So I went to Philadelphia for two days with Stella. My professional organization's big meeting was there, and I was supposed to present but I wasn't quite ready to leave town without my little girl. I found a college-aged babysitter through a La Leche League friend-of-a-friend (all hail the Old Boobs Network), and cajoled a grad student I actually knew into being my backup during my session just in case the unknown babysitter didn't work out, and off we went.
She did as well as you could possibly expect a not-quite-23-month-old to do under the circumstances, but it was a relief to head home. We were boarding the plane in Philly, along with several other mothers traveling alone with little children, when a sneering pronouncement from behind caught my ear:
"God, I hope these kids go to sleep. There's nothing more annoying than kid noise." Her companion agreed: "Yeah, I know."
Nothing?? Nothing more annoying than kid noise?? In a world that includes dengue fever, sewers that back up into people's basements, horseflies, the My Humps song, and Big Mouth Billy Bass, the thing you find most annoying is kid noise? Because -- whoa.
A partial list of things more annoying than kid noise (want to add your own in comments? go crazy): PMS. Lemon meringue pie filling that has been dyed neon yellow. Mud tracked on freshly cleaned floors. The Superbowl. Pokemon movies. Library fines. Bounced checks. Chitchat in movie theaters. Oh!! People who take phone calls while in the audience at a conference presentation!! (The rudeness!!) My own absent-mindedness. Stockings that run the first time you put them on. Unannounced reformulations of the few products to which I have fierce brand loyalty. Bloviating politicians.
I get it that some kids out there are terrible travelers. I get it that some parents are lax disciplinarians. And I get it, I really do, that my 14-year immersion in kid noise might leave me with less empathy for people who are seriously bothered by noisy toddlers.
BUT STILL. These women were SLPs returning from the same convention I'd just attended, and you'd think they of all people ought to know: it takes a long time to learn to say, "Mom, I'm bored and uncomfortable. Could you help me find a distraction?" So sometimes toddlers might squawk instead. You can't become an SLP without learning that communication and self-regulation are complex skills, and that's why toddlers are still working on acquiring them.
I thought to myself, "They must work with adults." But working with adults shows you every day that the human frame is fragile. It doesn't take a lot of self-awareness to realize that thirty years from now, when you have your stroke or your basal ganglia circuits are shorted out by Parkinson's, the people who will take care of you are those same kids you're so hostile towards today. How about a little bread on the waters, ladies?
I have been thinking over my reaction to their exchange, mindful of that plank in my eye. (In the moment I said nothing. I turned around, with Stella sitting on my hip (silently, TYVM) and my poster tube in my hand, and looked at them with a look that meant, "Wow, did you really just say that while standing next to a colleague who is also the mother of a toddler?" After I turned back around one of them said lamely, "Well, it's true.") It's possible that I feel unreasonably entitled because I have children who've been known to make noise. It's possible that they're voicing a majority opinion and I'm the weird one here.
But you know, I'm not looking for special treatment for my family. I think all kids deserve compassion from the adults around them, from strangers as well as friends and family. I'm still seeing the face of the little boy who was crying on that flight -- he was traveling with an ear infection and he was in terrible pain. An adult might suffer in silence; most kids can't. In my view their limited capacities mean that they need more kindness, more understanding -- not less.
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