“So… If a flight attendant told me my daughter had to sit in her own seat because she is two or three, I would have no problem. That is ok. My daughter can sit on her own.”
A child above 2 has to sit in his / her own seat regardless of whether they can sit on their own. THAT"S WHY THEY MAKE CHILD SEATS, both “regular” and for those with special needs. This equipment exists. It’s not exotic and it’s not wildly unaffordable.
I don’t know whether it’s a special bike seat, if the angle is leaned back, etc. Again, read something a poster here wrote and it made me wonder something.
I don’t think so, Deborah. The pictures of the child show her in some upright positions. One I saw, her dad was holding her, with just an arm around her butt, not even supporting her back, from what I saw. She looks like she can support her head just fine. If your child was in such mortal danger just from being upright, you would be the most negligent parent in the world to not have special equipment for her.
It sounds more like mom was very angry, not scared. I am most certain that if she had thought there was a threat to the child’s life, she would have told the flight crew, and the millions of the listening public on her talk show appearance.
Sorry about the tone. Sometimes I just type what pops into my head and it sounds like tone, it’s not.
But, this woman is not at all hard for me to understand. She is an entitled housewife who is used to getting her way just because and didn’t like being told what to do by a flight attendant and probably hears all day, every day how wonderful she is and being treated like everyone else did not sit well with her so she refused to change seats. This is not speculation and it oozes from her tweets. She claims she wanted more compassion and an apology. She’s not even arguing about the rule. She just thinks she’s special and wasn’t treated specially enough and most people don’t like her much at this point.
I don’t think there is anyone who is not sympathetic to the child. This is about the parent. This would have been no big deal if the mom hadn’t decided she wanted to be vindictive, get the flight attendant fired, and embarrass the company. Even the long delay wouldn’t have been noticed by anyone but those directly involved, if she hadn’t decided to publically harangue the company.
However, I’ve got to have something better to do than this (like clean the toilets), so good bye!
Thank you for the information, Bus. Didn’t know. Hard job working on a plane.
Years ago I knew (not well) people in two different families that had children born with brains that don’t function, or if they do, very, very little. I remember one baby had a feeding tube. There was not expected to be a change for either of the babies. The parents in one family seemed to be doing okay. They had two older children who were both well and strong community support. The other family, I hope the mom is okay… She wasn’t doing very well…
“If your child was in such mortal danger just from being upright, you would be the most negligent parent in the world to not have special equipment for her.”
Exactly. You would have a brace / harness / supportive equipment at all times. There are children who wear braces to keep their head upright so it doesn’t fall forward. I used to go to Easter Seals with my son and saw that all that time.
“She claims she wanted more compassion and an apology. She’s not even arguing about the rule.”
In all fairness, Marie, she thanked United for the apology.
What I am wondering where was the dad while the argument was going on for an hour. He apparently had an empty seat next to him. Early on couldn’t he just have said bring her here, buckle her up in the empty seat and I’ll hold her up? I sure hope they are not my neighbors.
"In all fairness, Marie, she thanked United for the apology.’
Yes, of course she did. She needed a way out of her failed PR campaign against the airline and so did United. I am sympathetic to the child and the husband, but the mom not so much. Sorry.
I am sympathetic to the rest of her family too, including the other kids. What should have been a four-hour flight turned into five hours on the plane plus whatever it took the mom to wait at the gate after they landed to threaten the flight attendant. Imagine doing that with four squirmy young kids who had just sat through a long flight. It’s just so incredibly selfish and vindictive, and it sends a terrible message to the family’s children about how to resolve issues.
Calmom,
It is really not necessary to be so condescending. I DID look up the exceptions. They are very, very limited. None of them are applicable to Ivy. The accomodation Ivy needed is a car seat with support for her head. The airlines do not supply those–no matter how much notice you give.
What busdriver shared about the seat and the bicycle seat has been described, reported and linked elsewhere in the thread. More than once. Its understandable if it was not seen by many posters who aren’t able to read the whole long thread, but then, by repeating information or comments that have been posted before, some accuse posters of beating a dead horse. Hard to have it both ways.
