In a day or two I will be off to Kilimanjaro, then Durban, Cape Town, and finally home to Indiana. It’s a long trip – three weeks.
Having travelled a lot with my sons as babies and then as children and teenagers, it is when I am flying (alone) that I often miss them the most.
When they were babies fellow passengers, who, under most circumstances will mind their own business, forget this social norm when it comes to babies.
They express disbelief that a man can care for a baby, alone that is.
I quickly became accustomed to conversations that arose from sheer surprise that I, a man, was traveling alone with a baby.
Some revealed sincere interest.
Others were inquisitive or suspicious.
I had to repeatedly remind myself that Thulani (my first-born son) and I were challenging “the way things are” in different nations when it comes to babies, childcare, adoption, especially single parent adoption.
Passengers tell you what kind of people they are, by how they respond to babies on an aircraft.
As the parent you have to make a decision about how you will respond to negative responses.
The occasional businessman will hurrumph at the idea of being near a baby on a flight (most especially on rare occasions we were upgraded to business class).
In my book he was declaring what kind of man, father, grandfather, he really is.
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