First Flight With Kids: Worrying About the Wrong Things

When I was a flight attendant, we used to have infants or children onboard every flight. Often, the mothers would be quite demanding and ask for this and that. They’d press the call button and say, “Can I have a blanket for my child, please?” Then you’d bring it and they’d say, “Oh, can I have a pillow, too?” Once you were back with the pillow, they said, “Actually my other kid over there would probably want a blanket and a pillow, too…”

Then another call button went off and someone handed you baby food without looking up, instructing, “Heat it in the microwave for 30 seconds, no longer or it’ll be too hot.” When I explained that there was no microwave onboard and that I’d heat it in warm water, which would take about 10 minutes, they’d look up and protest. “10 minutes!!! My baby is hungry NOW!!!!!”

Thank you didn’t feature in these flying mamazillas’ vocabularies.

And then, years and years later, the day came when I boarded a flight with my own children. They were no longer babies, I definitely made sure to skip that experience, but still, on our first flight together, I was fearing the reactions we’d cause. My kids aren’t known to sit still for very long: they are of the athletic type.

While arranging our trip, I kept having flashbacks. I remembered the flight attendant who walked “down the aisle” (you’re welcome for the image) handing out not flowers, but ear plugs in a silent demonstration towards one particularly loud baby, a fake smile of victory on her lips. What if my kids are too noisy? What if I turn into the mum who takes up all of the flight attendants’ time?

Travelling with kids is stressful, they say. Add a pandemic, a war, a heat wave with bush fires, rumours of long lines, give it all a stir and top it off with a pinch of food allergies, and you’ve cooked yourself some nice stress levels.

I used to love, love, love flying. And now all I could think was, “I need some fresh air, I’m sitting in a metal tube in the sky!” I didn’t turn into a mamazilla, but I still could hardly believe my transformation. I realised that I no longer liked the hustle and bustle of an airport, the leisurely lingering while waiting to board, nor the dreamy browsing of an inflight magazine. In fact, there were no inflight magazines at all and I sighed sadly, remembering how I used to bring the new issue home every month when I worked in the business. There were piles of them in the office and the articles were carefully crafted. During flight, I loved looking at the maps at the end and imagining which country or sea we were flying over right now.

It turns out, after having kids, all sense of adventure has drained from me. I think of climate change all the time and it puts me off travelling anyway. But my kids… they were behaving perfectly. They were calm, quiet, polite – curious, trusting and relaxed. We had gotten them brand new kids’ tablets and they were well entertained for the 4-hour flight to Alicante, Spain.

Once there, it took me almost the entire holiday to unwind, and then it was back to the airport… But we’re definitely doing this again. Maybe I just need some more practise. 10 years in aviation clearly wasn’t enough!