Child forced to urinate in seat of plane

[Montjoy]

I'm rather sad that anyone thinks that peeing one's pants as a 3 year old is traumatic. If there is trauma, it is because of those around her/him.

 

[Linda7NJ]

I'm rather sad that anyone thinks that peeing one's pants as a 3 year old is traumatic. If there is trauma, it is because of those around her/him.

I never said it was going to cause irreparable harm or that it was over the top traumatic and would cause life long issues.

The kid was clearly stressed and upset and crying. She didn't want to soil herself. Would you? How would you react if forced to soil yourself on a plane?

But is that the bar now? As long as it doesn't cause irreparable harm to a child is acceptable?
Ummm NO.

IMO


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[LinasK]

I'm rather sad that anyone thinks that peeing one's pants as a 3 year old is traumatic. If there is trauma, it is because of those around her/him.

Exactly! My daughter wasn't scarred for life by having to wet her pants because she refused to use the bathroom when she had the chance.

 

[Montjoy]

I never said it was going to cause irreparable harm or that it was over the top traumatic and would cause life long issues.

The kid was clearly stressed and upset and crying. She didn't want to soil herself. Would you? How would you react if forced to soil yourself on a plane?

But is that the bar now? As long as it doesn't cause irreparable harm to a child is acceptable?

rsbm

I never suggested that this incident would cause irreparable harm either. I remember peeing my pants on the way home from a fishing trip at Lake of the Woods when I was 3. I was embarrassed, but my parents made it clear to me that such things are unfortunate, but they happen. While this did not happen in a plane, it did happen around every single person whose opinion mattered to me, and it happened in the prized convertible. But to my parents, it was no big thing, so to me, it was also no big thing.

Had I been shoved into a news story afterwards, I might have thought differently or have been stressed/traumatized.

 

[gitana1]

Good question, of course...But I don't want to name any airlines here, and frankly, it won't matter for most readers. I fly frequently parts of the arctic where there are airlines that are almost charter airlines, but they have some regularly scheduled routes at some times of the year for passengers. The aircraft they use are very small -- some can hold about 12 passengers, tops. The only 'flight attendant' is the co-pilot. But this is the way things are done in some places, and the pilots are really excellent, the planes well maintained, and the ground-crew/support staff are excellent as well. But they do not have bathrooms. Passengers are cautioned about this in advance.

Oh, and there is no security between the passenger area and the cargo hold -- or for that matter, the cockpit (or I guess I should use the term 'flight deck' nowadays, but for the sake of clarity I will give both). The north is huge, and frankly, even if there was enough business to justify weekly jet service (which would not itself be enough), the cost of building landing strips and upgrading jets to fly and land up north would not be anywhere close to cost effective.

That is super interesting to me. I'm dying to know more - about the planes, up north in general, etc. I won;t tie up the thread but I might contact you later if you're willing to tell me more about how all that works!! It sounds remote and exciting.

You'll never catch me strapped in on a roller coaster

I've had to go many times when the line to the women's bathroom was ridiculously long. Especially at concerts when I was much younger. I've went in the men's room..( never seems to be a line there) I've went outside in bushes, wooded areas, behind trees, behind buildings, once I was stuck on the Walt Whitman Bridge for two hours because someone was being talked out of jumping off of it. They stopped all traffic. I had an SUV at the time, thankfully with tinted windows. I climbed in the back and peed in a empty cup.
I've gotten up and went on a plane when I wasn't supposed to.

I have never been forced to sit and soil myself. Never.
And
I would never force a child to either.
IMO it's inhumane.


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You gave me options that do not exist in a plane when it's cleared for take off. Let me give you one I think is more analogous: In an elevator, with other people, strangers, and it gets stuck.

I sympathize. I have a small bladder. In my twenties, I once peed myself waiting for a bathroom to open up. I also use men's bathrooms, all the time and I have no problem peeing in the bushes. I also used the cup method before.

The point is, there are times when the bathroom is unavailable and a person has to really, really go, so they pee their pants, and it may be no one's fault.

I'm horrified too, but lets look at the differences between your experience and this womans with her daughter.

1. You were in a home, not a public place.
2. Your daughter was embarrassed in front of family, this child was embarrassed in front of dozens of strangers.
3. You promptly (I'm hoping) cleaned your daughter up, changing her clothes and such, this woman was not permitted to clean her child up or change her clothes, when she attempted to the FA called the pilot.

Seeing any differences here?? I certainly do.

The kid is three. I was a preschool teacher and daycare worker for years. No one is going to convince me that kids at age 3, just potty trained, have the same sense of shame and self awareness that an adult does, or someone at age 13 or even 6.

Come on, all of us have heard a kid, (sometimes even our own kids) yelling about having to poop, or something, in public. Or stripping off clothing in public, or lifting their skirts, or walking up with wet underwear at the park and guilessly telling you they peed. Most three year olds are not mortified that they wet themselves, unless you make them feel mortified by causing a scene.

Except it was NO ACCIDENT.

Can't we stick to the facts here?


