Woman asks if she's wrong to tell 27 year old cousin to 'act her age' during flight.
Sure, some people have a fear of flying, but are some just doing it for attention? When this woman is annoyed with her cousin, she asks Reddit:
'AITA for telling my cousin she needs to act her age on a flight?'
I'm (F24) currently on a trip in Hawaii with my boyfriend Tom (M31). My cousin Jane (F27) and her fiance Jack (M32) were going to LA, since me and Tom had a layover in LA we booked the flight together and got seats in the same row.
Background: Jane has always been really bad with planes, which is something she also admits. When we were younger, we'd take family trips to different states, she'd shout and cry on the plane.
I haven't been on a flight with her in a while, but she apparently gotten better with flying. So we board and it's about to take off, Jane already looks nervous (we're still on ground.)
We had a pretty smooth take off and stable in the air, but Jane clutched onto Jack's hand, and he's whispering in her ear and holding her head on his lap. The poor guy couldn't even get his tray table down properly to eat.
Whenever the plane shook the tiniest amount, she started sniffling and tearing up. There were kids in the row in front of us and even they weren't acting up as much as Jane, and it was getting too much, so I told her she needs to act her age - this kind of thing was okay when she was a kid but not anymore, and she can't have people coddling her.
She got upset and said she can't help it, to which I replied that I understand her fears, but she's acting kind of selfish and not letting anyone else enjoy the flight, especially Jack.
We didn't talk much rest of the flight and Jane seemed mad at me. We went our separate ways after landing, and Tom agreed that Jane needs to grow up, but obviously she was upset/angry at me saying that, so AITA?
columbuspoegot writes:
It really wasn’t your place to say anything. She wasn’t making you help her, she was leaning on her fiancé. Also, berating her in the moment was NOT helpful at all.
If you really cared about her, you could have waited until after the trip and given her a phone call to say you’re sorry she is still having trouble with flying and ask if she was seeing a therapist or doctor about her anxiety/fears.
But no, you didn’t want to help her…you wanted to treat her like a misbehaving child. YTA
sonsagim writes:
YTA Anxiety is debilitating and people are not able to.control it like you imagine. We had to buy my adult son a train ticket back from California because he was so anxious he couldn't eat for a week just thinking about the return trip.
He almost passed out on the way there and lost 10 pounds in a week. Anxiety is real. She can get medicine and psychiatric help but your comments are not helpful.