17-Year-Old Praised For Refusing To Give Up Her Reserved Window Seat To A Pregnant Woman On A Plane
She said that her unborn baby wanted to sit near the window and "see the sky."
More Than Production | Shutterstock A 17-year-old girl caused an airplane uproar after refusing to give up her prepaid and booked window seat to a pregnant passenger who felt she deserved it more than the young woman did. After flight attendants got involved and escorted the hysterical passenger to her assigned seat, other passengers began murmuring about the teen’s “selfishness,” claiming that had they been in her situation, they would have given up the seat.
Now, the woman is wondering if she is wrong and if she should have just bitten her tongue and offered her window seat to the passenger who asked to have it. Thankfully, after posting her story to Reddit, the teen was praised for finding the courage to stick up for herself and not be bullied out of her rightful spot.
A pregnant woman approached a teen girl and asked if she could have the window seat because her baby wanted to 'see the sky.'
Sharing her story to the subreddit, r/childless, the 17-year-old young woman revealed that she and her parents had booked a holiday weekend to one of their favorite island getaways. The family reserved their airplane seats in advance, with the woman booking herself a window seat while her parents booked another section of the plane. As the woman got settled into her seat, a fellow passenger approached her.
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“A pregnant woman came up to me and asked me if I could change my seat with her because her ‘baby’ wanted to sit beside the window to see the sky,” the woman wrote.
Since the woman had booked the window seat for herself in advance since she wanted to sit beside a window, she politely refused the pregnant passenger’s request. Still, the passenger was not taking no for an answer. “She was persistent and kept on pestering me about it to the point where she started to yell and burst into tears,” the woman shared.
An older passenger (presumed to be the pregnant woman’s mother) tried to bully the teen out of her seat.
The older passenger claimed that the pregnant woman’s “cravings” made her desire a window seat while flying and that refusing her the seat could result in “disabilities” in her unborn child. The passenger then continued berating the woman, believing that she was “oppressing” the pregnant woman and that she should be “ashamed” of herself.
That’s when the young woman decided to fairly defend herself. “If you want a window seat, then you should book a window seat instead of throwing a tantrum like a child,” she told the pregnant passenger, which only made the two women, who were insisting that she give up her window seat, scream at her even louder.
Two flight attendants finally arrived at the scene and escorted the pregnant passenger and her mother back to their assigned seats. Still, the woman’s torture was not over yet. “I got weird stares from everyone, and I even heard people say, ‘She’s so selfish, why can’t she just give her seat to that pregnant lady?’” she wrote.
However, other passengers agreed with her, and some of them whispered to each other that they believed that if the pregnant woman wanted a window seat, she should have booked one for herself before the flight.
The teen was worried she had done the wrong thing by sticking up for herself, but others came to her defense.
Most people defended the teen, pointing out that since she booked the window seat, no one but her was entitled to it. “No. Pregnant lady wants a window seat, pregnant lady can book a window seat,” one Redditor commented. “And it’s very telling she only picked on you (a younger person more vulnerable to peer pressure) to give up your seat instead of any other person sitting at a window seat.”
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“I remember a saying, ‘Your failure to plan does not constitute an emergency on my part.’ You do not get special treatment for doing one of the most basic functions,” another user shared. “Her baby is not even born and cannot see out the window yet!” another user noted.
While pregnancy can be difficult, it does not give someone the right to demand that others around them give up services that they paid for themselves and expect them to find alternative arrangements. The teen booked a window seat for herself far in advance before she boarded the flight. Therefore, the seat belongs to no one except her.
In fact, sitting by a window while pregnant may not be the wisest idea, according to one flight attendant. Although everyone is different, Victoria, who has worked on flights while she was pregnant herself, explains why an aisle seat was the better choice for her. “Whether you’re early on in pregnancy and you’re having morning sickness, or it’s later on in pregnancy and you have to pee every three seconds, it will just make your life easier,” she told Seven Corners, adding that aisle seats also have more "wiggle room."
Hopefully, once the pregnant passenger’s baby is born, she will learn from her mistakes and book a window seat before the flight so that the baby can actually see the sky from the outside of her body.
Megan Quinn is a writer with a bachelor's degree in English and a minor in Creative Writing. She covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on justice in the workplace, personal relationships, parenting debates, and the human experience.
