CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
An all-knowing oracle of child-rearing has today personally intervened to stop a baby from crying on a 1 hour flight.
This comes as a flustered young mother struggles to get her 6 month to sleep in an aeroplane cabin full of 129 adult humans.
On her first flight since giving birth to baby number 3, young mother Kylie Brent (36) has taken the opportunity to fly south and visit her parents, while her husband looks after the oldest two back at home.
However, this already quite logistical trip away has gone pear shaped barely a couple hours out the door.
As anyone who has flown with young children can attest, sometimes its a sleepy dream – sometimes it’s hell on earth. Today is hell on earth, and Kylie couldn’t be happier with her decision to leave her two others at home with dad.
Before the seat belt light had even gone on, baby Oscar was already crying.
“Has she had a feed?” asks Bronlyn, the 71-year-old stranger seated next to Kyle, in a tone that does not sound warm or constructive.
“She’s probably just hungry”
Kylie, well aware that people of this generation feel obligated to tell young people how to live their lives, doesn’t bother correcting Bronlyn over the fact that Oscar is not a baby girl.
“Nope. She’s just had a feed” says Kylie, sharply.
“She might need a sleep” says Bronlyn.
“Yep. Maybe. Trying to put him down now actually” says Kylie.
As an upper middle class retiree, Bronlyn now feels it’s up to her to guide this useless young mother in the art of parenting children – a task she mastered in the 1970s, without one single hiccup – except for her second oldest son who went to prison for stealing cars in the late 1990s.
“Oh. She must be teething then.” says the noble mentor.
“I wonder if they have any rum in that trolley over there. You should just put a bit of that on her gums and she’ll be fine. A lot of people say you shouldn’t do that nowadays… But we didn’t have crying babies on aeroplanes when I was a young mother, that’s for sure”
Kylie, now dissociating from both her crying child and the obnoxious boomer seated next to her, continues in vain to comfort the child.
After 4 more minutes of crying, the ever-present Bronlyn has had enough.
“Oh for goodness sake. Give her here!” she scowls, while reaching for the stranger’s child.
