Ask any parent they will tell you, is going to be difficult sometimes when you have a child by your side. Although parents would never give up the responsibilities and there is a lot of joy that goes along with raising children, it can also be frustrating when your toddler decides that they have had enough and has a genuine meltdown in a public area. It can be disastrous, not only for the toddler, who really is just getting their way at that point but for the parents, who have to stand there and deal with the situation, often unsuccessfully.
One young mother realized how difficult it could be when her small child decided to have a meltdown at the airport. Not only was she dealing with a child out of control, but she was also pregnant and traveling. As you can imagine, things were not going well but that is when Beth Dunnington, along with a group of total strangers decided to step up and help.
Dunnington is a mother from Hawaii and she just happened to be at the same airport waiting for a flight to Portland from Los Angeles. They were sharing the same boarding area and the pregnant mother was not blending in well. Dunnington wrote: “A toddler who looked to be eighteen or so months old was having a total meltdown, running between the seats, kicking and screaming, then lying on the ground, [and] refusing to board the plane.”
She also recognized that the mother was ‘clearly pregnant’ and overwhelmed because she didn’t know what to do. “She couldn’t pick him up because he was so upset, he kept running away from her, then lying down on the ground, kicking and screaming again,” she wrote. “The mother finally sat down on the floor and put her head in her hands, with her kid next to her still having a meltdown, and started crying.”
Things really started getting ugly as the mother and child were both on the terminal floor, crying. “… (I’m crying just writing this) … the women in the terminal, there must have been six or seven of us, not women who knew each other, approached and surrounded her and the little boy and we knelt down and formed a circle around them,” she wrote.
All of the strangers recognized the fact that the mother needed help so they came together to help in an amazing way. Dunnington began singing The Itsy-Bitsy Spider while the other woman peeled an orange for him. Another one took a toy out of her bag and yet another woman gave the mother a bottle of water and helped her to get the boy’s sippy cup ready.
“It was so gorgeous, there was no discussion and no one knew anyone else, but we were able to calm them both down, and she got her child on the plane,” she wrote. “Only women approached.”
After the mother and child boarded the flight successfully, the group of strangers went back to their seat and didn’t say a word about it. Dunnington said: “We were strangers, gathering to solve something. It occurred to me that a circle of women, with a mission, can save the world. I will never forget that moment.”