I have much compassion for people who work at the airlines and also for everyone on a flight being held up if there’s a problem. I also think people should not try to make someone who didn’t cause a problem pay the price for it. I imagine it must be very difficult to have a child with severe health problems of any kind.
Every person everywhere is dealing with burdens of some kind.
I need another cup of tea.
“I need another cup of tea”
I’ll join you in that. After cleaning the toilets, I just drove with my dogs to Starbucks, to get a big cup of coffee. That drive reminded me how often I do things that stretch rules, laws, or just common sense. Fortunately, I am rarely embarrassed or in trouble for it----probably because I don’t make a big deal about it.
But the lady who gave me my coffee at the drive-thru Starbucks did call me out publicly. I know it was her, she is always cranky, and won’t even look at me, unlike all the other friendly people there. She put a complaint in the newspaper about me, in the Rant and Rave section of the Seattle Times. She described my car, the location of the Starbucks, my dogs, and ranted about me for driving to Starbucks all the time with my dogs in my car. Don’t I know how dangerous that is? Whatever is wrong with me?
And yeah, I know it’s dangerous. My excuse is that they want to go to Starbucks SO BADLY, and are still as can be, and actually make you a safer, more passive driver (they are comfort dogs). Unless, of course, we see a squirrel. Then we’re ALL excited.
The point is, that I don’t think people would get worked up about this issue if it was just someone trying to stretch the rules. Most of us do, for our comfort or convenience, right or wrong. But if we were to massively inconvenience hundreds of other people, and then blame someone else for it publically, trying to get them fired…we’d probably be raked over the coals, too.
Is that true? She really called you out for driving through Starbucks with dogs? Hahaha, I know it can be unsafe (that’s why Fido is not allowed on my lap and I always have the window lock on) but geez… what a small pet peeve.
You could organize a parade of dog cars to go through when you know she’s on shift.
Then you apparently must not have ever flown with a newly broken leg. As many of you who have been around here a long time may remember, my family members tend to break stuff (she says as she is preparing to ski with these competitive xy chromosome creatures again… sigh). But I digress. DS #1 broke his leg ( a very bad, multi break femur fracture, which is the hardest bone in your body to break) when we were skiing and looking at colleges for DS #2 (who at the time wanted to go to school where he could ski in the morning and go to the beach in the afternoon). DS#1 had to have surgery to insert a titanium rod in his leg to due to his femur fracture. It was ugly. And very, very painful. And they DON’T cast the leg after this surgery. So DH accompanied him back to college as he was just newly out of the hospital in CA and could do essentially nothing on his own. It was awful. I really don’t think you can completely understand or imagine if you haven’t experienced it.
Then there was DH, who broke his ankle in 3 places, tore the syndesmosis ligament and broke his tibia. We were in Arizona. Had to arrange for the needed surgery back in our home town, across the country. So they stabilized his leg/ankle and wrapped it, but again, its was NOT casted. He was in horiffic pain and in both circumstances (DS and DH) they were very vulnerable to anyone/anything bumping up against their legs. DH’s flight was the one where the former NBA player (and ex army enlistee who was told that the military would provide better healthcare for his leg injuries than the NBA could/would, but that’s another story and he played for the LA Lakers decades ago before enlisting, where his leg injuries went from bad to immobile) was across the aisle from us.
So sorghum, if you cannot understand how this can affect DS and DH’s comfort level on a flight, I have no words.
The problem is your three dogs keep barking at her beloved cat and three guinea pigs. If they could all just find a way to peacefully coexist or at least get their squeals in unison and all meow and bark to a bearable beat. That’ll probably never happen, but one can wish.
You are deliberately misunderstanding what I say? I said, in effect, that for the same injury (a broken leg) it does not matter, for flight comfort, whether you broke it saving a nun from a fire, or you broke it robbing a bank and fleeing the police.
Of course there are degrees of severity in leg injuries. Ivy’s situation is worse, much worse.
Bus, I am curious. Are your dogs on your lap or just in the car? Maybe she has had too much caffeine. Probably doesn’t like dogs either. I like the dog parade idea.