As it was my son's first flight, I was simply delighted we weren't being offered a sock to gag him. I clarified his age and jiggled him on my lap, as if to suggest he was the kind of baby who never cried. ‘They're so beautiful at that age,' the woman said, clasping a hand to her chest, as if it held a letter from the dreamy American soldier who stole her heart.
This kind of reaction is common and, frankly, I enjoy it. I find it rewarding to channel the world's good feeling about babies into my own store of self-worth. Like the father of a child star, pocketing his offspring's acting fees under the guise of a college fund that doesn't exist, I accept my son's compliments, but secretly enjoy them for myself.
My wife is the opposite, which is unfortunate, since she constantly attracts the chatty attentions of older English people who mistake an Irish accent for a strong desire to hear about their nephew's kids. She now leaves all such chats to me, especially since she gets uncomfortable when strangers coo and fuss over the boy. I feel uncomfortable when they don't. If half a dozen people get on the train and only five collapse into gooey awe at the sight of him, I mark the sixth for death before he sits down. ‘Maybe he hasn't seen him,' I say to myself through gritted teeth, slowly tipping the pram on its back wheels, so as to angle the child's face in his direction.
‘My youngest has just gone off to college,' my neighbour explained, with just the slightest catch in her throat. ‘No one tells you how empty your house will seem after that.'
It's true. No one had told me that. Our friends and family had prepared us for long nights, cranky strops and inflated nappies. We are offered sympathetic shoulder pats and appreciative sighs, not wide-eyed, wistful envy. When I'd told a friend we were taking our eight-week-old on a plane, he gave me the pitying stare usually reserved for news of imminent eye surgery.
‘Treasure it,' my neighbour said as we took off, with a strength of feeling that strongly implied my son could leave for college at any moment. Picking up her book, she abandoned me to the inexorable reach of time's skeletal hand. I hastily resumed play on Netflix.
‘You OK, hun?' my wife asked as we disembarked the plane. ‘Yes', I said, wiping my eye. ‘I guess Air Bud: The Soccer Dog was more emotional than I remembered'.
