Couple Gets Spit On Repeatedly By An Unruly Child On A Plane — Despite Her Parents Using 'Gentle Parenting' To Get Her To Stop
They were spit on three times and the parents didn't seem to care.
Ekaterina Pokrovsky / Shutterstock Air travel seems to bring out the worst in people, especially when those people are children. Being trapped in a seat on a flying metal tube isn’t any kid’s idea of fun or comfort, but certain expectations accompany being in a public place, like keeping your bodily fluids to yourself.
A couple flying from Atlanta to Denver was repeatedly spat on by a child, despite the parents using ‘gentle parenting’ to stop her.
Shayla Monnier shared her travel nightmare on TikTok, prefacing the story by saying, “I get it. Traveling with kids can be hard.”
She estimated that the child was between the ages of 3 and 5, “Old enough to understand that you don’t do that.”
“I was kind of shocked,” she said. “The parents reacted, and told her not to, and then, it just became a thing, and she again, fought against them, turned around in the seat, and spit on us again.”
The child who was sitting in a middle seat between her parents, was able to turn around and spit on the married couple three separate times.
Monnier clarified what she meant by spitting, showing how the girl stuck her tongue out and blew raspberries, so that “spit was going everywhere.”
“Another thing I could have mentioned … Is that both of her parents were wearing a mask,” she added. “She obviously was not.”
The parents "clearly had no control,” Monnier concluded. “Two adults could not control a four-year-old child.”
Gentle parenting has become a hot-button issue, yet it seems like a lot of parents use the phrase as an excuse to not enforce any consequences whatsoever, which isn’t actually what gentle parenting is about.
Gentle parenting is often confused with permissive parenting, which can be defined by a lack of boundary-holding.
In its true form, gentle parenting means acknowledging a child’s experience and feelings, staying calm while they feel their feelings, accepting their emotions, and listening with intent. It doesn’t excuse inexcusable behavior, like spitting on people at any time, anywhere.
In a follow-up post, Monnier shared how she and her husband reacted to being spit on.
She described the “crazy” comments on her first post, saying, “The number of people who said they wouldn’t do anything or it’s just a child … I guess you don’t understand how out of control she was. There was no talking to her. She was fighting to get over the seat and as soon as she got over the seat, she was spitting.”
“I’m not negotiating with a child that is spitting in my face,” she continued, adding that her own children "never would have done that.”
She also considered the possibility that the child had special needs, noting, “I think if that’s the case and you’re the parent, you need to have some sort of plan.”
“The answer is never that they’re just allowed to spit in someone’s face,” she declared.
She explained how she and her husband reacted to the situation, saying, “The very first time that she did it, we were both so shocked and the parents acted like they cared, but I’m not really sure that they did, ‘cause it then wouldn’t have happened a second time and a third time.”
“After the third time, my husband very sternly said to the parents, ‘If you don’t get your kid under control, I’ll do it for you.’”
He also asked why they didn’t put a mask on her, pointing out that they were both wearing masks.
“The mom yelled back at him and said, ‘If you had kids, maybe you’d understand,’ to which my husband replied, ‘We have five children and six grandchildren and I promise you, not one of them would do something like that,'" Monnier recalled.
A flight attendant came over to manage the tense situation, bringing a mask and telling the parents that their daughter had to wear it.
The flight attendant was a true hero, giving Monnier, her husband, and the passenger in the window seat flight credits, to make up for the disturbance.
Monnier clarified that there’s a difference between a kid being restless and a little annoying to be around, versus a kid who quite literally woke up to misbehave.
“The child wasn’t just restless from being on the flight too long,” Monnier said. “She had slept the entire flight. It was immediately upon waking up” that she started her spit campaign, and “Immediately following her spitting episodes, she fell back asleep.”
“I just know that she was completely out of control, and spitting on people’s faces and bodies is absolutely not OK,” she concluded. “I don’t care what age you are or what you have going on. That’s never an answer.”
By not setting boundaries, they’re modeling the idea that it’s OK to mistreat others, which is a direct path to raising entitled kids. Parents certainly deserve grace, yet that grace doesn’t extend to actively allowing their kids to harm people.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.