Man Wonders If He Was Wrong For Eating Food Next To Plane Passenger's Child After Mom Asked Him Not To
The mother claimed that he needed to be "educated."
nimito / Shutterstock Traveling can bring out the worst in people, as they can encounter difficult situations and unreasonable other passengers.
One man found himself in hot water with his fellow passengers after he denied their request so that their son could travel more comfortably.
The man was eating food next to a child after his parents asked him not to.
Sharing his story in a since-deleted Reddit post, the man asked other users if he was in the wrong for his actions.
The passenger was flying from New York to Los Angeles for a business trip. On the plane, he was seated next to a family with their young son.
The man revealed that he suffers from diabetes, and packed a snack for himself for the long trip and to maintain his blood sugar levels.
When he opened the snack, the mother sitting beside him began shooting him dirty looks before asking him to put the food away.
"The mother said, 'Can you not do that?'" he wrote. "So I put my food away and figured I’d wait until the flight attendant came around so I could buy food from her and eat at an acceptable time just to show some respect for their wishes.”
However, when a flight attendant came around and asked the row if they would like any refreshments, the father of the family the man was seated next to informed him that nobody in the row wanted anything to eat.
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"I go up to press the call light so I can get my food and my drink because I actually need it," the man wrote.
However, as the man did, the father spoke to him.
"The father says, 'Our son has Prader-Willi, we’d prefer it if you didn’t eat because it causes tantrums when he doesn’t know he can’t eat and he’s always hungry.”
Prader-Willi syndrome is a genetic disorder that includes symptoms including constant hunger, often resulting in obesity.
The man, however, suffered an illness himself that made it impossible for him to not eat and fired back at the family.
"I’m close to a tantrum myself at this point and so I look him in the eye and say, 'I do not care, fly private if you want to control your surroundings,” he wrote.
As the man began to eat, the mother berated him and told him to get himself “educated.”
The man told the mother that he refused to “endanger” himself for the sake of her son.
Some Redditors sympathized with the boy and his family.
"I feel for the family because I'm sure it's a very difficult condition to manage and causes a great deal of stress,” one user mentioned.
"A kid with Prader-Willi Syndrome has a real organic, very hard-to-control drive to eat food, it's a seriously difficult disease to deal with,” another user added.
However, others sided with the man, believing that the family was making an unfair request.
"They had no right to refuse your food and yell at you for eating, this is a public conveyance and they do not own the plane,” one user commented.
"Even if you didn't have diabetes, people don't get to come into public space and dictate anyone else's acceptable behavior,” another pointed out.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.