Dante, Munch and airplane travel with littles.

What happened to empathy?

Hola Friends of the Global Jigsaw,

As the world begins to travel again, this week’s post is a response to the various advice columns out there on how parents of young children on flights should “make it up” to fellow passengers.

There are sanctimonious lectures on parents avoiding “unnecessary” plane journeys that ostensibly cater to their selfish desire for fun at the expense of the pain caused to the infant’s ears. Anyone who would describe traveling with infants as fun for the parents is obviously smoking something illegal and should not be engaged with.

The most commonly suggested tactic is for parents to distribute apology “goody bags” to those sitting in the same cabin as them. This newsletter isn’t usually a space for cursing, but: WTF?

Assuming these fellow travelers are not 7 years old, they do not need goody bags. Just a dose of empathy. And a reminder that they probably had irascible toddlers themselves at some point, or will do, or have friends and family who did, or will. That people do not exist in individualized vacuum packs, but share a messy, noisy, bustling world with other people. It’s called a community. It’s called humanity. It means occasionally putting up with discomfort, because although babies are not polite, they are necessary (and can be quite adorable when asleep).   

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Few things can make a new parent’s blood run as cold as the prospect of a long-haul flight with an infant in arms. Living away from India meant that I had to do several of these when the boys were babes. A smorgasbord of cheek-pulling aunties demanded their annual presence in desh.

To say that I preferred having a root canal to travelling on a flight with baby Ishaan is but the truth. My firstborn’s airplane screams put Edvard Munch in the shade. Nothing soothed him: breast, bottle, rattles, screens, music.

He was a single-minded critter, and whenever we got on a plane, he made it clear that he wanted off. And he did this, erm, loudly. Also, lengthily. Time on these trips had a geological quality to it. One could imagine tectonic plates rearranging and mountains growing in the time it took for the plane to finally land.

I was terrified for days before the actual day of travel, in anticipation of the hatred I would become the object of. From the moment I was spotted, carrying my unhappy babe at the check-in counters, the hostile glares began. Whispers of “Oh no, crying baby!” arose like the susurrations of cicadas in their death throes.  

I have vague, sleep-deprived recollections from those flights, of which misery was the primary take-away. While the rest of the plane slept, ate and watched movies, I walked up and down the aisle, cradling Ishaan against my chest. It was the only thing that lulled him. I would pause on occasion to wipe his poopy butt, but post diaper-freshening it was back to patrolling the aisles. There was no rest for the wicked and the new mum.

Fast forward to the present day and Ishaan is thirteen. He carries my bags, heaves them up into the overhead compartment and then disappears into his headphones until arrival. It is nirvana, or it would be were economy travel in the era of Covid not the very definition of hell. But, as all parents and fans of Dante are aware, there are layers to hell, and anything that does not involve caring for a baby on a plane, is in the outer circle.

 The problem is that while Ishaan has flourished, unscathed from his screeching-on-planes days, I am forever branded by them. I’m unable to while away the dead inflight hours watching movies and drinking bad wine, because I am flooded with empathy for the new parents who cannot.

I notice their suffering as they are drooled on. I feel their muscles ache as they desperately hold uncomfortable poses, less they move and wake up the baby. I am embarrassed by their embarrassment at the annoyance their mewling offspring cause other passengers. I am exhausted by their exhaustion as they unwrap tiny treats in the hope of entertaining their littles for the next ten minutes, because then it would only be 8 hours and 40 minutes more to go.

Dear reader, the next time you come across a distressed infant on a plane, don’t roll your eyes. Try playing peek-a-boo with her. And instead of expecting a goody bag from the parents, try gifting them one. No one deserves it more.

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Until next week,

Pallavi