Jordan Watson

‘‘It’s my turn on the iPad!’’ ‘‘No, I’m still colouring in Peppa Pig!’’ As my two big kids scream across the aisle, I’m wedged in my chair wrestling with a wriggly 14-month-old.

Nala is at the age where she can’t sit still. Her brain has connected to her feet, and it’s telling them to run across the meadows. Or under passengers’ seats.

Luckily for me, she is attached to one of those baby belt buckles and she’s using it as an abseiling harness as she squirms and stretches in an attempt to get her toes to touch the ground.

On a loop, for the entire flight, she wriggles and squishes on my lap as if she wants to be born again – until the belt has nothing more to give.

Her escape plan fails and her toes are a tantalising two inches from the floor.

Freedom – almost. She lets out a short, sharp squeal of anger, disappointment and maybe hunger. The whole plane hears it.

I pick her up – and she starts the whole wriggling process again.

Ah, the joys of flying with kids.

I unclip her and force her over to the wife’s side of the aisle. ‘‘Your turn,’’ I say.

‘‘No thanks,’’ is the sharp reply as the wife pretends she is busy preparing food out of the baby bag. The baby just ate.

Only one hour to go, we’ll be all right . . .

The above few paragraphs would make some parents nervous; non-parents cringe; grandparents chuckle and flight attendants roll their eyes and mutter ‘‘Here we go again’’.

Well, bugger them. Planes are not private Ubers. Flying does not provide a quiet home in the sky. It is public transport, just like an everyday bus with wings (in fact, I’m pretty sure that’s what our Jetstar plane was – a retired bus with wings).

Yes, horror stories do pop up in the news a few times a only one of them is allowed to look out of that particular window and you better not dare look out that window!

Again, we will do our best to calm the situation.

Sometimes, just sometimes, s... hits the propellers. Bugger it. If you’re a parent flying with young kids or babies, you do you. Go with it and don’t take a second glance at the eye-rolls, frowns, glares and yells of ‘‘hey, shut those kids up!’’.

Take a breath and do your best. This is not their plane – it belongs to everyone, and you just paid a crap load for those flying bus seats.

You’re here now, you can’t just hop off at the next stop, because that is three hours away. Embrace it, own it, offer it lollies if it will stay quiet for three hours.

And you know old grumpy, glaring Gayle in Row D – well, science has invented a thing called noise-cancelling headphones and those people can always invest in a pair.

Actually, it might be great for us parents too.

Flying does not provide a quiet home in the sky. It is public transport, just like an everyday bus with wings.