To the mother of the baby screaming in aeroplane seat 17C.

To the mother of the baby screaming in seat 17C,

Did you see me look at you?

Did you notice my gaze?

Was I just another face in a sea of passengers turning towards you as you struggled, breathless, glassy-eyed, helpless?

Do you remember me when we boarded the plane.. I stood behind you with my three kids and my four-year-old smiled at your tiny baby wrapped up like a parcel in his baby carrier. She reached out to touch his tiny foot but you didn’t have time to acknowledge her as your little boy began to cry and your face fell as your worst fears about the long flight ahead came crashing down.

You glanced around then frantically seeking out who was shaking their heads and narrowing their eyes, you searched the lines of passengers for who was furtively whispering amongst themselves about babies and planes and how-could-she?

I remember the panic in your eyes.

And now as I sit a row behind you with my three kids - all old enough to submerse themselves in a screen for the duration of a flight -I can’t help but notice you as the flight evens out in the skies.

We all can’t help but notice you.

You sit, you shuffle in your seat, as the seatbelt sign dims you are up shifting your baby from one shoulder to another, patting, muttering, trying to soothe and all the while I see you glancing around at us.

Are you wondering what we think?

What judgment we are casting on you? Are you wondering just what the hell we are thinking about you? What we are muttering about your red-faced screaming baby? Wondering why you are alone?

Yes, many of us watch you. Watch you pace the aisles rocking and singing to your baby. Struggling with nappy bags and waiting in queues for bathrooms. Searching for dummies and bottles and trying desperately to cover yourself up while you shift your baby from one breast to another.

You glanced at me at that stage and our eyes met and before I could really try to let you know what I was thinking, in a millisecond your baby let out another wail and you looked away.

Well this is what I think – this is what most of the other parents on this plane think:

It’s okay. Don’t worry about us. We aren’t looking because we judge you,  we aren’t looking because we judge your baby. We are looking because we remember what it was like to be you.

We remember the overwhelming responsibility of being in a small contained space and the suffocation of calming and caring for this creature being just on you. You.

I remember the build up to travelling, the hours of goggling tips and tricks.. travelling alone with a baby. The anxiety about how to get through it, the seemingly endless comments on social media decreeing babies on planes and calling for child-free zones.

I remember being terrified of disturbing the peace of others and inducing their hatred and scorn.

I remember being you with a baby not much older than yours and hiding in an airline toilet just hoping to give my fellow passengers a few minute’s peace.

What you need to know if this, what I wish I knew back then is this: you have as much right as the rest of us on this flight.

Your baby has as much right as the rest of us on this flight.

While you are doing everything humanly possibly to shush your little one sometimes you just can’t, eight hours will seem like an eternity. But don’t make it worse on yourself by wondering what the rest of us think. You’d be hard pressed to find any of us that didn’t know babies cry – especially on planes -  and only the bitterest and most twisted of us are judging you for that.

We aren't tutting, we are smiling and trying to catch your gaze. So look up and know that that is what we are thinking.