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Voices What CEOs don’t understand about parents on planes A woman in the US was widely praised for refusing to swap seats with a mother so she could be next to her children, writes Charlotte Cripps. As a mum myself, it just seems mean
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Your support makes all the difference. Read more A CEO has been praised for refusing to swap seats on a plane so that a mother could sit next to her two children during the flight. As a mum with two young children myself, I can’t help but think: why?
Tammy Nelson, who is a chief executive of jewellery brand CONQUERing, appears smugly self-righteous as she shared the incident on TikTok , explaining that she didn’t want to switch seats to help the mum – because it meant she lost her window seat .
“She just expected me to flex my plans to suit her needs,” Nelson said, while adding that “people are fed up with people feeling entitled”.
To which I would retort: Oh, really? Who exactly is the entitled one here? Because it’s not this poor mum.
Nelson was 100 per cent wrong not to give up her seat – it’s shocking behaviour. To not be kind and empathetic and let a mother sit next to her kids on a flight brings tears to my eyes. I’m a mum and know how hard it is to manage two kids on a flight. Why doesn’t she?
Nelson justified her ruthless behaviour by saying she had only had 90-minutes sleep the night before and could only sleep on the plane next to a window. She had a “high-pressure work week” where she was presenting to 500 people – and she also suffered from motion sickness during take-off and landing, unless she was sitting by a window.
It sounds like whining to me – I’m not surprised the mum was reportedly “super annoyed” before moving back to her own middle seat.
Good luck to this woman; it means she’s left to mind somebody else’s kids. She should check her moral compass – rather than her boarding pass.
Has this high-flying business woman ever experienced what it’s like sitting next to two children on a plane who drop iPads under the seats, argue, get scared during take-off and landing, have popping ears, scream and want snacks and to jump around the place every five minutes?
How exactly was she planning on having a nice little power nap on this Delta flight from Cincinnati, Ohio to San Jose, California, anyway?
It’s mean. End of story. I can’t believe Nelson has received support from TikTok users for her stand. “Nope. If it’s not an upgrade it’s a sacrifice,” said one user. “No obligation to switch,” said another.
I haven’t had a situation yet where I’ve been separated from my kids on a plane, but it reminds me of how unkind people were when I was in a supermarket clinging onto a screaming newborn baby and my toddler having a meltdown. Nobody let me jump the queue at the checkout – instead, I was treated like a pariah.
Like this mum on the plane, I genuinely wasn’t trying to pull a fast one. I was just asking for help. But I was pushed back in line. In the end, I left all my shopping and fled Tescos in floods of tears. I bet this is how the mum felt – except that she couldn’t escape like I did.
For all the online criticism of this mum for not booking the right seats in advance – well, have they considered that perhaps she wasn’t able to book three seats together?
It was hardly a long flight – and Nelson could have always moved to the middle seat after take-off to avoid motion sickness. I know who I’d prefer to sit next to, any day. And it’s not a CEO.
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