I had never entered an airline lounge until circa 2011-2012 (so around ages 25-26), when I earned the lowest status on United Airlines (or Star Alliance, their airline network) and was given a handful of complimentary lounge passes, and when I started traveling with Chris, who had access to the Qantas lounges. When I first entered the United lounges in the U.S., I thought to myself, meh. I don’t think I am missing much. Sure, there I got access to free Wi-Fi and some mediocre snacks, as well as some slightly more comfortable chairs and couches for lounging, but it didn’t seem like that much of an upgrade. Plus, with American carriers, it didn’t matter what level of status you had with the airline because you still had to pay extra for lounge access, which is usually somewhere in the ballpark of $400-500/year. it seemed like a steep premium to pay for mediocre “benefits” like crappy pretzels.

Kaia has had access to airline lounges since her very first flight when she was just eight months old. Since then, she’s been in airline lounges literally around the world — in the U.S., Australia, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. She doesn’t even know what life is like to not have access to an airline lounge. Today during our long layover at LAX to head to Melbourne, we moved between the Qantas First lounge and the Qantas Business lounge, which is considered more casual and more child friendly. The only reason we did this was that Kaia threw a loud, sobbing tantrum when I told her she couldn’t just steal everything off counters and throw objects everywhere. People always talk about the “terrible 2s,” but only current parents of littles talk about how much more terrifying the 3s period is… because that’s when young children have developed stronger opinions and preferences, as well as a larger vocabulary to voice said opinions. And well, Kaia is no different. In the last few weeks, she’s probably had some of the worst and loudest tantrums of her life to to date. As I was forcing her into her stroller to whisk her off to the business lounge while Chris had his shower, one of the Qantas lounge employees lightly suggested that she might want to play in the kids’ play area of the business lounge. I told them we were already on our way there, so off we went.

And typical Kaia: you tell her that a designated area is where she should be (as in, the kids’ play area), and she immediately does the opposite and wants to get the hell out and be free with all the adults, ASAP. Oddly enough, the business lounge had no kids other than Kaia today. So everywhere we went, she was the only little person wandering around and trying to overtake the place.

I don’t know how old Kaia will be when she realizes what a luxurious lifestyle she’s had, basically since birth. I wonder what it will be like when she’s slightly older and more verbal, and she tells her classmates about all these experiences and how foreign they will sound to her little peers. I can only hope she will be humble and not seem snobbish or conceited about it, and ultimately recognize how lucky and privileged she is.