Dad Is Outraged After Flight Attendant Told His Pregnant Wife To Up Clean Kids' Mess

Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Anthony Bass tweeted a complaint about how United Airlines had treated his pregnant wife on a recent flight. According to Bass, a flight attendant asked his wife, Sydney Rae Bass, to get on the ground and pick up popcorn their daughters had spilled. Bass was outraged and his tweet has sparked a heated debate amongst parents about privilege and expectations for kids on flights.

“The flight attendant @united just made my 22 week pregnant wife traveling with a 5 year old and 2 year old get on her hands and knees to pick up the popcorn mess by my youngest daughter. Are you kidding me?!?!” Bass tweeted on Sunday. While Bass might have been hoping to get some support for his outrage, many parents had a different point of view.

“Genuinely curious who should clean up the mess your 2 year old made? As a parent of three kids I am the one responsible for them,” one Twitter user commented on his tweet, to which Bass responded, “The cleaning crew they hire!”

One mom shared a photo of herself traveling with two small kids strapped to her and said, “As someone who has definitely traveled with two small kiddos cross country by myself before...the rule is clean up after your own gremlins.” Another user agreed, writing, “I have three kids, just flew coach 12 hours, and was able to clean up after them — for every mess. It’s called parenting. Do you expect park janitors to clean up after your pet? No; Your child, your responsibility.”

Apparently Bass felt the need to clear up what he considered to be a very important element to the incident after one person commented, “Pregnant women can bend. They may not want to but the solution to that would be to not give your child popcorn on a plane.”

“United provided the popcorn, not my wife,” Bass responded.

Still, Bass did have some support from followers who were shocked that a pregnant woman was told to get on her hands and knees to clean up. “I think it’s disgusting that the stewardess made a pregnant woman clean up a mess if they’re going to supply popcorn on the airplane be ready for messes to clean up if you don’t like it, don’t serve popcorn,” wrote one Twitter user.

Romper has reached out to United Airlines for comment on Bass’ tweet, but the dad of two tweeted an update that he’s be in contact with the airline. “Thank you everyone for the support. United Airlines is taking care of matters with the flight attendant internally.”

While United Airlines has not publicly commented on the matter, they did reply to Bass’ tweet to get more details about his wife’s experience. And people were quick to respond to United by saying that they didn’t feel the flight attendant was in the wrong in this situation. Indeed, one person commented, “Won’t lie, the fact that the flight attendant had the guts to make the passenger clean up their own MESS kinda makes me wanna fly United more.”

Traveling with kids is not easy, this we know for sure. But it also isn’t fair to ask overworked flight attendants to take over responsibility for children when they are already responsible for so many other issues.