This is where it begins. Thousands of miles above the Pacific on a blue-skied day.
There are five of us, two adults, three children under 6, buckled in, wired for sound, and hurtling away from Melbourne toward a new life in Vancouver.
We are in economy: a curious experiment in human endurance. A space with its own rules, its own cocktail of air-borne diseases, and thrumming with a mutinous subcurrent by journey’s end.
An interesting phenomenon takes hold in the economy cabins of modern-day aircrafts. As ‘civilised’ as we claim to be, an anthropological undoing begins to take place as the hours tick by. We begin the flight respecting each other’s personal space, smiling courteously, making polite conversation, apologizing gently should our arm accidentally brush the arm of our neighbour on the no-man’s land of the armrest. We wait patiently for our meals and our turn in the toilet, and even begin to lovingly nest our personal belongings – creating a small and homely environment for ourselves that consists of one upright chair, an armrest, a vomit bag, and a mesh pocket.
Eight hours in, things are looking a little different. Tensions within the cabin are rising. The weak-bladdered are openly victimised as they excuse themselves yet again to push past their hostile neighbours to the toilet. Body odour begins to cross aisles and flare nostrils. Children fidget and squeal. The loud-voiced irritate the ear-drums. Sleepers who snore or suffer cranial lolling are shoved back into line. Jovial headset hummers are quickly silenced by reproachful glares. This is no place for happiness. This is limbo. Watch as the arm-rest transforms into No Man’s Land, occupied by both sides intermittently, fiercely held, then taken over by a quick insurgency during a toilet break.
The flight attendants are oblivious to the seated war, and coast the aisles like valium-fulled automatons, weak smiles, glassy eyes, dishing out water, sweeping away trays – giving us nothing human as we reach out for salvation. They arm themselves with trolleys – distant, unreachable, fleeting – then they are gone, to barricade themselves in the kitchen and conspire.
Meanwhile, we passengers begin to twitch and shiver as stomachs expand, the air con goes up, the lights go down and the cabin closes in around us. The hardcore plough through another meal, another movie – a mile-high mission. The well-traveled know that the coma of sleep is the only way to endure the hours, so don protective eye masks and assume an upright trance. The bookish get lost in the world of words between their hands. But for those of us with children, there is no escape. We know the time of darkness has come, and we sit in the half-light, trapped by the fact of our offspring, with nowhere to turn but inward.
Children and long-haul flights are an explosive mix – you can only fly for so long before the ante ups. Unlike most adults, very little children don’t want to wait for meals – they want to eat when they’re hungry. Very little children don’t know how to control their sphincters – they will go when they go, on the seat, in their pants, if they want to. And very little children don’t want to go to sleep even in their own beds, let alone when they’re upright, and when some arbitrary crossed time-zone sees the cabin lights suddenly dim and everyone around them assume sleeping pose. Children can see the absurdity of the airborne world. And they resist it with a vehemence.
This translates to screaming, yelling, hitting, seatbelt refusal, urinating, absconding into the aisles, spitting, intruding on the seat space of other passengers, sobbing, pinching, screaming, defecating, wailing, whingeing, hitting, yelling, sobbing ad infinitum.
A curious fact of airborne humanity – there is no sympathy, not one ounce, afforded to the parent of an exhausted child. The child – and their discordant symphony of sound, mind-blowingly intense in such a small space – is regarded as an evil being, an abberration, and the parent the evil master. If you try to meet a fellow passenger’s eye during the possessed child’s theatrics, they will look away. Either that, or they will fiercely eyeball you, channelling hatred and intolerance via iris transmission.
Save your energy. Don’t get angry. Tolerance is the tonic. Economy flights are tough for adults, but for little children with energy to burn and scant self-control, it is excruciating. So if the children on board are really bothering you, take action – do something nonviolent. Why not offer your help? Try and entertain them? Give the parents some acknowledgement – a look, a smile, a word or two that shows you understand – that they are little children – and it’s ok. Exercise your own self-control – distract yourself. Contemplate your anger. Compliment your neighour. Eat something. Enjoy your autonomy. Get lost in a movie. Laugh. And remember that, like all things, the moment will pass. Because you can rest assured that the parents, let alone their children, will be having a far worse time of it than you.
The fact is, although closely animal in their displays, children cannot travel in the hold. They are part of humanity, and in Economy, we humans are all in it together. That’s what you pay for – a usually safe, usually shit, journey to your destination. As the world gets smaller, and air travel becomes less of an adventure for the rich and a mere means of getting from A to B for the middleclass, like it or not, more and more children and babies will be airborne. And like it or not, children will continue to be seen and loudly heard on long-haul flights. Let’s hope we can evolve enough to make Economy a place for all.
