Mother Doesn’t Care That Her Kid Is Bothering Other Plane Passengers, Regrets It Later

NTA. Sorry not sorry. She was gracious enough to let the kid's behaviors slide for four hours, especially as she herself was exhausted. As someone commented, when on a 15 hour flight, passengers will recline their seats to try and get some sleep, even those in economy class. Apparently someone else claimed those who sit in economy class do not deserve to recline their seats and must suffer. When on a long haul flight, I assume the aircraft was a jumbo jet, thus the seats will have larger seat pitch. That being said, the mother could've reclined her seat to give herself some space.

Something similar happened to me, but on a much shorter flight. These parents continued to allow their child to forcefully and repeatedly bump into the back of my seat. It wasn’t just annoying… the little booger was giving me whiplash! After several times of asking them to control him and getting dirty looks in response… I felt my seat bounce forward again. This time, I leaned forward as far as I could and I slammed my back into my seat. Behind me, I heard a KA-THUD… as if the kid had fallen onto the floor. The kid started crying. I didn’t turn around, so I don’t know exactly what happened. There’s not really enough room to fall, but who knows what really occurred? Then the father started asking him, “Why you crying? Why you crying?” And I had to stifle a laugh. Not because the thought of potentially injuring a bratty kid is funny, but because the “Why you crying?” sounded exactly like a line from one of the comedian George Lopez’s shows. The kid didn’t touch my seat after that.

Something like this happened to me on a much shorter flight. I asked the mother to make the child stop and she did. I’m to sure why she was oblivious before I asked, but communication solved it for me.

You paid for your seat. I paid for my seat. If you have an issue with the space allotted to you, take it up with the airline.

My dad & his family are Dutch, living in Holland with most of the family historically involved in the airline industry. My mom & her family based in California & New York. I grew up living between India, Hawaii, California & Holland. I spent my entire life flying long haul flights multiple times per year. As a child, seats weren’t as cramped & reclining wasn’t the polarising issue it is today. People paid for their seats & manipulated them however they worked. An expectation that was just accepted. Now, you can barely breathe when the seat in front of you reclines. At least for economy. It’s the airlines fault, not the passenger. When flying as a kid, we always had our own seat & always sat in the last row when possible. I suppose so we bothered as few folks as possible & were near the lavs. I don’t think whomever accompanied us would allow us to to kick a seat for even a second. Yet, part of me also thinks flying cheap needs to come with managed expectations.