A woman has described her “worst experience” after being seated next to a toddler and his mother on a flight, but insists she doesn’t blame the child.
In a TikTok recounting the ordeal, the traveller explained the little boy, who she decided to call Spencer, spent the entire journey screaming, kicking, and fidgeting.
“I am a mother. I say this from a mother’s perspective,” she said.
“It wasn’t his fault. He was bored and trying to entertain himself. It was mainly down to a very unprepared mother on a flight.”
“She did not correct him once”
She estimated Spencer was about 18 months old and said the trouble started almost immediately, as the mother struggled to get him to sit still and buckle his seatbelt.
From there, the behavior escalated.
“He then proceeded to endlessly kick the seat in front of him. Endlessly,” she recounted.
“She did not correct him once.”
Spencer then began flipping the tray table up and down.
“Yet again she was not correcting his behavior,” the woman said.
She felt a pang of pity for the passenger sitting in front of her, but hoped the child would calm once they finally took off. But that wasn’t the case.
“She did not bring anything to entertain this child on the flight,” she pointed out.
“I would have stepped in”
What stood out most, according to the passenger, was the mother’s lack of preparation. There were no toys, no tablet. The mother didn’t try and play with him or distract him.
“I think she was 100% expecting Spencer to sit there and do absolutely nothing,” she said.
He began to remove magazines from the seat pocket before him, handing them to this woman. As well as tapping her arm and kicking her leg.
“He was obviously, bless his heart, trying to get attention and his mother was not giving it to him,” she realised.
The woman explains that she would be understanding had the mother been making an effort to keep her child calm; things would be different.
“I would have stepped in and like try to help her and try to help her do something. But she did not try once to talk to that child, play with that child, pat-a-cake. Nothing!” the woman explained.
“All she said to him the whole flight was ‘don’t do that, Spencer.’”
When a yogurt finally emerged, the woman said she hoped it might settle him. Instead, it ended up smeared across the tray table before the mother asked a flight attendant to clean it up.
“He was desperate from someone to entertain him,” she said.
Eventually, the passenger herself played a short game of “spiders” on the boy’s legs. Spencer giggled, calmed, and for a brief moment stopped misbehaving.
“That was the only time he behaved,” she said.
The TikTok drew divided opinions. Some agreed with the woman.
“Don’t understand people that don’t take something or a few things to keep their children entertained,” one person said.
Another shared: “My kids have never acted like this on a flight & if they were disturbing other passengers I would stop it straight away.”
But others urged compassion.
“You’ve no idea what that mother is going through…. Maybe she’s grieving, necessary travel for a funeral? I lost count of how many children my mother took off exhausted mothers on planes to entertain them. You could easily have channelled your energy to that instead of judging and creating a TikTok,” they said.
The traveller conceded the mother looked tired, but stood by her belief that it was the lack of effort, not the child’s energy, that made the flight unbearable.
