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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Aibu on flight

350 replies

perroy · 23/08/2019 20:20

I was on an plane today. Family of four were travelling. One child with father in the seat in front of me and mother with another child in the seat behind me. Children were shouting, beeping a fictitious horn, making motor noises all through the flight. The parents were tickling them and making them squeal with laughter. It was a plane full of children and this family was noisy throughout the flight. All the other children had settled down in some time.

After the fifth time the child with the mother had got up on his seat and squealed in my ear I turned around and said SSSh quiet to the child.

The mother used profanities, showed me the finger and told me her child was only two.

Was I wrong to address the child when the parents were not taking any efforts to settle the children?

OP posts:
Wearywithteens · 25/08/2019 21:42

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn at the poster's request.

OooErMissus · 25/08/2019 21:42

Someone shushed MY child they would need their jaw resetting!

Raised by wolves, were you?

RasberryRoyale · 25/08/2019 22:22

I don’t think Yabu OP.

I fully accept that some children with SN May have difficulties on flights and yes there’s a chance this child did have SN.

But there’s also the chance the parents were just lazy. I have a family member who believes her children have the right to be badly behaved on public transport- her attitude is her children have the right to make noise even if that noise is screeching, shouting, standing on seats etc and if others don’t like it they can get a taxi. Needless to say I don’t go anywhere with her now and I dread to think of how she would react on a plane!

Let’s be honest, the OP was damned either way, had she spoken to the Mother, she would have got a mouthful of abuse. Saying Sshhh to someone’s kid who’s annoying you is very restrained.

FrancisCrawford · 25/08/2019 22:31

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Bodear · 26/08/2019 07:54

@mizzmelli could you explain why you’d be so angry if someone shushed your child? I don’t have kids so I don’t see why it would make a parent so angry. I’m interested to understand the point of view. Thanks.

OooErMissus · 26/08/2019 08:20

There is no reason to react like that Bodear, unless you're completely feral.

CatkinToadflax · 26/08/2019 09:06

You can generally tell the parents of a special needs child - they are already telling the child to shush, and are glancing around apologetically to their neighbouring passengers. Parents of special needs children are not sitting there, ignoring the behaviour, and then flipping the bird to anybody else who goes near.

We often tell our autistic son to shush; and I wouldn't have an issue with anybody else trying to tell him to shush. He'll ignore them the same as he ignores us grin

Agree with every word of this. My son has quite severe autism. This isn't an excuse for him or me to be intentionally rude and unpleasant.

Someone shushed MY child they would need their jaw resetting!

And you'd be escorted off the flight by the 'heavy mob'. Do this often, do you? Hmm Confused

Snog · 26/08/2019 13:12

If you are looking to break somebody's jaw for sshhing your child then you are rightly also looking at a custodial sentence. This is not normal.

LeysaV · 26/08/2019 14:02

Charmer aren't you mizz ?

Perhaps anger management would suit you , for everyones safety

BrigitsBigKnickers · 26/08/2019 14:46

Noise cancelling headphones and an I pad full of programmes are your friend in these circumstances.

I was on. Ryan air flight the other day and it was like a zoo! No one could hear any of the announcements because it was soo noisy. Thankfully I was blissfully unaware of most of it.

I would never confront a child or parent in these circumstances as parents who let their children run amok on a flight are rarely the type to take any criticism well. But I would have been equally annoyed.

tillytoodles1 · 26/08/2019 15:20

mizzmelli, I hope that was a joke, or are you really that nasty?

Original poster
perroy · 26/08/2019 18:17

mizzmelli, as i had mentioned earlier it was not a budget airline

OP posts:
MarshaBradyo · 26/08/2019 18:20

Shhh is hardly scolding and a lot less abrasive than swearing back at you

Yanbu

MarshaBradyo · 26/08/2019 18:22

Glad it worked btw

There’s some wild-eyed ott aggression on here.

lululu16 · 26/08/2019 19:32

went on a flight to fiji with my just 2 year old.. she was crying and whinging and occasionally knocking into the person in fronts seat who told me to tell her to stop.. literally nothing i couldve done to stop her as she was a 2 year old who was exhausted from over 20 hours of flying at that point! made me feel so rubbish

Aridane · 26/08/2019 20:34

The child was 2! Do you have children? Yes you were bvu! Would you rather the child be entertained and laughing or being ignored and left to scream??? You are the kind of person that needs to go and live under a rock. You were a child once!

