My latest plan to revolutionise the world we live in was inspired largely by the ryanair flight (through hades) I endured at the weekend.
Admittedly the flight itself was fine, with the notable exception of the sleazy creeps at the back of the plane who, as members of a number of golf clubs, felt it was their god given right to openly and actively harass the air hostess throughout.
As we started our descent into Dublin, a young girl (around ten years old) sitting in the row ahead of me (and on the far side of the plane) started getting very upset. My guess at this point was an ear-poppage issue given that kids tend to be more susceptible to that kind of thing. But she got more and more upset, and the whimpering turned to crying, and eventually to outbursts of “Mammy I’m not well”.
So far, so standard.
Mammy’s response did, however, leave more than a little to be desired.
Says she, parent of none, etc. I’m sure there are regulations against questioning anyone’s parenting skills when your own are yet to be stretched to their limits, but in the full and frank knowledge that no doubt I will ruin my own children’s lives in a hundred or more ways, I have to say that if I ever did the following I would have to actively request that my children be removed from my care.
Mammy turns to daughter and says “for god’s sake would you shut up”
To a ten year old. Who is feeling increasingly sick, probably on her second ever flight, and who really needs someone to tell her it will all be okay.
Daughter gets more hysterical when ‘mammy’ persists in what is presumably a ‘tough love’ tactic. Which then begins to include smacking for good measure.
The highlight was when the poor créatúr, at this point having emptied her guts into a selection of quality Ryanair sickbags, replaced her cries of “Mammy I don’t feel well” to “Please mammy stop screaming at me”.
Where do you look? Whatever about random frazzled parents in shopping centres who snap when they just can’t take it anymore, when you’re all stuck in a small confined space for another forty minutes, what are the other few hundred people supposed to say (to each other?) while mammy dearest does the worst job imaginable of comforting a child?
Which leads me to my scheme: A nice little 1890 number, ‘How’s my parenting?’. Because really, who has social services on speed dial?
I’m thinking something like the bumper stickers you see all over North America…
It may not be a particularly practical plan, but there must be some merit in the concept of saying “Seriously lady, just give the poor girl a hug”. It’s not like us Irish are the type to interfere and say that to the woman’s face…
