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Posted on 10/31/2025 8:50:47 PM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
A woman faced a clash between social expectations and personal boundaries when asked to give up her extra airplane seat for a child. Choosing comfort over pressure, she stood her ground unapologetic, firm, and ready to face the moral debate that followed.
Here’s a story Martha shared with us:
“Hi, Bright Side,So, this is what happened to me on a flight and I sincerely need opinions on whether I’m wrong here.I’m on the heavier side, and for longer flights, I’ve learned it’s better for everyone if I just buy an extra seat. It’s expensive, sure, but it means I can travel comfortably without invading anyone’s space.This Thanksgiving, I flew across the country to visit my sister and her kids. Everything was smooth until a woman with a small girl, maybe three years old, stopped at my row. Without so much as a ‘please,’ she told me to move over so her daughter could take the other seat. I calmly explained that I’d purchased both seats for myself. She huffed, called me selfish, and flagged down a flight attendant.The attendant asked if I might ‘make an exception,’ but I politely refused and showed my two boarding passes. Apparently, the child was ticketed as a lap infant, which meant the mother wasn’t entitled to another seat anyway....
Bright Side community members shared their emotional thoughts about Martha’s story:
silverwing_84:You paid for both seats, that’s all that matters. The mom’s poor planning doesn’t make you responsible for fixing it. People really need to stop assuming kindness means giving up what you paid for.
Luna.rose7:I get your point, but I still think you could’ve let the little one sit there. It wouldn’t have hurt anyone, and it might’ve made the flight easier for a mom traveling alone. Sometimes compassion matters more than comfort.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
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I believe mom deliberately bought the lap child ticket to save money, and fully intended to bully someone into giving up their seat.
No woman in her right mind plans a cross country flight with a three year old on her lap!
The 1980’s “Me generation” is nothing compared to the 21st centuries Entitlement generation.
I believed that comment about airline compensation was in reference to what the poster believed the airline "should" have offered to the larger woman to induce her to give up her seat to the mother.
I also agree with the sentiment that the larger woman was right, and that the attendant should not have asked her to move.
She bought the seat. It’s hers.
Actual practice of Christianity?
If she brought only one bottle of water into the desert while you brought two, would you share with her after she exhausted hers?
The mom either made a mistake or couldn't afford two seats. The FR crowd, claiming to be avid Christians, pass up an opportunity to give service to the begger lying in the ditch. Well, they didn't HAVE to, the road is wide as the seats.
Jesus said the same thing from time to time.
Different situation, dying of thirst in the desert vs making a poor choice and then trying to mooch off others for a seat on a plane.
I don’t believe it is particularly Christian to place the comfort of a person who is trying to scam everyone else above your own.
Jesus never flied coach
The FA has a job to do. One of those things is to keep peace in the cabin. She asked politely, no doubt knowing the answer she’d get. But once she’d asked, she could turn to the mother and say, in all honestly, I asked, she refused, which is her right, move on. By doing so she undercut the mom and took away her next move of confronting the FA, had she not asked. Once the flight attendant asked and was shown the two ticket stubs, which you are assuming she knew about already, facts not in evidence, the mother had no legitimate argument. I seriously doubt the woman felt embarrassed by the question if it was asked politely and at that point anyone around her who was paying attention knew she had purchased both seats. The conversation then turned to the mother, who would become the center of attention of the other passengers. Any further embarrassment would be directed at her though people who try this stuff are pretty immune to public ridicule.
We will just have to agree to disagree, but I think the FA handled it perfectly.
If she asked politely, she was undercutting the mother and putting it all back on her by making it obvious to anyone paying attention that the mother was trying to cheat the woman out of one of her paid for seats. At that point the woman is out of the equation, and everything is focused on the mother. I think the FA handled it correctly. If the FA was rude to the woman that is a different story, but just asking politely is not being rude and not out of bounds.
“ The FA has a job to do. One of those things is to keep peace in the cabin. She asked politely,”
The FA.
You pay for a ticket. That’s your seat.
The airline has a policy that allows for no purchased seat for a child. It is the airline’s and the flight attendant’s problem to deal with any issues that arise from that, and there are many. It’s an irresponsible policy
When the flight attendant shares the problem of bad policy with a paying customer they are asking the paying customer to make the problem caused by the non paying customer and the irresponsible airline
That does not keep peace at all. It allows the non paying customer to resent the paying customer.
The flight attendant knows what seats are taken. She meds to realize that the paying customer has chosen to pay for more room or has been directed by the airline to purchase 2 seats based on her size.
When she says no, now the flight attendant, the non paying mother, and the kid to all give her attitude and she’s the one who paid double
That is a situation where the attendant kept the peace? How, exactly?
Seems to me the non payer started out with attitude, the attendant was scared, the paying customer stood her ground and told the attendant if she warned to wimp out she was on her own. She works for a company that plows for non paying customers to fly without a seat. Her problem
Whe I had little kids I purchased seats for them. Cheap friends and family advised me not to, that I could have them sit on my lap. The airlines are idiotic having this brainless policy.
What do you do when the plane goes into a stall? Turbulence? Sudden loss of altitude? Crash? A terminal high speed descent takes a few minutes. That kid is somewhere in the back of the plane pinned to the ceiling. That mother sure isn’t giving up HER seatbelt for the kid.
Share your seatbelt with them? You know you bothe get critical or fatal injuries pressuring internal organs doing that. You know you can’t properly restrain the kid at those speeds using your arms
Do you Ask your neighbor to die giving up their seatbelt? Search around for an empty seat while you’re slamming against the ceiling?
No. The time to consider those possibilities is when you’re buying a ticket, not when you’re acting like Blanche Dubois depending on the kindness of strangers
Did the mother who wanted the woman’s purchased seat offer to give her money? Of course not
You stick a crowbar in your wallet when you purchase and you buy the kid a seat
And again, what is the point/purpose/motive in asking the woman again when you already know - because the mother told you - that she refused to move? You already know she doesn't want to move.
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