Kesha Bernard has traveled solo with her babies and realizes it can be completely challenging, if not downright hellish. That's why the 25-year-old mom from Savannah, Georgia, knew exactly what she had to do when she saw another mom facing every parent's worst air travel nightmare. In a now-viral Facebook post, Bernard shared how she came to another mom's rescue on a recent Alaska Airlines flight out of Seattle.
"Here I am on vacation away from my kids (who I absolutely love to death but sometimes you need a break from toddlers) and I'm flying with an infant on my lap," Bernard, a professional photographer, started her post, which features a shot from her perspective of her thighs and a baby's legs.
More from CafeMom: Doctor in Labor Jumps in to Help Another Mom Deliver a Baby in Distress
Bernard goes on to explain that she was on a "fully packed plane" when another woman's baby AND toddler started crying. As the mom of a 3- and 4-year-old herself, she said she's "totally used to crying and whining" and is able to tune it out. But other passengers weren't nearly as patient.
She heard a woman complaining to the mom that the toddler needed to stop kicking her seat. "THEN I hear the mother say 'she's 3, I can't believe you just did that,'" Bernard wrote. "Apparently, the lady reached behind her and grabbed the child's leg."
According to Bernard's account of the tense moment, the flight attendant didn't take action, one grown woman actually put her hands over her ears, and older men around her were wagging their tongues that the mom's "way of discipline isn't working."
Fifteen minutes went by, during which Bernard hoped someone closer to the desperate toddler mom might lend her a hand. "Because I'm surrounded by caring adults, right? Wrong," she wrote. "I turn around to see people mumbling and staring at this mother with her THREE kids ALONE … A screaming toddler/crying baby/and a very well behaved older child."
Ugh, what a nightmare for this poor mother!
Bernard recognized exactly what this other mom was going through and decided she needed to intervene. "Being a decent human being, I couldn't take letting this mother drown back there," she wrote. "And let me tell you, she was being so freaking calm you guys. Like I would have already been crying, but she was doing so good. I get up out of my seat, go a few rows back and go ask her if she needs help. She immediately handed me her baby. This lady was like HOLY HELL YESSSSSSSS!"
Bernard went back to her seat for takeoff, holding the woman's LO, and the crying immediately stopped. Moral of the story? "Be nice and considerate!" the mom of two wrote. "If someone needs help for God's sake, HELP THEM."
In the moment, Bernard tells CafeMom, she was stunned no one was helping this mom. "I honestly couldn't believe that I was the only one out of hundreds of people," Bernard says. "I could tell she needed help. I've been in that situation, and I know exactly what she must have been feeling. It's not a good feeling. I had to fly alone with my babies before … I know what it feels like to have a crying baby on a plane with nowhere to go."
More from CafeMom: 10 Tricks for Traveling by Plane With Toddlers
She says she wanted to share the story on Facebook because she was "just so disappointed and upset by the whole situation."
The other mom was, of course, extremely grateful to Bernard. "She just thanked me," she shares. "And one of the men that had made a comment earlier during the flight told me it was a very good thing that I did." To say the least!
Now, Bernard is happy knowing that "people are getting a positive message from it." Thank goodness for that. As she wrote on Facebook, "Please be kind. Please be considerate. Help one another … It makes everything easier." And really, as evidenced by this mama's awesome actions, it's not at all hard.
