Woman On Plane Gets Told Off After Asking A Mother To Calm Her Child Who Screamed For More Than 10 Minutes
The child's mother gave the woman a "dirty look" and told her to mind her own business.
Maria Sbytora, YAKOBCHUK VIACHESLAV / Shutterstock; Reddit A woman is questioning her decisions on a recent flight she took from Texas to California. While in the air, a child who was seated near her was stomping and “mildly screaming” — all while his mother did nothing to intervene.
The woman decided to get involved herself, and the child’s mother did not exactly approve.
The woman politely asked the mother if she could settle her screaming child.
Sharing her story to the subreddit, r/AmITheA-–hole, the 21-year-old woman revealed that she was flying to Los Angeles for work purposes, and was seated near a woman in her late 20s and her toddler son, who appeared to be around three or four years old.
The woman was seated in the aisle seat, the toddler was in the middle and the child’s mother was by the window. It didn’t take long for the toddler to start entertaining himself to the inconvenience of other passengers.
“About 20 minutes into the flight, the child started standing up on the seat and stomping while mildly screaming,” the woman wrote. “All this while the mom's nose was in her phone the whole time.”
Photo: M Dorta / Shutterstock
The woman attempted to “make eye contact” with the mother to let her know that her child was misbehaving, hoping that she would intervene and calm him down. However, when the mother did not look up from her phone for 10 minutes as the toddler continued to stomp and scream, the woman decided to really get her attention this time.
“I tapped the mom on her shoulder and told her that she should watch her child and tell him to sit down,” the woman wrote. Unfortunately, the mother did not appreciate the woman’s request.
The mother gave the woman a ‘dirty look’ and told her to mind her own business.
After the mother’s futile reaction, the woman asked if she was wrong for the way she handled the situation.
While flying with young children can be difficult, most people believed that the woman was right to call out the mother for doing nothing. Many people believed that the child’s mother should have at least attempted to settle him down.
“I feel for the parents that are trying to calm down their kid but I have no time for someone playing on the phone rather than TRY to calm a kid down,” one user commented. “It's a plane with other people on it, if someone can't handle being asked to quiet their child down after getting on a flight and letting their kid behave like that, they shouldn't get on the plane,” another user pointed out.
Other users noted that the situation could have even become dangerous.
“Turbulence can happen at any point in a flight and a kid stomping around on their seat instead of sitting in it is much more vulnerable to a fall that could cause injuries to themselves as well as the person sitting next to them,” one user wrote. “I'd bet a pretty penny that if the child had been injured that way, mother would have been screaming bloody murder and threatening a lawsuit for the results of her own lack of common sense and refusal to be a parent.”
Being parents of toddlers while flying is not for the weak, and between flight delays, popping ears, and being forced to sit in one spot for hours, meltdowns are bound to happen.
However, this does not mean that there is nothing that parents can do to alleviate their children’s tantrums.
According to Dr. Harvey Karp, a well-known pediatrician, there are multiple useful tools parents can rely on to settle their children before and after take-off. For one, you should bring along lots of little toys and gadgets that will keep them entertained and distracted from the pressure in their ears.
“Try bringing a mix of new, never-seen-before books along with favorite standbys,” Dr. Karp told TODAY. “Hand puppets can also dazzle your child with stories and running commentary about the flight. (In a pinch you could even turn an air-sickness bag into a puppet.)”
Photo: Creative Family / Shutterstock
Keeping children fed and hydrated will also ease their ear pain during take-off and landing, so make sure to pack lots of little snacks and drinks your child enjoys.
Still, sometimes children can get unruly on flights, and there is nothing that even their parents can do about it. However, it is important to remember that you and your children are not the only ones on the plane.
Instead of ignoring them and burying your face in your phone, hold them close to you to prevent them from hurting themselves or others.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.