The nurse and mother of five says the parents of an unruly child were unable to stop her from repeating the offensive behavior a second and third time
A plane passenger found support on Tiktok after speaking out about an unexpectedly moist — flight.
In a video posted to the platform Monday, June 17, Shayla Monnier describes an incident that occurred on a trip from Atlanta to Denver, in which a child in the row in front of her turned around and blew a raspberry at her, causing spit to fly “all over” her face and her husband’s arm.
She estimates that the girl was between the ages of 3 and 5, which she calls “old enough to understand that you don’t do that.”
“I was kind of shocked,” Monnier, who is a mom of five herself and a nurse, says.
According to Monnier, the child’s parents told her not to do it again, but she “fought against them.” It wasn’t long before she turned around in the seat and did it a second time.
“This time, I put my hand up just to block the spit from me, and her parents kind of like grabbed her and had her sit down, but she fought,” Monnier explains, noting that the child was in the middle seat, flanked by her mother and father.
shayla/tiktok
Shayla Monnier
Monnier says the unruly child then turned around a third time, and “spit was going everywhere.”
In a second video recounting the messy incident, Monnier asks, “Is everybody seriously gentle parenting these days? Because I’m not about it. Not if you’re spitting in my face.”
She admits of the incident, “My husband lost his cool.”
“The very first time that she did it, we both were just so shocked,” she says. “And the parents acted like they cared, but I’m not really sure that they did, ‘cause it then wouldn’t have happened a second and a third time.”
“After the third time my husband very sternly said to the parents, ‘If you don’t get your kid under control, I’ll do it for you,’” she adds.
Since both parents were wearing face masks, Monnier says her husband suggested having the child wear one.
“Then the mom yelled back at him and said, ‘If you had kids maybe you’d understand,’ to which my husband replied, ‘We have five children and six grandchildren and I promise you not one of them would do something like that,’” Monnier recalls.
Monnier claims a flight attendant then heard the commotion and asked the child’s parents to put a mask on her.
She notes that moving seats wasn’t an option since the flight was full and no one within five rows would’ve agreed to trade places since the spitting incident “caused such a spectacle.”
Getty
A stock photo of a child on a plane
Monnier says if the flight attendant hadn’t intervened, her next move would’ve been to hold up a magazine to block the spit.
She notes that the child had slept for the entire flight up until the incident, so she wasn’t simply restless from the long ride.
Many TikTok users praised Monnier and her husband — who were offered free flight credits for enduring the stressful situation by the crew member — for how they handled it.
“100% agree with how you and your husband responded!” wrote one person.
“People need to understand that gentle parenting is NOT permissive parenting,” read another comment. “Gentle parenting doesn’t mean you just let your kid get away with inappropriate behavior!!!”
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A stock photo of a child on a plane
“Parents are horrible now — gentle is a fail,” another commenter said. “Your options are genius. You’re in the right!”
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PEOPLE spoke with travel expert, writer and advisor Nicole Campoy Jackson of Fora Travel, who says the way Monnier and her husband reacted is “perfectly reasonable. “
“They spoke to the parents and asked for their help, but the kid kept at it,” Jackson adds. “They got frustrated and told the parents that. At this point (if not before), I do think one of the parents could have gotten up with the child and gone for a walk down the aisle, then ideally had a talk about not doing that anymore before going back to the seat.”
However, she says it’s hard to hard to opine on the parents’ response without knowing their situation.
“These passengers explained everything to the flight attendant, who responded in kind by helping in their trained, professional way —asking the parents to put a mask on their child (especially since they themselves had masks on) and accommodating these passengers for their trouble,” she continues.
Jackson points out that traveling with children be a learning opportunity.
“Traveling with kids is stressful, without a doubt,” she says. “But as much as we parents can handle it at any given moment, part of traveling with kids is teaching them how to travel which means being respectful of the people around them.”
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