropriate? I don’t know.
I hope his parents learned a lesson, too.
Published in Culture
I heard exactly the same from mine. It always surprised (but pleased) me.
I, too first thought this might be autistic behavior. There was such a child in the grocery store we shop at just last night, and the parents just ignored the outburst. What you respond to, you encourage. Parents of autistic kids have unique challenges.
I did it too, for one very strange year. There was a section that we covered on cults, which since this was southern California in the Eighties, seemed like an extremely good idea. My pathway out from doing it the next year was that I moved out of state.
The Child will remember. And it is good that the Child remembers. You may have greatly increased that Child’s chance for a successful, responsible life.
Wouldn’t “nyet” have sufficed? I thought by now everyone knew at least “nyet.”
Yeah, nyet just meant “I now wish to deny you this pleasure you are enjoying,” and her response to this was also nyet. What she needed to understand was that this gigantic device we were on was actually up in the air, and was now going to go down to the ground, and it was a rule that was not our rule that she had to close the tray, and if she didn’t the stewardess was going to be quite cross with us all, and even if we’d known how to say that and she’d had the necessary Russian vocabulary, which due to disabilities and orphanage life she did not, there were a fair number of concepts involved that were so completely foreign to her existence that … there was just no way. Considering the extraordinary disruption this girlie had just gone through, it’s pretty amazing that this was the only time she really lost it. Might’ve been bigger than crayons.
Hmm. Did she never look out the window during takeoff or in flight?
Actually, we were sitting in the middle of a plane with two aisles, so maybe not. And even if … her life experience had really been severely limited to that point, and she had some neurological issues on top of that. It was like 28 years ago, so I really don’t remember exactly what we said to her about the plane, but I don’t know that she could have grasped the concept of flight to a significant degree. And if she had, it might have freaked her the hell out.
When I go out to lunch with my mom she is often annoyed by groups of lunching women.
Honestly, why can’t they just look at their phones like everyone else?
They hate being the ‘bad guy’ and that means they will raise bad pets and children.
An earlier generation used the phrase “Children are to be seen and not heard.”
Nowadays they seem to think they are adults when they are still just children.
I had thought about that possibility too. All things considered you probably had the best possible outcome. Especially since there were no problems until the end.
Yeah, we got lucky. I was sure my son, who was 21 months old and had just been sprung from life in playpen prison, was going to be impossible, but he fell asleep immediately and slumbered the whole way. So we were just The Family from Hell for descent and landing.
I also have not raised kids. But I’ve been one. Since I was born in the late 50’s, I grew up when riding an airplane was unusual for kids. I’d say I probably rode an airplane maybe 3-4 times in my life by the time I was twenty. I was 22 when I traveled by air as an adult for the first time, and I was headed for boot camp. Air travel just wasn’t that common because it was more expensive.
I was expected to behave around adults, and those behavioral standards were heavily enforced. I never called an adult by their first names until I had a job, say around sixteen. On the other hand, I had plenty of away time from adults, back when the term free range kids hadn’t yet been coined, but it was the practice. I could play outside with other kids without adult supervision and go nuts.
I have a theory that kids are so supervised now, that the typical parent doesn’t try as hard to make their kids behave. They’re worn out with the increased exposure.
I wonder about taking kids on airplanes who are so young they won’t remember that trip to Disneyland. Even by my standards, there’s still going to be a need to bring kids on airplanes. But the fact that they are flying so often means it isn’t special anymore, and that adds to them acting their normal kid selves when flying.
Not all of them are going to Disneyland. Some of them are going to see Grandma and Grandpa. They won’t remember that either, but Grandma and Grandpa will.
With the usual caveats on whether grandparents are healthy enough to travel, buy them the ticket to travel and see their grandchild. It’s easier on the parents and the child.
All thoughtful observations, Al. I remember going on my first plane trip–at 15, when I was going to visit grandparents and other relatives, CA to MA, for the first time. It was quite a while before I flew again.
I think it’s mostly generational. A lot of parents these days don’t seem to realize what a parent is. There is one difference my limited exposure to kids and parents seems to indicate. Big families produce different kinds of kids. I’ve decided big families are superior.
My friends were all afraid of my father. He was a fishing, skiing, sports fan for us, but we didn’t fool around either. Some people just have authority and I don’t know why. It’s valuable.
My first flight was when I flew from Chicago to Columbus on my own at the age of ten. The airline kept an eye on me, establishing a pattern that has been maintained for fifty years now.
I’d keep an eye on you, too, if I were them . . .
I was around 5 or six when I was on a plane for the first time. My great aunt took me from Miami to New York on PanAm. For years she told the story about how I said I was sure I saw some angels sitting on top of the clouds and a man across the aisle got upset when he heard that because he apparently took it as an omen of some kind and required attention from the stewardesses.
My first plane ride was when I was 16. We took off one sunny afternoon. I never did land in it.
??
I assume his first flight was to parachute out.
Yup. First time up I jumped out. At one time my record was 5 take offs, no landings…
I was in my 20s before I actually flew commercially anywhere like everybody else. We were too poor to fly much when I was young.
I was born in 1956, and I did fly as a kid many times (with my parents) to visit my grandparents in Florida from our home in California. The days when only the relatively wealthy and/or high income flew, and everybody dressed up, as flying was an occasion. My brother and I were always dressed in dress shirts with tie and jacket for the flight. That helped instill an expectation of behavior on us.
The good news about the commonality of flying these days is that if the children start flying early, they can learn proper airplane behavior at an early age.
Our 5 year old grandson was on several flights in his first three years, all to visit son-in-law’s large family that collectively live near each other but a long way from our daughter and son-in-law. Covid stopped those visits, and so our 2.5 year old granddaughter had not flown until a couple of weeks ago. She had a blast on the plane, well occupied by her mother (our daughter) with books and drawing supplies (and she found looking out the window entertaining). Fortunately our grandson remembered from 2+ years ago how to behave. Also, our daughter and son-in-law deliberately scheduled the flights at times when the children would be less fidgety, and scheduled relatively lengthy layovers at the flight transfer ports so the children could burn off some energy between flight segments.
At the moment we are also dealing with the consequences of two years of no or limited socialization among people, especially children. Teachers tell us that children (depending on age) either have not learned how to behave around other people, or have forgotten how to behave around other people. So we may have to do more work to teach or remind children around us of community standards for behavior. (Many adults have also forgotten how to behave, but that may be a more intractable problem.)
The mother could have totally have disarmed you by saying, “Thank you! We are really struggling to teach him boundaries. Other people letting him know when he has crossed a line is very important.” Socialization is all about learning about boundaries, and understanding that boundaries are different in crowded public spaces as compared to home.
My middle sister, observing an out of control brat with indulgent/passive parents, commented to my other sisters “I don’t recall we had the option.”
We did not.