Kindness Is Giving a Toddler Your BlackBerry

Upon boarding my flight to Dubai the other week a young Norwegian woman carrying an 18-month-old (give or take) came up to my row and asked the man sitting on my right if he'd be willing to switch seats. We were sitting in the first row where the bassinets fit and her seat was a few rows back.

When the man began huffing I offered her my seat if she or the man didn't mind sitting in the middle.

"No, no I don't want to sit in the middle. I'll go," was the grumpy man's immediate reaction to finding he'd be seated next to a sniffling little boy for 4 hours.

Of course, the little one proceeds to fidget and wail as we wait to take-off. He was obviously exhausted and uncomfortable. I would be to if I were being strapped into my mother's lap in a loud cramped space filled with strangers. He still had a long way to travel. They were going to India for a wedding.

I happen to have an application on my BlackBerry called BabyGO! which turns your phone into a talking, visually stimulating ABC-learning device. It locks the phone and switches the radio off to allow the child to hit the buttons to his or her heart's content. Each button's corresponding letter pops up on the screen as a letter block and is sounded out by a child's voice. The spacebar, symbol, alt and other keys make a BOING sound that even has this university graduate in stitches.

So I hold the phone up to the kid and convince him to hit the spacebar button. That proved to be quite a task considering he didn't understand a word of English. Once he got the gist he really had a ball with the application - much to the chagrin of everyone else on the plane who had to endure the likes of "A, F, T, Y" and BOING playing on and on. However, I think that beats a screaming toddler any day. Count your blessings!

He fell asleep soon after anyway and didn't budge till we were approaching Dubai airport. I can only imagine the trouble he must have caused on the flight to India after a nap like that.

This little incident makes me wonder what happened to the kindness we were taught growing up. The man on my right only gave up his seat when faced with the option of sitting next to the child. The man on my left repeatedly voiced his surprise at how kind I was to volunteer my seat and occupy the boy. This surprise shouldn't be the natural reaction to an act of courtesy. My willingness to help his frazzled mother out should be everyone's immediate instinct - be it a young woman or a middle-aged man.

I noticed that no one helped people with heavy luggage. No one waited for the man in the wheelchair to reach the terminal; the man had to be let off last instead. Patience, courtesy and acts of kindness have become increasingly rare. I notice it in myself as well. I may still be more patient and willing to help than others, but the instinct to be of assistance is steadily waning. We have become a Me First species; in Egypt we seem to be devolving further into ME ONLY.

It saddens me to think of what is in store for the children to come. Who will offer them their version of a BlackBerry when they're stuck on a long flight?