Even before the current global health situation, airplane travel was basically horror at 40,000 feet. No one enjoys being scrunched into cramped quarters and breathing recycled air with a ton of strangers. Many parents will tell you that traveling with kids takes it to another level. But some people, like the Redditor behind this recent Am I the A–hole post, don't have much sympathy.
The original poster (OP) explains that this initially happened two years ago, but their family "still brings it up sometimes."
"I was flying to visit my family and had an aisle seat, which I was very thankful for because I get kind of claustrophobic in middle or window seats," noted the OP. "I was getting buckled up and everything, when a lady comes over with her two kids (maybe 4-5 years old. looked like twins). She sees me sitting there and asks if I would be willing to switch seats with her. I don't remember exactly where her seat was, I think it was a few rows behind mine and it was a window seat."
The OP didn't want to switch and told the mom that.
"She got very annoyed and asked me again and again," wrote the Redditor. "The flight attendant told her we were going to take off soon, so the lady asked me to move yet again. When I said no, she said that it was fine, but I would have to watch her kids. I told her I wouldn't do that, and she should have bought seats together if she was that concerned."
According to the OP, the mom "got all huffy and just went back to her seat."
"I put my headphones on and started watching a movie, and didn't really pay much attention to the kids," recalled the OP. "They started arguing at some point, and it led to one of them crying. After a few minutes of screaming, the mom came over and asked why the hell I wasn't doing anything. I said that I wasn't going to take care of someone else's kids, and I had explicitly told her that at the beginning of the flight."
That's when a flight attendant intervened, finding a passenger with an aisle seat who was willing to switch with the mom.
"That person took the window seat, the lady took my seat, and I took the other aisle seat," explained the OP.
The OP remembered telling their family about the incident only to be told that they were absolutely in the wrong.
"They said I was an [expletive] and should have just watched out for the kids," wrote the OP. "I don't think it's my responsibility though. They're not my kids, and it's not my fault that the mom didn't buy seats together. Also, if something happened and the kids got hurt or something urgent, I would have helped. I just didn't want to spend my entire flight tending to them and breaking up arguments."
The OP turned it over to the Reddit community for their thoughts.
Plenty of commenters were convinced that the OP was justified.
"You are under no obligation to switch seats (especially if you paid for selection)," wrote one commenter. "If she wants to sit with her kids she can pay for this. And by no means are you her babysitter, her kids, her responsibility — end of story."
Another person noted, "No one should be forced to give their [seats] away specially for one that is worse, for them. I'm glad that the flight attendant managed to help and find a solution."
Still, the person acknowledged that it might not have been entirely up to the mom to be separated from her children.
"It could have been an emergency trip, and no three [seats] together were available. They could have bought them together, and the airline changed it unilaterally. (It's dumb but it happens.)" that same person wrote.
Another scenario: The mom's partner or caregiver might have had the OP's seat originally but bailed on the trip at the last minute.
Other people said the OP should have been a good samaritan and given up the seat.
"This is one of those situations that reddit forgets that just because you don't HAVE to do something doesn't mean you shouldn't," one person wrote. "You kept a mother from her very young children."
"No, you have no obligation to give up your seat, it's yours, but it's kinda a d–k move to separate young kids from their parent on a flight," someone else explained.
No one really expected the OP to be the mom's babysitter, but most people thought OP could have switched seats to make everyone's lives a bit easier during an already stressful experience. Here's hoping this thread inspires the OP, if not others, to try to do better by their fellow passengers.
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