Kate Hackett
Reddit’s community on r/amitheasshole took on an age old question yesterday from not just u/Puzzleheaded-Poem170, but from all of us:
“Aita for not accommodating a child on a plane?”
Here’s the post:
Lmao this is so stupid. But I was on a pretty long flight and I had the window seat. Idk if it’s important but I had taken some edibles for the flight. Next to me is a mother and her child (2/3y). The first incident happened, when the mom asked if I would trade seats so her child could look out. I declined and said I would rather sit in the seat I paid for and then I proceed to put in my AirPods and started to watch some New girl and I could hear the child cry and be upset that I wouldn’t .
A few hours later, I was playing a game on my phone and the child was very focused on it, but then as everyone here probably know you get tired of mobile games, so I turned it off. The mom asked if I wouldn’t mind keep playing as it was entertaining her son. I said no and as soon as I did that the child starting crying and trying to grab my phone, I just simply raised my hand so the child couldn’t reach, so I said in a louder tone, “please control your child” which made the mom grab the boy and freak out at me and her screaming at me that I shouldn’t be such an asshole and only think about me. Aita?
These posts pop up on Reddit every once in a while and the consensus is usually that no one is an asshole for not entertaining a stranger’s child. The only possible sticking point, as the OP writes, was that “edibles made me think about [it] twice”.
Here are some of the best replies:
NTA The mother knew she was on a flight with a child so she should have brought things to entertain the child rather than relying on strangers. If she wanted a window seat she should have booked one.
She’s entitled to ask you, but not entitled for you to say yes.
The edibles don’t change the situation. She just sounds like an entitled parent to me.
Another user wrote:
NTA
These kinds of parents annoy me so much.
Control and entertain your own kids.
And no KIDDING.
NTA, just because you are all stuck in a metal tube doesn’t mean you suddenly become a parent/babysitter jesus
NTA at all: could you have been more accommodating? Sure. Should you have to ? Absolutely not. You did nothing wrong.
NTA – It’s not your problem this woman didn’t plan for her own child’s entertainment during this flight. These people were complete strangers to you. The only thing you signed up for when you booked that flight was to sit in a metal tube with them. You didn’t take on any extra responsibility. You didn’t owe this kid anything. You were right, this woman should have managed her child better.
Then, because this is Reddit, people advised the original poster to “alert corporate” because the flight attendant didn’t move the poster.
You should have called for a flight attendant and told them what was happening. It’s not your job to accommodate someone else’s child or entertain them. It’s the mother’s fault for not bringing something to keep the child busy.
Last flight I was on with kids behind me, the mom ended up switching seats so she was sitting between her children, routinely reminded them to not kick the seats, talked to and engaged with them, and made her son apologize to me for kicking my seat when they got off the plane.
A flight attendant heard everything, but she said that it wasn’t possible to switch seats when it was only like less than an hour till we would land. And since i was pretty fucking high I just wanted to be left alone so I could listen to my podcasts and eat my snacks in peace lol
Contact the airline’s corporate, then. If it had been an adult passenger putting their hands on you, they never would have told you had to just deal with it since it was less than an hour until landing.
So here’s where I get a little side-eye at Reddit for this advice:
Yeah, the attendant should’ve told the kid to stop kicking. Yeah, the kid should …stop kicking. But escalating to corporate about the attendant being unable to control a CHILD seems just not worth it.
But that’s me! What do you think?
Lead image: Reddit
