The Cost of Staying Sane While Lugging Two Toddlers Across The US

On a plane, all bets are off

Airplane

If ever there was a problem begging to be solved by throwing money at it, surely it’s this: maintaining the sanity of one’s self and one’s charges while transporting two toddlers cross-country in a cramped, airborne metal tube packed tight with humanity.

For my family, as for many families in America raising children far from relatives, summer is the time to visit grandparents (and aunts, and uncles, and cousins), which means summer is the time for flying with kids. And because I’m a teacher and my husband is not, I’ll be taking my children, ages 3 and 2, on the 5–6 hour flight from San Francisco to New York solo.

Now, the Internet has no shortage of opinions from people telling you how to fly with children, when to fly with children, and, most of all, not to fly with children. But one of the lesser-touted benefits of bringing two babies into your family within the span of 13 months is that you very quickly and very completely run out of fucks to give about other people’s opinions. Anyone who would like to judge me for sticking a Pull-Up on my potty-trained 3-year-old and letting him and his sister sit in their urine-engorged diapers, watching six hours of “My Little Ponies” on the back-of-the-seat screens while mindlessly scrolling through toddler apps with one lollipop-sticky hand while pounding juice boxes with the other is welcome to switch seats with me.

Boundary setting and enforcing healthy limits are important parts of parenting. But all bets are off on the airplane. Flying alone with my kids is a hostage situation: they are the terrorists, and I absolutely negotiate with them.

In fact, the pain point when flying with kids is so low, so sensitive, and so ear drum-shatteringly loud, that any frugality or even common sense I might normally possess is jettisoned even before takeoff. In other words, I will spend almost any amount of money to keep my kids occupied and quiet.

Here, to my husband’s dismay, is the final tally from our latest trip. (Counterpoint: happy two week vacation from kids, motherfucker.)

• Sending husband to Target to buy “any new crap” to keep the kids occupied: $65.68 for two coloring books with stickers, two boxes of crayons, two trains, two paperback books about airplanes, freeze-dried yogurt drops, and banana chips
• Late night run to CVS after freaking out about the reality of boarding a plane on my own at 6:00 AM with two toddlers: $18.11 on animal crackers, freeze-dried fruit, bag of Dum-Dums, plus a chocolate bar for me
• 2 cartons of milk purchased after TSA security check: about $8
• Children’s headphones x2: approximately $40. These have a permanently low volume setting to protect little kids’ ear drums. My son, immediately sensing the bullshit, ripped off the padding and said, “I like it more louder.”
• I won’t count the cost of two iPads, which were purchased before we had children and which the kids get access to only when flying, but I certainly will count The Jungle Book ($19.99), Sesame Street Elmo’s World: All About Animals ($9.99), and Peppa Pig, “The Golden Boots” ($4.99), all from iTunes.
• Toca Train ($2.99), Peekaboo Barn ($1.99), Peekaboo Forest ($1.99), Peekaboo Fridge ($1.99), and Friskies JitterBug (free), an app for cats that is the only one my daughter had any interest in.
• 2 continental breakfasts trays, 1 egg sandwich ($26.97)
• In-flight movies and entertainment: free. God bless the flight attendant who took one look at our row and comped all three of us unlimited movies and games on the in-flight entertainment system.
• 3 round-trip tickets, taxes and fees from SFO to JFK ($996.60)

Total cost of flying to grandma-and-grandpa’s: $1199.29

So there you have it. The cost of keeping my children quiet and well-behaved on a cross-country flight is about $200 worth of bullshit and $1200 all told. Still, it’s cheaper than what it cost last year, when the kids were 2 and 1: two round-trip tickets for my mother to fly with us.

Joanna Petrone lives, writes, and teaches in the Bay Area.