Friday, September 14, 2007

Baby Luggage

After looking at today’s For Better or For Worse, all I can say is “Thank God my kids are older now.” I remember the days when half the luggage was taken up with baby supplies. My memories are a little different from Lynn Johnston’s because I came from an age where people shared advice on traveling with small children which I guess they didn’t share back in the days of Elly Patterson. For example, the idea of asking for the bulkhead seats so you have room on the floor for the kids to move around a little during the flight without bothering other people, or feeding the child during the takeoff and landing to minimize ear irritation, or even special earplugs you can get from an audiologist which are designed to protect your ears from airplane pressure changes while still allowing you to hear, or the practice of reserving the innermost and outermost seats in a row with the hope that the flight will not be full, and you can get the middle seat for your < 2-year-old lap sitter for free. There is a fine art to traveling with an infant.

When my family traveled by plane and my kids were that age, the 2 carry-on bags for the kids were enormous. This was because you could never tell when an airport delay might mean sitting with your unchecked baggage in an airport for hours and hours with a tiny infant. We wanted to make sure we had enough changes of clothing, and diapers, all the different kinds of things required for baby maintenance. I remember one particularly long airline delay where my wife and I started to panic because our boy was a soy formula baby (screamed bloody murder for hours if he drank any milk-based formula) and we came very close to running out of food for him.

The two carry-on bags had big straps on them and I would put one over my head and over each shoulder, so they balanced on either side of my body. This left 2 hands free for the car seats, which we carried on the plane with us, as they were required by law in airplanes at the time. Because of the lifting and carrying required, my wife never took a trip on an airplane with both kids by herself. Now my kids each have their own suitcases they pack themselves, they can pull on its wheels, and they are quite cute pulling them around an airport.

As for picking up luggage, no man in my family would ever…ever…leave the mother to carry all the rest of the baby luggage by herself. That simply was not done. If Grandpa Jim was in my family, we would have words.

8 Comments:

Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

This is what we want to get better? This mess who's too big a dick to carry some, if not all, of the baby's things? What's he worried about? That he won't look like a real man if he carries a stroller? If so, the joke's on him: by leaving an obviously tired young woman burdened with all that so he can strut around unencumbered, he looks like a callous fool.

4:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I will have to say that back in the early eighties (when my kids were small) there wasn't a lot of things that could be done like there is now. One reason, I think, was that flying was much more of a "luxury" back then; it was always cheaper to drive.

Of course now, with the costs of motels, gas, etc. and general lack of time, flying is ususally just as cheap if not cheaper.

But, of yes, no man of Jim's generation would EVER leave a woman carrying a bag.

DJ

8:09 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

That's right, DJ, he wouldn't. A man of that generation would be the one struggling for two reasons. First, he'd take the bags right outta his daughter's hands no matter what she said she wanted 'cause, even though she's a mother herself, she'll always sort of be his little girl. Second, he'd be too cheap to pay the skycap.

8:45 AM  
Blogger howard said...

DJ,

I think it was back in the early 1980s, my family started to get in the habit of flying instead of driving. I moved from North Carolina to Texas in 1984, and anyone coming out to visit me usually flew. But when I was growing up, we never flew. Someone who lived far away got a visit very rarely, and it was a big ordeal when we went. These days, we fly from Arizona to North Carolina to visit almost 2 times a year, and the flight is significantly cheaper than it would be to drive 3 days across the continent.

These days, we usually drive from Arizona to Texas to visit my wife’s relatives and this last summer, when the gas prices went skyrocketing up, we had to seriously consider flying as the cheaper alternative even for what is just driving all day, with no hotel stays.

8:59 AM  
Blogger howard said...

DreadedCandiru2,

Too cheap to pay the skycap “Not too cheap. Why would a healthy man ever pay a skycap to do what he can do with his own two arms? That’s not cheap. That’s a waste of money.” Thanks for that comment. It brought back memories. :)

I think the joke back in the early 1980s was that the newfangled mothers carried too much baby stuff with them. Considering Grandpa Jim is doing exactly what Grandma Marian told him, he may be portrayed as less callous fool than henpecked fool. It will be interesting to how many of the old Grandma Marian / Grandpa Jim strips Lynn picks for the hybrid which cast Grandpa Jim in the henpecked role.

That being said, even the most henpecked man of that generation would not be the one carrying the baby from the airport.

9:09 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

I can see where you're coming from: "There goes dopey old Jim, leaving his kid in the lurch because he's too stupid to question his wife." Why, he's a larval Wilfred Sobinski, isn't he? She loves the old henpecked idiot hubby gag. Wilf, Blandthony, Jim? All going "Yes, Dear!" to a meat-axe. Ha-bloody-ha!

9:49 AM  
Blogger howard said...

dreadedcandiru2,

Aside from Michael Patterson, there are few male characters in For Better or For Worse who successfully disagree with their wives. In fact, I was quite surprised when John Patterson managed to convince Elly to move in the Stibbs' house this year. It was his first victory in a long time with Elly.

3:12 PM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

That victory comes from our hero knowing his opponent well enough to realize how best to best her: by bribing her. It seems somewhat foolhardy to buy a new house and furniture when their circumstances seem about to straiten but no one ever said the Pattersons had much in the way of foresight.

3:44 PM  

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