Dad Blasted for Yelling at Passenger Who Told Him to Shut Up as Child Cried

A father has been slammed online after he yelled at a fellow flight passenger who told him to shut up as his toddler cried.

In a viral post shared on Reddit's Am I the A**hole group, user Proof_Singer_8384 said he had been traveling with his wife and two children, Micha, 7, and Jonah, 2, to Mexico. He wrote that it was the first time Jonah had traveled with them and that they had prepared him for the return six-hour journey.

This year, travel website Only Wanderlust found in a survey of 1,500 airline passengers that noisy children were among the things that annoyed them the most during their journey. Crying babies or children were No. 6 on the site's list of the top 20 annoyances.

The Reddit poster said Jonah was asleep when the family arrived at the airport, but he started to cry and wanted to walk during the flight. Instead, his wife decided to entertain him with his favorite toys.

The poster wrote: "Then a passenger gets up, I thought he was going to the restroom, though he approached us.

"He started reclaiming my wife for 'our bad parenting' and demanded we control our baby. My wife annoyed told him that we are trying but he is overwhelmed. We are so sorry for upsetting him but we are trying. He said it wasn't enough, he is tired and wants to sleep but our baby doesn't let him."

The poster continued: "Again, my wife apologizes and at this point, he starts yelling at us. He said stuff like 'Babies shouldn't be allowed to travel', 'We are irresponsible parents', and all kinds of nonsense. I asked him to lower his voice if he doesn't want to scare Jonah, but the dude was so mad and started insulting us. I just lose it and yell back at him, which didn't help because Jonah was crying at a higher pitch than before.

"Then the flight attendant came and ask him to go back to his seat firmly. He leaves us alone but I can see a lot of people looking terribly at us. I try to ignore them and focus on my kid.

"After a couple of minutes, he [falls] asleep and stayed like that. When we came back home, my wife called me an AH for arguing with the passenger, that I just scared our kid and made things worse," the poster said.

Since being shared on Monday, September 12, the post has attracted some 8,600 upvotes and more than 2,400 comments. Many of the commenters questioned why the parents did not let Jonah walk around and sympathized with the passenger.

One Reddit user said: "A toddler can walk around the cabin. It wouldn't bother us. It's much better than torturing people for hours straight because you refuse to attend to your child's needs.

"A toddler and his parent wandering back and forth is completely normal. If anything, it's abnormal to have a child that young sitting down for hours. It really never bothered any of us," the user said.

Another user agreed, writing: "Yes, I've seen this happening multiple times on flights [that] I've been on. I'd rather the parent be up and walking with their child if it helps to settle them. I wonder why OP [original poster] was so against this."

One user said: "The passenger was shouting at the parents that he was tired and needed sleep, but the baby wouldn't let him. Not that the baby needed sleep."

Another user, whose comment was upvoted 12,900 times, wrote: "Why didn't you take Jonah for a walk up and down the plane aisle? I know it's inconvenient to get a kid out of their seat and later back in it, but it sounds like he really needed to move some, and it would've been an easy solution to the issue."

Newsweek contacted Proof_Singer_8384 for comment and has not been able to verify the details of the case.