Babysitter for Parents in Business Class

August 30, 2013

in Baby & Kid Stories

Have spent the last few summers in England /Europe; graduate of Cambridge and found my boyfriend there. No stranger to the trip from San Francisco to London and back. This last trip August, 2013 was different. Always request the aisle seat; got it no problem. Settled in waiting for my seatmates; they arrive – two young children, girl 6 or 7 and her brother 8 or 9. They took their seats. I looked around for their parents; plane took off.

Kids get bored; people and flight crew looking at me to keep what they think are my kids or charges. Try to explain NOT MINE. Cannot find parents; very long flight with two nice but bored children who are driving everyone within four or five rows nuts.

At about eight hours into the fight here comes mom. She and her husband are up in Business, and she decided that she should check on her kids. As they were still alive, she turned around and returned to the safety of Business Class to the comments of fellow passengers. She was not to be seen again until we landed at SFO.

The parents are lucky that you cannot tar and feather bad /stupid /lazy parents. Yes, I felt sorry for the kids, but felt I should have given mom and dad a hefty bill for babysitting.

{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }

Tiago August 30, 2013 at 11:54 am

It amazes me how some parents can be so selfish and irresponsible.
I would never do that to my kids. Apparently that was already a routine for that family, even so i would worry if they were sleeping, or eating, or pissing off everyone around them….

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Allen August 31, 2013 at 12:16 pm

Which airline was this?! Most have a rule that children and parents must be in the same cabin.

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Anthony October 7, 2013 at 11:25 am

They apparently don't have any technical enforcement.

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Veronica76 August 31, 2013 at 2:45 pm

Being a baby boomer, we flew a lot with our child. I cannot fathom what these idiot parents did.
But it's becoming more prevalent that parents really are too selfish to take care of their own kids. (I would never let a child of those ages out of my site.).

Don't have them, if you don't want to be bothered.

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Anthony October 7, 2013 at 11:23 am

WTF I tried to up vote this and it registered down vote. It won't let me change it.

Flights from hell fire your dev team. They damn well knew people would make mistakes or otherwise want to change a vote but didn't implement it because they were lazy coders.

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James September 1, 2013 at 10:36 am

I've twice flown in different cabins from my parents. In 1977, when I was 16, my father and I went to an AAAS meeting in Denver. It was my first flight across time zones — I was in coach and he was in business. At age 16, though, I knew how to behave on a plane.

Back in 2001, we flew from Amsterdam to Kilimanjaro. I was willing to pay the extra for business class, my sister wasn't, and since she is afraid of flying, my parents sat with her.

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Anthony October 7, 2013 at 11:21 am

As you are collecting social security retirement benefits in the second incident I think we can all live with you not sitting next to mommy and daddy. 🙂

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Actuary October 7, 2013 at 8:48 pm

Not quite. 2001-1977+16=40 Most people don't collect retirement at 40, though if James does, he's pretty fortunate to retire so young.

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Anthony October 7, 2013 at 11:18 am

Wow, The pathological selfishness.

That's an easy enough policy to implement: your children must be in the nearest available seats in the same class. I could see this mom taking a seperate flight as a loophole.

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nyrB October 10, 2013 at 11:43 am

A hefty bill for babysitting? From what you said in the article, you did everything you could to disassociate yourself from the two kids. Exactly what babysitting service did you provide?

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Guest November 3, 2013 at 10:46 pm

I think you should have told 'mom' that you were a registered sex offender.

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