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Peeing your pants because a bathroom is unavailable for whatever reason (that includes rules), is an accident. No one told the kid - "Pee your pants or I will hit you."

I never said it was going to cause irreparable harm or that it was over the top traumatic and would cause life long issues.

The kid was clearly stressed and upset and crying. She didn't want to soil herself. Would you? How would you react if forced to soil yourself on a plane?

But is that the bar now? As long as it doesn't cause irreparable harm to a child is acceptable?
Ummm NO.

IMO


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Soiling means pooping one's pants. Not peeing.

Kids that age are different and can handle public bodily functions, or nakedness, far better than adults. It's just not a reasonable analogy.

That being said, I totally agree that kids should not be treated without dignity just because they are small. They do have feelings too. And things like this can create lasting impressions or memories. Of course parents can prevent that by their own reaction.

Neither the apology from Jetblue not the mother stating that an off duty pilot and "other passengers" came to her defense, is very convincing to me, that the FA was wrong. She could have been. I wasn't there.

But I know there are strict rules for a reason. A comment after one of the articles about this explains: "If any passenger is out of their seat while they are on an active runway they aren't allowed to move. Not sure of the case of this ground hold but if it was weather related and there would have been a small break in weather there could have been a tight window to take off and if a PAX was in the lav they would have lost that opportunity and could have lost their place in the takeoff queue and would have meant a much longer delay.
The people posting on here defending the mother obviously don't fly very often or they would know it's not a simple matter of telling the mother the girl could get up. They would know with a weather or ATC ground traffic hold that sometimes there will be a very short break in the weather, etc and the plane needs to take off right away."

BTW, I;m not a fan of putting a potty trained child in pull ups to avoid something like this. It takes work to potty train a child. It is very confusing to put them back in what they equate to "diapers".

I also don;t like rules for rules' sake and believe in using common sense as well.

But I definitely appreciate and respect the very strict rules of flying and passenger safety. (And I am NOT talking about the TSA here, who like to grope through old lady's diapers). Flying is the safest industry in existence.

In this case, I just don't know if we are just dealing with an irate, irritated parent who caused a scene after a delay and due to strict rules the FA had no choice but to follow, or with a bureaucratic martinet who could not think for herself, or with a pilot who overreacted, or with all three, or none of the above or a combination.

But I do know that it took hard work and years of training to combat my fear of flying and I don't want defensive parents or ridiculous bureaucrats to mess things up.

This is a sensitive topic for me (airline safety) due to how far I have come.

 

[K_Z]

Odd ...I just did a quick google search. I couldn't find one instance where someone was arrested for simply using the bathroom on an airplane.

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Snipped by me.

The reason the plane returned to the gate was not the mom and child using the lav against the instructions of the FA's. It was because the mom argued with FA's, and would not sit down and buckle up when asked. That places her into the "unruly, disobedient" category. That is why the pilot made the choice to return to the gate. And believe me, the pilot DID NOT want to return to the gate, at that point. His day was seriously messed up, at that point.

My personal opinion/ impression is that the mom passenger defied/ argued this instruction more than once, creating the need for the FA's to elevate the decision making to the pilot.

The pilot, and the pilot alone, makes the decision to "divert" for passenger behavior- whether in the air, or on the ground. Don't blame the FA's. (They don't make enough $$ to bear the burden of that kind of criticism, IMO.)

And again, this has nothing, IMO, to do with the child. It is all about the mother's reaction to what was going on. She did not want to follow the instructions of flight crew, and apparently felt offended/ angry over the FAA imminent takeoff/ no bathroom rules-- for whatever her personal reasons were. That is potentially a crime. I don't blame the FA's for elevating decision making in this situation.

Mom had an "accident". Mom "made a mistake". This really isn't at all about the child. The reason the pilot chose to return to the gate has little to nothing to do with the child wetting her pants, and everything to do with mom's reaction to the situation, the rules, and openly not following the FA's instructions. I think it's sad the media missed that important fact. There was a teaching moment there, IMO.

 

[K_Z]

And for the record, I don't think the mom should have been arrested. I DO think she should have been removed from the flight, with her kids, and offered travel on another flight. And "counseled" about her behavior. That would give her time to think about how she chose to handle the situation, and a chance to handle things differently next flight. A "time out", one might say.

I still think she is really, really lucky she wasn't arrested.

 

[CHERIE.T]

I don't think the problem really is the flight attendant trying to enforce regulations, but rather the way the flight crew and FA reacted afterwards. They had the plane begin to return to the gate to have the mother and girl removed and turned over to security as "unruly." That is ridiculous.

:thewave:

 

[CHERIE.T]

I'll take it a step further. This mother should be thanking her lucky stars she wasn't
Snipped
This mother benefitted from her race and appearance, IMO. That's the elephant on the plane nobody wants to acknowledge. She definitely benefitted from "white privilege" that day, IMO .

snipped for space
BBM
Where did that outlandish claim come from? :doh:

 

[CHERIE.T]

I forced my own daughter to do it, and from the experience she learned not to do it again because she was so embarrassed. She was young and we told her that she had to use the bathroom at her cousins' house then because her adult male cousin needed to use the bathroom to take a shower and they only had one bathroom. She refused to go, and then when it became an emergency she couldn't use it because cousin Aaron was taking his shower. She did wet her pants and the embarrassment she suffered caused her to never do it again!

