Airplane travel seems to bring out the worst in people, especially when it comes to children. Being confined to a seat on a flying metal tube is not fun or comfortable for a child, but being in a public place comes with certain expectations, like keeping your bodily fluids to yourself.
A couple flying from Atlanta to Denver were spat on multiple times by their child, despite the parents’ “gentle parenting” attempts to stop them.
Sheila Monier She shared her travel nightmare on TikTok, prefaced by saying, “I get it, traveling with kids is hard.”
She estimated the child was between 3 and 5 years old, “old enough to understand that you shouldn’t do that.”
“It was a bit of a shock,” she said. “My parents reacted and told me to stop, but then it became a problem and she started resisting them again, spun around in her seat and spat at us again.”
The child, who was sitting in the middle seat between his parents, turned around and spat at the couple three times.
Monier explained what spitting means, showing a girl sticking her tongue out, whistling and “spit flying everywhere.”
“The other thing to mention is that both of her parents were wearing masks,” she added. “She obviously wasn’t wearing a mask.”
The parents “clearly were out of control,” Monnier concluded. “Two adults cannot control a four-year-old.”
“Gentle parenting” is a controversial term, and many parents seem to use it as an excuse to avoid enforcing any consequences, but that’s not really what “gentle parenting” is about.
Gentle parenting is often confused with permissive parenting, which is said to not maintain boundaries.
Gentle parenting is about acknowledging a child’s experiences and feelings, staying calm while they’re feeling them, accepting them, and really listening — not condoning unacceptable behavior, like spitting on people anytime, anywhere.
In a subsequent post, Monie shared how she and her husband reacted to being spat on.
Addressing the “crazy” comments on her initial post, she said: “So many people saying they won’t do anything or that she’s just a kid… I don’t think you realise how out of control she was. I couldn’t talk to her. She struggled to get over the sheets and as soon as she got over she started spitting.”
“I don’t negotiate with kids who spit in my face,” she continued, adding that her own child “would never do that.”
She also considered the possibility that the child may have special needs, saying, “If that’s the case and you’re a parent, I think you need to have some kind of plan in place.”
“Spit in someone’s face is never the answer,” she asserted.
She explained how she and her husband reacted to the situation: “We were both so shocked the first time she did this. My parents acted like they were concerned but I don’t know if they were really concerned because if they had, it wouldn’t have happened a second or third time.”
“After the third time, my husband sternly told my parents, ‘If you can’t control your kids, I’ll control them for you.'”
He also asked why she didn’t make him wear a mask since they were both wearing them.
“She yelled back at him, saying, ‘If you had kids, maybe you’d understand,’ to which he replied, ‘We have five kids and six grandkids, and none of them would do that,'” Monier recalled.
A flight attendant came over to defuse the tense situation, brought masks and told the parents that their daughter had to wear them.
The flight attendants were true heroes and gave Monier and her husband, as well as the passenger sitting in the window seat, a flight credit to compensate them for the inconvenience.
Monier made it clear that there’s a difference between a child who is fidgety and a bit annoying to be around and a child who literally wakes up in the morning and misbehaves.
“Not only was this child restless from the long flight,” Monnier said, “he was asleep for the entire flight. When he woke up, he immediately started vomiting, and then fell asleep again right after vomiting.”
“I know she was completely out of control. Spitting in someone’s face or body is never a good idea,” she concluded. “It doesn’t matter the age or the situation. That’s never the answer.”
By not setting boundaries, they are expressing the idea that it’s OK to mistreat others, which is a direct path to raising children with a sense of entitlement. Parents should certainly be tolerant, but that tolerance does not extend to allowing their children to actively hurt others.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango’s news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture analysis, and all things related to the entertainment industry.
