An obese woman has come under fire after refusing to give up her second plane seat for a fussy toddler, but she believes she did nothing wrong.
The 34-year-old woman originally booked two seats on her cross-country flight because previous experiences did not allow her to fit comfortably in one seat.
She was excited to visit her family for Christmas, but everything went downhill when a young mother demanded she “squeeze into one chair” so her son could sit in the other.
“I'm obese,” she admitted on Reddit. 'I am actively losing weight and I have made progress, but I booked an extra seat because I am fat.'
She revealed that she insisted on keeping her second seat because she paid for it, but it ruined the rest of her trip.
An obese woman is under fire for refusing to give up her second plane seat for a fussy toddler, but she believes she did nothing wrong
“(The mother) made a big fuss about it and she told the flight attendant that I stole her son's seat.
'Then I showed her my boarding passes, which showed that I had paid for the extra seat. The flight attendant asked if I could try to cut in, but I said no, I wanted the extra seat I paid for.”
Because the child was only 18 months old, he didn't need his own seat and could have sat on his mother's lap during the flight – but the mother was hoping for some respite from a squirmy toddler.
The passenger said: 'I got dirty looks and passive-aggressive comments from her the whole flight and I feel a little bad because the boy seemed hard to control – but am I wrong?'
Many criticized the mother and flight attendant for their “horrific” behavior.
“The mother is an asshole for not buying a seat for her son and assuming someone else would give up a seat they paid for. Chances are she was hoping there would be extra seats on the flight so she didn't have to pay and used the lap thing as a loophole,” one person said.
“What's the point of an extra seat if the flight attendants are intimidated by people with rights and push others to give up the seat?” asked another.
'People buy entire chairs for high-quality music equipment. Not even people. Their lack of planning does not represent an emergency on your part,” one man wrote.
But others blamed the woman for causing discomfort.
“If you're so fat that you need more than one seat on a plane, you're selfish,” one person said. 'Flights are constantly overbooked, especially during the holidays. How can you justify having two seats to yourself?'
Another added: 'How much space does a child take up, seriously? Yes, the mother should have bought a chair, but that doesn't mean you have to be selfish and make two people inconvenienced.”