Father left stunned after woman on flight tells him to stop talking to his son

Look, we know there are many rules surrounding passengers on board a flight to another country, but last time we checked, we didn’t think there was a rule banning family members from talking to their own children.

Well, one dad was left shocked after a fellow passenger told him he couldn’t talk to his three-year-old son – because she wanted to sleep, apparently.

In a post to famed subreddit ‘Am I The A**hole’, a user by the name of MileHighHell explained the two of them were coming back from a holiday, with his son sitting on his lap in the middle seat.

“He was still asleep when we got on the plane (very early flight). The lady at the window also fell asleep as soon as she sat down.

“The guy at the aisle put headphones in and started playing on his phone. All was relatively peaceful.

“About an hour in my son woke up and we started chatting. We talked about what we did on vacation, how we're excited to see mom again, you know, typical three-year-old conversation,” he wrote.

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It sounds pleasant enough, but then the man felt a tap on his shoulder to find the woman – referred to only as “Window Lady” as he didn’t know her name – glaring at him.

He continued: “I smiled at her and asked if she needed something. She said she needed me to be quiet so she could sleep.

“I was a bit taken aback. I joked that the quiet car is on the other side of the plane.

“She said no one wanted to hear my conversation. I got annoyed at that point and told her to wear headphones. She said she didn't have any.”

When the father returned to talking with his son, Window Lady decided to get the attention of a hostess and ask for another seat because – the dad claims – the pair were “bothering her”.

Sigh.

The woman was offered a seat in another row, but it was not a window seat – something she told the hostess she had paid extra for.

“The hostess said she was sitting in one,” wrote MileHighHell, in a sentence which reads like it was full of the passive aggression one would expect from an air hostess having to deal with such a ridiculous complaint.

Window Lady even tried to move the father to the empty seat, but he stayed where he was after telling the hostess he was happy in his current seat and “preferred not to move”, leading to the member of staff shrugging and walking off.

“Window lady said I was a d***. I said it takes one to know one and not to curse in front of my kid.

“She crossed her arms and turned away. I turned my attention back to my kid. Nothing else happened after that,” the father concluded.

He then proceeded to ask for judgement from the subreddit after his wife suggested he “should have switched seats and not exposed our son to more potential conflict”.

The result from commenters was unanimous.

“NTA [Not the A**hole]. Sounds like she was unprepared. What would she have done if there was a screaming baby on the plane? Also, it’s a plane, not a library,” wrote one user.

Another responded: “NTA but window lady is a huge [a**hole]. If you want to sleep on a plane that’s not an overnight flight then you bring headphones, earplugs, anything.

“You carry on being an awesome dad. Better to teach your kid not to bend to bullies.”

“NTA, but next time, for the safety of your child, get them their own seat. The most dangerous times of a flight are take-off and landing, and your loving arms are not going to be able to protect them. Woman was annoying,” advised a third.

So the woman was plane rude. Glad that’s all agreed.

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