Parents Behaving Badly
The time strangers tried to saddle me with their young kids on a five-hour flight
A few weeks ago, I was sitting in an aisle seat on a plane from Philadelphia to Arizona, on the way to Reno, Nevada. A family hurried on, with four (4!) adults— including two parents and two grandparents—and two young kids.
Apparently, American Air gave the boys (about 6 and 9 years old) seats next to me, and put the parents and grandfather in the row ahead of us. The grandmother was sitting alone in a middle seat a few rows back.
I immediately offered to switch seats with one of the parents, but they declined, saying they’d “figure it out once we got in the air.”
It only took me a minute to realize what was happening: they were trying to saddle me with their children for the roughly five hour flight. By then, though, it was too late. We were taking off, and I was getting inadvertently kicked by a manspreading 9-year-old who was simultaneously inhaling snacks, spraying Cheeto dust in my general direction with every messy handful he shoveled into his mouth.
I’m pretty non-confrontational, but I decided I had to say something. I calmed myself with the thought that these parents likely didn’t realize what they were doing, and the second the seatbelt sign dinged off I gathered my things, jumped out of my seat, and tapped the dad on the shoulder.
What followed was an awkward minute or two of me saying “Let’s switch!” and him saying “That’s ok!” and me saying, “Nope, it’s better if we switch!” until his wife sitting next to him finally said “She wants to switch seats,” in a resigned way, as if the jig was up.
It turns out, they fully knew what they were doing. I know this because when the drinks cart came by, the mom ordered a glass of champagne and immediately started streaming 90210. And also because she told me. She said, in between guzzling bubbles, it was the first flight she hasn’t sat next to her children in seven years. The rest of the flight, I worked and listened to the dad complain about how annoying their kids were being.
Truthfully, the kids were fine. They were kids. But I have my own and wouldn’t dream of trying to foist them on some unsuspecting person traveling child-free.
It was a long travel day — flights were delayed, connections were missed — but it was well worth it to get to Reno, an incredible city with so much art and culture and cool things happening. And at least I didn’t have to babysit someone else’s kids on the way.