Live in the moment, this moment, your moment. That is by far and without meaningful rival The Best Position to put yourself in to discover and delight in who your children turn out to be, whoever they turn out to be.
If you take the time to listen to an upset child's story with empathy, and guide the child toward figuring out the root of the problem, then the result is often that the child not only calms down, but also in the future is less likely to get so upset.
I realize that people fly with small children all the time, and that babies are easier in some ways because all they do is sit/lie around anyway, but damn it's hard to keep a baby comfortable on any flight, much less a long one, particularly amid the looks of horror they will get from fellow passengers as it dawns on them that their 10- to 13-hour flight might come with a soundtrack of screaming baby.
For me, the greatest source of frustration was trying to work with a willful child when there was something else I wanted - say, to get the child to go to bed so I could have my own time. Just the promise of the time, and feeling that promise slip away, was enough to introduce a whole other element of stress into the encounter.
I have no quarrel with people who lack the skill or temperament to care for small children.
The sudden death of a partner while expecting a child is so universally understood as awful that I don't think anyone with any other weight to carry is going to get to same kind of sympathy - except perhaps people who lose a child.
