Childcare at 35,000 feet

When I first flew with Greenleigh, a friend warned me about the “don’t sit by me stare”.  That is the look you receive when you walk on an airplane with a child under the age of 4.  As you enter the aircraft you can feel all the eyes on you, watching your every step.  Praying, begging, pleading that you continue by their row.  Going through their heads is a chorus of, “don’t sit by me, don’t sit by me, don’t sit by me”.  As you walk past each individual row you can actually hear the sighs of relief from the passengers in the rows behind you.  When you finally find your seats and the “lucky winner” that you are sitting next to, you see the disappointment on their face.  Don’t get me wrong, normally they are polite and put on a strong front, but through the feigned smile and story about how they have a niece/nephew they see every now and again, you can see their grief.  No matter how cute the kid is (and believe me, my kids are absolutely adorable), you don’t necessarily want to be sitting next to them in a confined space for a 6 hour, red-eye flight.  And as parent you understand, because you weren’t always a parent, and not so long ago had given that very same stare yourself.

I started thinking about this over the weekend because I need to start the frantic scramble to get both girls ready to fly to Atlanta for Labor Day weekend.  This will be our first flight with both kids.  My husband booked the tickets, simply because I couldn’t bear to see that much money leave our bank account all at one time.  Greenleigh is now at the age where we are required to purchase a seat for her as well, and flights for a holiday weekend are not cheap.  Six hundred dollars later we were ready to go.  Except one problem – we were all put in different rows, scattered all over the plane.  In center seats.  Apparently someone at Delta Airlines has a sense of humor.  We had entered Greenleigh’s date of birth properly, so surely they know that she is 2 years old.  Surely, even the computer program must recognize this.  I asked him if we needed to pay more to avoid this, but then I thought “Forget that!  Six hundred dollars for tickets AND they are still going to nickel and dime us for bags and snacks and whatever else they can, why would I ever pay more?”  I also decided that perhaps there was a free child care aspect to this scenario that I was overlooking.

So lets all imagine for a moment:  We walk on the plane with our two kids.  The passengers already seated in the cabin take note of this.  We walk through the rows, dodging the don’t sit by me stare at every row.  Finally we reach her row.  We introduce ourselves to the kind people in the seats on either side of Greenleigh’s seat.  I get her seat-belted in  and start her dvd player with The Best of Elmo, then proceed to walk away to find my own seat several rows away.  Can you even imagine the “WTF?!?” look that person would be sporting as I walked away?  Do you want to take bets on how quickly there would be offers to switch seats with me?  No question someone would give me their highly coveted (and expensive) window seat to prevent this scenario from occurring.  But think of all I could do during that flight – I could read without getting stepped on/crawled over, I could have a drink on my tray table without the risk of it being knocked over for no reason at all, maybe I could even take a nap if Hazeline falls sleep…the possibilities are endless.  Let someone else worry about prying the dvd player out of Greenleigh’s hands to turn it off for take off and landing or cleaning her up after she has dropped a cup of apple juice all over her because she is sure she can drink from a cup and doesn’t need her sippy.

Free childcare at 35,000 feet?  Better yet, someone is actually paying for a seat where they are taking care of my child for me?  Awesome idea, Delta.  Love it.