Welcome to Parenthood
By Ashlee Gadd
@ashleegadd
We’re standing in the security line at the airport when I see her again, the same mom I spotted just minutes ago in the bathroom. With a baby strapped to her chest and an overflowing diaper bag hung on her arm, I watched her impressively corral a toddler with pants around his ankles into a tiny stall. I briefly considered how I might help, but previous experience has taught me that offering to hold a total stranger’s baby in the airport bathroom is typically rejected.
I am now back in line with my own tiny circus: three kids, all of our carryon luggage, and a massive stroller. A man stands behind us, young-ish, maybe 30 or so, scrolling his phone with a grey backpack slung over his shoulders. I can’t help but notice how light and free he looks standing there, completely unencumbered by sippy cups and pint-sized bags of Goldfish crackers.
Behind the man are two kids, who were—if I had to guess—maybe six and ten years old. When I see the mom from the bathroom exit with her baby and toddler, I piece together that the older kids are hers as well. She hovers outside the bathroom for a minute, juggling an overflowing diaper bag and carseat while repositioning the baby in the carrier strapped to her chest. Suddenly she has an unmistakable look on her face that only another mom could spot across a busy airport.
I know that look. I’ve had that look. The nose wrinkle, the cringe, the mix of annoyance followed by a quick calculation of what comes next.
Diaper blowout.
I watch in equal parts horror and empathy as she carefully pulls her infant out of the carrier. I see her do the dance, the shift, that familiar move where you’re trying to hold your baby in a way that doesn’t get poop all over your hands and your arms. Too late. I can see the back of the baby’s onesie is mustardy-orange, drenched.
She bends down to retrieve a fresh diaper and package of wipes from the diaper bag, and at this point I am shedding my own backpack, dropping everything in my hands. I am on high alert, ready to jump into the warzone with her, waiting for a signal. She calls out instructions to the older kids in line, who are supervising a giant pile of luggage.
“I’ll be right back! Can you grab this stuff?” she yells to them, before abandoning the diaper bag and car seat to head back into the bathroom with her toddler and poop-covered baby. I follow one of her kids over to the pile. He grabs the diaper bag; I grab the car seat.
“Thanks,” he mumbles.
“No problem,” I say, as I take my spot back in line.
I turn to the 30-something guy behind me, the one still scrolling on his phone, the one who does not seem to notice any of the chaos unfolding around us, and I say, “Excuse me? Do you want to go ahead of us in line? We’re going to help this mom and her kids get their stuff through security.”
He looks confused, as if I’m speaking a foreign language. Then he glances behind at the kids I don’t think he’s even noticed until this point.
And who can blame him?
Before I became a parent, of course I knew mothers existed everywhere, but I didn’t really see them the way I do now. I used to see mothers in the wild the way I see the world without my contact lenses: anonymous blobs blending into a blurry landscape. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to spot a mother across a busy airport handling a diaper blowout like a boss.
In times like these, I can’t help but think joining the ranks of motherhood gave me a specialized pair of glasses. I see the world differently now. Not better, not worse, just differently. I see love and pain, tragedy and humanity, my own faith and beliefs and values and priorities through an entirely new lens.
But I also just see more. Literally. Everywhere I go, I see the mothers.
We spent the last few days at Disneyland, and from the airport to the hotel to the actual theme park, I saw mothers everywhere. Mothers applying sunscreen to little faces, breastfeeding babies on park benches, pushing strollers back and forth in a rhythmic motion, desperately trying to get their toddlers to sleep. I watched mothers changing diapers in the bathrooms, mothers opening applesauce pouches, mothers handing ice cream cones to grabby, grateful hands.
Halfway through our first day at the park, we finally found a restaurant with an open table, and just as we were getting settled into the chairs, I spotted a pacifier on the ground several feet from where we were sitting. Ten years ago, I don’t even think I would have seen it, let alone picked it up.
But this little paci, let me tell you. I felt immediate dread and palpable panic for those parents. My first two kids didn’t take a pacifier, but my third baby did (does, please don’t tell the dentist), and we’d be lost without it while traveling. Just ask my husband, who spent far too much money on a taxi ride last summer and almost missed a flight making an emergency trip back to the hotel to retrieve ours.
Remembering this, I grabbed the pacifier, and handed it to one of the restaurant servers.
“Do you guys have a lost and found here?” I asked.
He looked at the pacifier and then back at me, waiting for the punchline.
“I know,” I smiled, “This sounds totally crazy, but … some parent might come back looking for this.”
The server shrugged, took the tiny pacifier from my hand, and vanished into the restaurant. I’m not sure if anyone ever came back to claim it, but I like to think I did my part as a fellow parent.
Back in line at the airport, the guy with the backpack switches spots with us, so we are now standing directly in front of the kids with the mountain of luggage. He can’t help but crack a joke about us having our hands full.
I hold up a bunch of stuff in my hands—backpack, purse, water bottle, Cinderella doll, and joke back, “Welcome to parenthood!”
As we continue moving up in the security line, my husband handles our stuff while I turn around every so often and help the kids shuffle their luggage forward. The guy with the grey backpack, who is now in front of us, turns around a handful of times with curiosity.
Eventually the mom reappears, freshly changed baby and toddler in tow, and joins her kids with All The Things. I see her do that quick mental checklist—diapers, snacks, wipes—making sure they have access to everything they need.
“Hey you know what?” the guy with the backpack says to me, as if he’s suddenly had a huge epiphany, “You all go ahead of me. I can help her with that stuff.”
“Oh we really don’t mind,” I tell him.
“No, I want to. I can help,” he insists, stepping back behind us in line.
There’s a brief pause. A moment for us all to resettle and shuffle our luggage a few inches forward.
And then the guy leans forward and says, “I’m actually expecting my first baby in September.”
My eyes widen. I smile, offer him a genuine, “Congratulations!” Welcome to the club, sir. You’ll never walk through an airport the same way again.
Ashlee Gadd is a wife, mother of three, believer, and the founder of Coffee + Crumbs. When she's not working or vacuuming Cheerios out of the carpet, she loves making friends on the Internet, eating cereal for dinner, and rearranging bookshelves. She’s desperately trying to make blogging cool again. Sign up for her newsletter here.