IMOO>>>>>> :gasp:

 

[CHERIE.T]

Ya know...I find it all the more upsetting because it WAS family. Family is supposed to love you, care about you, protect you, and look out for you. Not stand around to watch the child urinate on herself so she could be embarrassed all in an effort to teach her some sort of a lesson.

As an adult, I would have no problem, stepping out of the shower, throwing my robe on, and leaving the bathroom for a minute so a young family member could use it. Id simply say, hey...it would be really great if next time, you'd try to go, before I get in the shower.
.

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IMO that's how a considerate person would handle it. Bbm

 

[CHERIE.T]

And for the record, I don't think the mom should have been arrested. I DO think she should have been removed from the flight, with her kids, and offered travel on another flight. And "counseled" about her behavior. That would give her time to think about how she chose to handle the situation, and a chance to handle things differently next flight. A "time out", one might say.

I still think she is really, really lucky she wasn't arrested.

:banghead: counseled for her behavior ??? ..... really?

 

[redheadedgal]

Odd ...I just did a quick google search. I couldn't find one instance where someone was arrested for simply using the bathroom on an airplane.

here's three:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/bmi-...er-arrested-offloaded-after-going-toilet.html

http://www.americanrestroom.org/pr/story.htm

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2002/02/11/airline-passenger-arrested-for-leaving-seat-within-30-minutes-salt-lake-city/

 

[CHERIE.T]

1st link---------- March 2008
2nd link ---------------- 2001
3rd link------------------Feb. 2002

 

[killarney rose]

Ya know...I find it all the more upsetting because it WAS family. Family is supposed to love you, care about you, protect you, and look out for you. Not stand around to watch the child urinate on herself so she could be embarrassed all in an effort to teach her some sort of a lesson.

As an adult, I would have no problem, stepping out of the shower, throwing my robe on, and leaving the bathroom for a minute so a young family member could use it. Id simply say, hey...it would be really great if next time, you'd try to go, before I get in the shower.





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Part of the lesson this child learned...and a very important one was that her needs/wants are not more important than those of others. Its is ridiculous to expect a person to leave the bathroom in the middle of a shower because a child that was warned ahead of time to use the bathroom and didnt, suddenly decided she needed to go. I bet in the future she went when reminded !

The mom on the plane was a terrible role model for her child in so many ways. The only thing the child brought away from this incident was that if I throw a fit, I will get compensated for it. What I want is more important than anything else and I will do what it takes to get my way.

 

[keeponsearching]

I don't think the toddler was force to pee on the plane. She had to go and went.

My 5 year old peed in her pants in school last year, they didn't make a big deal about it and she wasn't traumatized.. My girl holds her bladder to long.
One day in pick up line in her carseat at 5 she told me she had to go, there was nothing I could do, the line was about to get moving. SO a few minutes later she told me she went! I was like in your pants, again I didn't make a big deal out of it and cleaned her and it up when we got home. Less then 10 minutes.
All in all those two time plus one time when she was just learning to pee, are the only times she wet herself.
My daughter learned to potty right before 3, but at night for months she wore pullup to bed. I am pretty sure I would of had her in a pullup on the plane. I follow the rules, so if they said no, then that would suck but as a mom these things happen. Prepare for it all. I love jetblue, only plane I fly on.

 

[redheadedgal]

1st link---------- March 2008
2nd link ---------------- 2001
3rd link------------------Feb. 2002

is that an attempt to render the arrests less relevant?

9/11 happened over a decade ago, is it now meaningless too?

 

[Linda7NJ]

here's three:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/bmi-...er-arrested-offloaded-after-going-toilet.html

http://www.americanrestroom.org/pr/story.htm

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2002/02/11/airline-passenger-arrested-for-leaving-seat-within-30-minutes-salt-lake-city/

From the second link:

"Because of the incident, air marshals aboard the plane ordered all passengers to put their hands on their heads for the rest of the flight."

What????


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[Disguiseduser0308]

I understand mama being upset that her baby had an accident. I don't understand her thinking on bringing this issue to the media. JMO a bigger deal was made out of this than it needed to be. Are we so inundated with news stories that everything is a news story now?

Every time one of my kids had an accident I thought of this for some comedic relief. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRpouK0KmWQ

 

[AnaTeresa]

I think some people are missing the fact that other passengers on the plane, including an off-duty pilot two seats in front of her were on mom's side. To me, if you have someone who's witnessed the whole thing, particularly someone who's knowledgeable about FAA restrictions and whatnot, and they're going to bat for the mom and child - that says a lot to me about the actions of the flight attendant.

Source: http://boston.cbslocal.com/2014/06/...-access-3-year-old-forced-to-urinate-in-seat/