A question for parents

[stephbg]

On our bumpy 5 1/5hr flight from Brisbane to Perth, it was my fate to sit across the aisle from a mother, father, infant and toddler, all squeezed into 3 economy seats.



The kids ran through the usual range of kid behaviour, from angry screaming, to tired whimpering, to curious poking, and enthusiastic toy and lolly tossing. The father got to walk the aisles for a while when the toddler fell asleep across two seats. There were some protests during the enforced inactivity of turbulance.

I remember tikiwanderer writing not long ago that if you can distract other people's children on planes you would be doing them a service, but I couldn't pluck up the courage to engage in some naked hand puppet work. Parse those words carefully, people.

Later as we got off the plane I really wanted to tap the mother on the shoulder and tell her that I thought she and her partner had done a really good job of managing the kids. Not because the kids were "angels"--they most certainly were not--but that the parents had put in a consistent effort to keep them occupied and happy and I appreciated that effort. But again I lacked the courage to find the right words to express my thanks and admiration. I had smiled a few times at the mother during the flight, so perhaps that was enough.

So, my question for parents of small ones: How did I do? Should I have spoken up? Or was a bit of quiet support enough?

splanky wrote recently of bad supermarket behaviour by a rude man. I hope I did enough to distance myself from that kind of person.