Kate Hackett
I truly cannot FATHOM falling on the side of “no, do not recline your chairs on airplanes” but there are evidently people who firmly believe this. Because they are crazy. And also wrong.
Poor u/mngirl2465 recently had to ask Reddit if she was a jerk “for refusing to un-recline my seat on an airplane after a mother with her child asked me to?” because this thought has wormed its way so deep into our collective that now others feel entitled to demand it.
OP was on a 15-hour flight that she planned to get some sleep on. Normal.
I had a fifteen hour flight that began at 8 PM and had been planning to sleep throughout the flight to help the time go by, as well as catching up on sleep after traveling for 24+ hours.
However, there was a family with a toddler behind her.
On the flight, there was a mom, dad and a child that was about three years old (older than the under 2 limit for a child to sit in a parents lap for free, for sure).
The kid kicked the back of the seats, pulled her shirt and hair, and poked fingers between the seats.
Throughout the first two hours, the child kicked my husbands and my seat, stood up on their parents lap to grab my hair and pull on my shirt and shoving the papers in the back of the seat in between our seats, poking us with the papers. Occasionally, I got a break from the child kicking me when she switched to her fathers lap, though at that time she began kicking my husbands seat.
OP, who sounds like a saint, said nothing.
We remained quiet as we know it probably is difficult traveling with children.
The kid fell asleep a few hours into the flight and OP took the time to rest. She reclined her seat.
Finally, when the child was sleeping, about four hours into the flight , I decided I, too, could rest. I reclined my chair, about three quarters of the way, not fully, but enough to be comfortable for my sleep.
But because the mother had a larger toddler on her lap, OP’s recline was uncomfortable for her. So the mom asked OP to move up.
But, since the child was larger than the normal under two years old for lap-sitting, it wasn’t as comfortable for the mother. Immediately, she tapped my shoulder asking me to move my chair up so she could be comfortable. And I’m sure having a child in your lap is not as pleasant, especially when they’re larger and on a long flight.
OP did not. She was tired and sick of the kid. So she slept on.
I, however, remained in the reclining position, as I felt that I had put up with her child making me uncomfortable for hours and preventing me from sleeping when I was in need of it.
However, in doing so, I made the mother more crammed in her seat, as she needed space for the both of them. AITA for refusing to move up my seat?
Reddit firmly agreed: NTA.
“NTA, you had me at 15 hr flight,” wrote one reader.
Another person wrote, “From the age of 2 a child should have it’s own seat, it is even required by a lot of airlines. So if the parents did not arrange that (and the airline not enforce it) then it’s on them if their seat is to crammed with a parent and a larger child in it.”
“While I understand that it’s expensive to do so, the parents should have purchased a seat for their child for a long flight. Any discomfort is the result of their own choices,” said one person who voted NTA.
