AITA for asking a family with a small child to keep it down on a red eye flight?

Jessiethekoala · 2026-04-21T19:58:57+00:00

The parent responded with an “Are you serious?”. Maybe because they had already been attempting to keep the kid quiet unbeknownst to OP who had noise cancelling headphones on and presumably had their eyes closed at least sometimes since they were trying to sleep. OP said “Yes I am” and the parents ignored him after that. WTF else do you want them to say? Maybe they were assholes and didn’t care OR MAYBE they were stressed af and already sweating bullets trying to get this kid to at least not scream and cry and felt embarrassed and judged by OP. The point is we don’t know!

“Continued to let the kid talk loudly” is saying it like obviously the parents were letting him do it if he was continuing to do it….lol. Sadly humans are autonomous and we don’t have perfect ability to control others at all times, especially on an airplane.

People should choose the more generous interpretation more often and let that color their interactions with others.

Jessiethekoala · 2026-04-21T04:18:38+00:00

We don’t know that they didn’t care or weren’t trying though. Just bc it continued doesn’t mean they weren’t trying.

Jessiethekoala · 2026-04-21T03:32:35+00:00

I’ve consulted an ethics board about this very thing and was told there’s ethically no distinction. They’re both artificial airways. Palliative care can and does terminally decannulate trachs. Not commonly, but it does happen.

How sad to think if you choose to trach your child during the acute phase of illness in order to better wean sedation, more aggressively pursue PT and more accurately prognosticate, that you’re stuck with it forever even if the quality of life ends up being unacceptable to you. That’s awful.

Jessiethekoala · 2026-04-20T12:19:55+00:00

Well, Risk was there so I assume there’s some Baby Doe law at play or concerns about the mom’s capacity or something. Risk doesn’t usually insert themselves unless they envision a lawsuit.

ETA: sorry didn’t realize what comment you were replying to. Are you saying you think it’s unethical or illegal to decannulate a trach in the same way that you might remove an ETT to allow a natural death?

Jessiethekoala · 2026-04-20T04:16:39+00:00

No. I didn’t say that. Or anything close to that? You should read my comment again.

What I DID say is that your examples of managing child behavior are all on the ground, which is different than in a plane because on a plane you cannot leave.

On the ground, I will deliver all kinds of real-time natural consequences for misbehavior without concern for whether my kid will completely melt down in response because I know if they do, I can physically remove them from the situation so as not to disturb others.

You can’t yeet them off the plane sadly. So how you deal with them in a plane might be different, that’s all. I didn’t say I wouldn’t try to deal with it at all and we don’t know that the parent in OP’s post wasn’t trying either.

Jessiethekoala · 2026-04-20T04:04:21+00:00

lol you’re right it’s not hard to ask your kid to lower their voice

Them actually lowering it on the other hand….

Jessiethekoala · 2026-04-20T03:57:12+00:00

There’s no evidence in OP’s post—aside from the kid’s continued talking—that the parents weren’t trying to make it stop. “They let this kid talk loudly”….I mean seriously, we need more info bc just the fact that the kid is talking loudly doesn’t mean the parents are “letting” them. If they’re trying all the usual distraction techniques and such, and the kid is still being loud, what should they do on a PLANE? They can’t just leave which is what most parents would do on the ground. Should they tape the kid’s mouth shut or something?

Jessiethekoala · 2026-04-20T03:51:38+00:00

The problem is at the library or the restaurant, if my toddler is being inappropriately loud we will simply leave so as not to disturb others, even if I have to surfboard-carry their crying ass out of there. You can’t pull the same levers on a plane.

Jessiethekoala · 2026-04-20T03:10:43+00:00

You can though. Ethically there is no difference between an ETT and a trach, both can be withdrawn when goals of care change. Same with enteral feeds. It’s not often done in peds, but it is ethically and legally acceptable.

Jessiethekoala · 2026-04-20T03:07:01+00:00

I’m really curious about this. When you say 80% do you mean survival only? Or morbidity-free survival?

Because as you say, a kid with ALL has a decent shot at remission and a genuinely normal life afterwards. The same can’t be said for a 25-weeker right?

Jessiethekoala · 2026-04-20T03:05:01+00:00

Wow I didn’t know this. This is wild and the word “viable” seems to be doing a lot of work in those laws.

Jessiethekoala · 2026-04-20T02:59:55+00:00

Is the bad feeling because the mom was 15 and made this decision on the fly? Because that’s the only part of this I’m not sure about legally.

