Babes On A Plane: How One Woman's Act Of Kindness Reminded Us All To Do Better

A mother and her baby girl sit in a passenger airline seat, the sun shining brightly in through the plane window. While air travel with children can be difficult, both mom and child are content, the mother with a smile on her face. Horizontal image. INTENTIONAL LENS FLARE.

Can we get a slow clap for Kesha Bernard, please?

Kesha’s story went viral last week when she stepped in to help a mom whose baby was crying on a recent flight from Seattle. Although she was travelling without her own two toddlers, and while everyone around her bitched and moaned about the noise, Kesha volunteered to hold the baby herself because, as she wrote in her Facebook post, “it takes a village.”

Yes Kesha, it does take a village, and good on you for stepping up. Most of us who are raising children believe there’s a special place in hell for moms who don’t help other moms, especially when it comes to public meltdowns.

I’ll admit, I used to be one of those assholes who’d look at kids acting up on planes and in restaurants and wonder why the parents couldn’t control their offspring. Then, a full-on “I’ll do whatever I want, whenever I want because I’m my own person and you’re not the boss of me” child entered my life. And that’s when I finally got it: kids are actual human beings, not little robots who, with stellar parenting and proper discipline, will follow every rule with a Labrador Retriever’s enthusiasm and desire to please. Kids have moods, needs and a desire to express themselves just like we do. When they’re hungry, uncomfortable, pissed off or sitting in their own poop they get cranky, just like we do.

Radical concept, huh?