I was a child once and if I behaved like that, I would have received a short sharp smack! (or in these non smacking dats, some other form of rebuke and punishment)

Aridane · 26/08/2019 20:36

Someone shushed MY child they would need their jaw resetting! If you do not like kids book a different flight/holiday. Stop being precious about a budget flight

Either a joke - or, if not, you wouldn't be flying again with that airline and would be met by police on arrival!

Aridane · 26/08/2019 20:37

Glad the shush did its job - a gentle rebuke from strangers seems to go further than from lax parents (not that these ones would have paid any attention to you)

Myimaginarycathasfleas · 26/08/2019 20:48

** Just looking at this post:

went on a flight to fiji with my just 2 year old.. she was crying and whinging and occasionally knocking into the person in fronts seat who told me to tell her to stop..

This is what pp are saying the OP should have done. And yet

literally nothing i couldve done to stop her as she was a 2 year old who was exhausted from over 20 hours of flying at that point! made me feel so rubbish

So even if she had spoken to the mother it would not have been well received.

As I said. She was in the right, but she couldn't win.

Beaverdam · 26/08/2019 20:54

They were doing nothing wrong though? What wpuld you siggest they do? Sit there like mannequins to please you?

butterflywings37 · 26/08/2019 20:58

You were not unreasonable - allowing children to stand on seats and scream close to other passengers is rude. Saying sshh is not disciplining.

In regards to special needs - children with special needs can still be disciplined, have boundaries set etc.
If my child with SN was doing this I would not initiate or encourage inappropriate behaviour and would try to minimise the disruption to other passengers.

LilyR2019 · 01/09/2019 14:17

I don't think that is unreasonable at all - but this is MUMSnet & parents get really defensive about it....and I mean REALLY defensive.

In their eyes little Bradleeeeee/Kimeeeeee can do no wrong & the world should bend according to their will (thus perpetuating the cycle of entitlement & shaping the next generation).

Whether you have autism/HSP/misophonia/fibromyalgia makes absolutely no difference, you're just supposed to suck it up - unfortunately unsocialised children & their entitled parents now rule the world.......

busybarbara · 01/09/2019 14:36

A big problem in society nowadays is that kids aren't used to interacting with strangers. You did the right thing OP even though the snowflakes will be upset you communicated with someone else's child

JollyRocker · 10/09/2019 01:34

If someone shushed my child I’d probably just be mortified that I hadn’t thought to discipline them myself!! It’s really not the worst thing in the world. So I don’t think you were that unreasonable. Having said that, my 5yo DS was once kicking his legs back and forth on a flight and I didn’t know he had struck the seat in front of him a few times. The lady in front politely told me, I was of course apologetic and told him to stop immediately. So in your situation I would have told the mother politely that the child had shouted into your ear and would she mind asking them not to do that. If she takes offence at that then she is beyond awful.

tryingtobebetterallthetime · 10/09/2019 02:18

I agree with the poster who said if someone shrieked in my ear it would be instinctual to say shhh or something similar.

The mother responding by giving the OP the finger was not modeling proper behaviour for her child. Whether or not you believe the OP had any "right" to respond to the verbal assault, the mother responding with aggression was in my view absolutely wrong.

I think we are all tending to forget how important civility is. From road rage to giving someone the finger for shushing your child, we are letting ourselves behave in ways that do not foster good relationships.

I do not know in what world an adult cannot gently correct a child who has just done something inappropriate and hurtful. Would it be wrong, for example, to stop a child about to run onto a road because you are not the parent?

Yesterday in an IKEA a small child was pushing a shopping cart towards DH and I. He veered directly toward DH just as we got very close. You could say it was almost a head on collision. I instinctively grabbed DH and said "be careful" to the child who was about 4 or 5. Was I wrong? The adults with him then corrected him also.

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