Pain, Agony, Despair: Flying With Children - New York Times

Pain, Agony, Despair: Flying With Children - New York Times: "Op-Ed Columnist
Pain, Agony, Despair: Flying With Children

Editors Note:
If you read this you may break a rib from laughing so hard....


By DAVID BROOKS
Published: July 24, 2005

It's summertime, which means many people these days are flying with children, an experience that can be enriching and exciting, and is followed by memories that linger even after the shell shock, nightmares and trauma-induced facial tics have faded away.
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Any airplane trip with children begins before boarding in the airport gate area, where the parents, dreading the next four hours of high-altitude agony, will be laying down a bed of psychic tension that will be the karmic foundation for everything that is to come. They will be coaching their children on how to behave, spreading maniacally upbeat good cheer and exuding the waves of anxiety that are almost clinically certain to produce a toddler meltdown."