Mario Bautista
While the summer travel season may be over, the drama on Reddit’s AITA thread is endless.
The latest exhibit: One family recently experienced turbulence on a vacation flight, and it wasn’t because of strong winds or storms. Instead, it was caused by an iPad and a rather forward request from another parent whose child was struggling with big feelings.
I’m going to turn the seatbelt light on because this one is a Reddit version of a wild, bumpy ride.
Unpacking The Problem
“AITA for not taking my daughter’s iPad from her?” wrote u/Independent_Dream111. “I was on a flight with my 3-year-old daughter, and there was a family sitting across from us with a kid that looked about the same age. The little boy noticed my daughter’s iPad and was trying to get at it.”
The original poster says the boy’s mother told him no (valid), causing him to start crying (also valid). The OP and her daughter put on headphones to block the noise (again, valid, but apparently ineffective).
“The woman got my attention after a while and said that they weren’t allowing their son to use his iPad on their vacation and would it be OK if my daughter put hers away,” the poster continues.
Uh, what? The Redditor politely declined, and the child cried most of the flight. I guess the OP didn’t bring an eye mask because they noted, “The parents kept shooting me dirty looks, which I just ignored.”
Now, the parent wants to know if they were wrong.
Like an overloaded overhead luggage compartment, there’s a lot to unpack here.
Reddit Is On Board With OP
Reddit can be a source of friendly and not-so-friendly differences of opinion. However, the 1K+ commenters seem to be on board: The OP was not wrong by refusing to put her child’s iPad away to stop another child’s meltdown over not having his device in its tracks.
“When traveling with young children, you have to be prepared with a variety of activities and snacks,” writes one. “If you don’t want them to use an iPad, you better have something else to keep them occupied.”
Others mention that a plane ride is an excellent time to make an exception to screentime rules.
“There are great reasons to limit screen time,” one person says. “My kids have restrictions on how much screen time they get. Except there’s one time when they have unlimited screen time, and that’s when they’re on a plane. Zone out, my little duckies! I don’t care if you’re zombies for now. I just want us to get off this plane with the least amount of drama.”
Sadly, OP’s ride took a detour to Destination Drama Club.
“The only time I DON’T hate seeing a child wearing headphones and staring at a glowing rectangle is on an airplane,” says another. “You were prepared. You had a quiet, happy child who didn’t disturb the other passengers. You did everything right. If the other child was unhappy, it was caused by their parent(s), who failed to prepare.”
The commenter wasn’t done.
“I know it seems crazy, but there was a time before the age of the digital babysitter when parents handed their child a new coloring book and crayons and expected them to stay quietly in their seat with the belt fastened and leave everyone alone,” the person says.
Here, though, I would argue that I expect adults—however, annoyed they are about a child’s crying on a plane—to buck up and show empathy toward a tiny human without a fully developed brain or practice emotional coping skills to lower their expectations and show some empathy.
And that’s not all I have to say.
Hot Take: Don’t Make Another Parent Carry The Baggage Of Your Choices
I have a personal rule: If my kid needs unlimited screen time—or any screen time—to get through an activity, it’s probably not the best place for my child. I’m a stickler with screens based on my comfort with research around their effects on development.
This statement is not an attempt to shame parents who swear the “XYZ” show or videos helped their child talk or that a little screen time lets them cook and decompress—quite the opposite, actually.
I don’t expect other parents to set the exact boundaries as I do. If that makes my child upset or me an uncool mom in their eyes, that’s fine. It’s not exceptionally comfortable or pleasurable, but it’s OK. It’s my job to set and maintain boundaries. It’s not my child’s job to like them, and they can show their displeasure as long as they aren’t hurting other people’s bodies or property.
Expecting other parents to reverse course to please you or relieve the discomfort your child feels—and, worse, you feel in reaction to your child—is a bridge too far that falls short of teaching your child that life is full of disappointments. Sometimes, they won’t have something other people have, which doesn’t make them “less than.”
These experiences build emotional resilience and get them used to relying on internal validation to develop their self-esteem rather than having more “stuff” and privileges or a thumbs up from someone else.
When I take this approach with my kids, my goal is that they head down a path that leaves them feeling more confident and perhaps less into consumerism than my generation when it’s time for them to spread their wings. It may involve turbulence or dirty looks from passengers along the way, but that’s what noise-cancelling headphones are for—not sorry.
