Flying with kids can be a nightmare. We’ve all been the person sitting in front of an unruly child kicking our seat. But you can’t exactly blame kids for refusing to sit still. To be fair, we’ve all seen some strange behavior from grown-ups getting a little antsy on planes too, but it’s definitely embarrassing when it’s your kids who are causing a scene on the flight — or when you’re in charge of the kids acting up, like one woman was on a recent flight to Toronto who was mortified her niece and nephew decided to turn their plane into their own personal playground. Now she’s getting a lot of grief from her sister after she purposely bought a return ticket away from her noisy family.
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The Original Poster, her 12-year-old son, her sister, brother-in-law, and their two kids were traveling together for a funeral when things started to go awry.
In other words, her sister’s 2-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son immediately became “wild things.”
They were “running in the aisles, screaming and demanding things, won’t sit still, the works,” the OP wrote in a since-deleted post on Reddit's Am I the Asshole forum.
Seeing as how both of their parents were on the flight with them, one would think her sister would have it handled, but much to the OP’s surprise, “my sister takes an ambien as she gets ‘carsick’ on flights and zones right out,” she recalled.
Her brother-in-law is a great guy but was pretty much useless, as her sister 'insists constantly that he’s not doing anything right.'
That means he’s plain old insecure when it comes to their kids.
“She thinks he’s too harsh. I disagree, but not my monkeys, not my circus,” the OP wrote.
The OP and her son decided to step in “out of pure necessity” — meaning they spent the whole flight trying to rein in her sister’s kids, who aren’t really used to discipline.
“My sister doesn’t believe in saying no to your children, which is interesting, and makes it a bit difficult to manage the situation as they do not take any type of authority seriously,” the OP explained. “It was four and a half hours of hell.”
Plus, the OP’s niece and nephew don’t know her too well 'and they do not care to listen.'
When their plane landed, the OP and her son agreed that the whole thing was a “nightmare.”
She decided to make a big change for their flight home.
“I upgraded the ticket of myself and my son,” she wrote. “It costs a lot more, but I had just spent the last week with a grieving family 24/7 and was pretty much at the end of my rope.”
The OP didn’t dare mention the upgrade to her sister.
They did have to board before her sister and her kids, however, making things just a bit awkward.
“My sister is like ‘What are you doing?!’ And I was just casually like ‘Oh, they’re calling our section’ and she goes, ‘not mine’ and I basically say ‘Huh, weird’ and board the plane,” she wrote. “Peak awkward as they walk past to their section.”
Their plane takes off, and of course her sister’s kids give a repeat performance.
That meant bad behavior from the start.
“Only now sissy can’t go comatose as she is responsible for her own children,” the OP wrote, and thankfully the OP and her son could have a couple hours of peace and decompress.
“We land, she won’t talk to me, and my son and I board our connecting flight and go home,” she recalled.
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The whole thing would’ve been done and dusted, but the OP ‘s sister decided to get their mom involved.
A few hours after they landed, the OP’s mom called and “tears a strip off me that I should have sat with them and helped.”
But the OP didn’t think it was fair that her sister got to check out and not even ask if the OP was willing to watch her children.
“I felt blindsided and it was embarrassing and stressful,” the OP wrote of their first flight. “She said I am a bad sister and a bad aunt for doing what I did. One of my aunts is on my side and the other is on hers.”
That's why the OP has turned to people on Reddit for another opinion. Was she really so wrong for “leaving her and her husband high and dry during an admittedly stressful time?” she asked — or worse, “for subjecting the rest of the plane to her children?”
The comments section was pretty much unanimous — the OP had nothing to feel guilty about.
"You left your sister to parent her own kids. Kudos to how you did it", wrote one commenter.
Another commenter agreed, writing, "Why does your mother think you bear more responsibility to your sister's children than their actual mother!? Flying with kids can certainly be rough, but it sounds like they didn't even try to prepare and then just expected you to help (i.e. wrangle their kids for them.) I don't blame you at all for needing space from that disaster."
A third commenter had a completely plausible theory:
“$20 says sister takes an Ambien on flights not because of motion sickness but so she won’t have to deal with her out of control kids. I’m also sure she thought she could schlep them off on her sister while she zonked out, and wasn’t thrilled that she actually had to parent her own children. And honestly, if OP upgraded herself and her son just so they didn’t have to deal with those kids, then it must have been BAD.”
But a few people thought the OP could've handled things differently.
"I mean brutal as hell, do you not enjoy her children?" one person asked. "I wouldn’t do it but hey you do you [Not the Asshole] I guess."
One person thought everyone sucked. "I dont think its wrong for you to upgrade but you could have handled it a lot better. You could have talked about the kids situation before with your sister and husband, you stayed silent, yeah you made a point but it was passive aggressive and makes you look bad even though it ain't your fault."
The OP later admitted that she could 'see both sides' of the dilemma.
"I do like her kids, I love them, but I didn’t do so hot being trapped with them losing it for that length of time," she wrote in the comments. "I guess the breaking point for me was her never mentioning she expected this on the flight, she said she wanted to be 'together' given the nature of the trip — also understandable.
"When she took the pill and checked out, then I was like uhmmmmm okay, this is awkward," she added.
It appears the OP won't be going on a trip with her sister's kids any time soon — and hopefully her sister now knows that she needs to ask before completely checking out and expecting someone else to watch them.
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