I’ve been catching flights and not feelings, lately. Yeah, Flights!
And on many occasions I’ve had to be in flights with almost everyone white excluding me, obviously. But it’s always a great feeling because I’ve been treated with love and respect from every white I sit with or come close to in a plane as just one of them.
There’s one thing that I do observe a lot and that’s white passengers with kids. On one of my flights, I noticed something quite interesting that makes me believe the white man always knows what they want for their kids.
The flight was almost full and everyone in was seated excluding one passenger at the window side of the seating roll of which I occupy the middle seat. So I was practically sitting in between two white women.
After a few moment of waiting, a pretty white lady comes with her hand luggage and a little boy. She is the one who has the window seat next to where I sit. Already seated in the middle, myself and the other lady made way for her to sit with her son and with my assistance because she had both the child and her luggage in a struggle.
She thanked me with a smile for the help and also apologised to me for the fact that I’d have to be dealing with a child next to me on the flight. I didn’t think that was any problem or even necessary because she bought the seat and can deicide to whether sit there alone or with a baby — but I also felt that was thoughtful.
Now after sitting and making sure both her and the baby were comfortable, she brought out her bag and pulls out a book. Written boldly on the book is ‘USBORNE PEEK INSIDE HOW A PLANE WORKS’ and right there my curiosity was asking too many questions in my head including, what will a baby who if I’m not mistaken is not even more than 3 years old be doing with such a book on board a PLANE?.
She handed the book to the baby and said, ”here, read your book” and the little baby took the book and kept flipping the pages. Inside of the book is a detailed understanding of how a plane looks like and operates with pictures. I kept stealing glances as he kept opening a page after a page, playfully.
I was so impressed but one thing that kept running through my mind was whether this little boy has a desire to be a pilot, a plane engineer or the mother is just being INTENTIONAL about what she wants the child to become in the near future?
Whichever the side of the coin is or may be, I believe there’s something we can’t take away from the whites and what they have been able to achieve with career choices for their children –and how intentional they’re about it.
You show a little interest in something as a child and there is this huge backing with not just words but practical approach to whatever it is that you want to become as a child.
Maybe, just maybe we can all be INTENTIONAL about the dreams and the aspirations of our children no matter how young they’re, just like little JAYDEN’S mum is doing for him now !