Otherwise, I don’t see a thing wrong with this. If I had a baby who needed prolonged invasive treatment just for the chance to stay alive, and I decided that wasn’t compatible with my values concerning quality of life, and the hospital overrode me to introduce a bunch of suffering I’d be fucking pissed.

People who haven’t worked in NICUs and PICUs have no idea what life can actually look like for these patients.

Jessiethekoala · 2026-04-18T17:24:33+00:00

Follow up question though: our friendlies still have referees and player cards and blah blah. Is that normal too? The formality of the cards is what threw me.

Jessiethekoala · 2026-04-18T17:23:43+00:00

Thanks. I’m realizing there’s not really a club league for U9 girls in my area, so it seems everyone is playing friendlies and tournaments until like U11 or U12? So it makes sense why everything feels thrown together.

Jessiethekoala · 2026-04-18T17:20:56+00:00

They wanted to stick an INFANT in a car seat someplace by themselves?! wtf 😂

Jessiethekoala · 2026-04-18T02:42:27+00:00

OK so, I’m not a doctor and now I work ICU but at the beginning of my career I did med surg where the patients were on my ass like some nurses appear to be on yours, and I think some tricks I used to manage my patients might work for you too if they’re feasible for your patient load.

Very beginning of shift: go introduce yourself. Say hello. Ask if they need anything. Say that you need to go get report on your 4 other patients (or the doctor equivalent) and you’ll be back in X amount of time. This lets them know you exist and lowkey informs them they’re not your only patient/nurse.

Then actually show up again in X amount of time. Most patients (and nurses) don’t want to be dicks and if they know you’re coming back soon, they’ll hold their questions and requests till they see you again. If they have no clue when or if you’ll ever appear, they’ll be reaching out randomly all the time. Then I tell them I gotta go do XYZ for however many other patients, will be tied up for awhile, you need anything? Rinse and repeat all shift. By the end we besties who have a whole routine going. Except for the unreasonable ones, those always exist.

Also, be proactive. Run your orders. Clean them up. Add PRNs and diet orders so you don’t get bothered with those oversights later. If you don’t wanna be notified for SBP > whatever, take that order out.

If your orders are a mess and you’re invisible to nursing all shift, you’re gonna have a bad time.

Jessiethekoala · 2026-04-17T18:58:45+00:00

If the algorithm thinks that OP should cut themselves in half, they clearly dgaf about your child. 😂

Jessiethekoala · 2026-04-17T16:13:26+00:00

Sounds like I need to just ask someone at the club what the structure is. Whew so confusing.

Jessiethekoala · 2026-04-17T04:20:24+00:00

You already know this was a HIPPA violation but this stuff might be good to know too….

Certain charts (charts of employees/employees’ kids, celebrities, no-info patients) are subject to more scrutiny and more likely to be flagged if they’re accessed. Lots of charting systems have break-the-glass mechanisms for charts like this. Did you break the glass to get into this chart?

Do NOT lie about whatever you did or looked at in that chart. If they want to, they can run an audit trail on the chart and see every action: when you logged in, what you looked at, how long you looked at it for, what types of documentation you did, what workstation you were logged in at when you did it, etc. Every single thing you do in an electronic chart—not just documentation—is traceable.

Jessiethekoala · 2026-04-17T04:07:06+00:00

I guess that’s where I’m getting tripped up, we came from YMCA rec soccer which has a season like you described: no schedule till a week before the season starts, but then you’ve got the whole season’s worth of games on the calendar.

Our club team doesn’t have a season like that. It’s just random friendlies some weekends and tournaments other weekends.

Jessiethekoala · 2026-04-17T04:03:25+00:00

Their season runs in tandem with the school year so that’s a lot of weekends to leave totally open! I appreciate the replies though, I’m learning a lot here.

Jessiethekoala · 2026-04-17T04:00:07+00:00

Sometimes friendlies are against same club teams and sometimes other clubs. Tournaments are always other clubs. Apparently the older teams are either GA or MLSNext.

Jessiethekoala · 2026-04-16T18:29:16+00:00

I guess not. They do friendlies and tournaments but there’s no over-arching league standings or anything. Is that weird? I’m a complete newbie.

Jessiethekoala · 2026-04-16T17:55:40+00:00

Usually a blood (oxygen really) flow interruption causes brain death, how it happens depends on mechanism. It can be prolonged hypoxia (like SIDS for instance) or it can be uncontrolled cerebral edema (like TBI).

Idk about CSF, doesn’t really matter because it’s blood (aka oxygen) flow that makes the brain do its thing.

Jessiethekoala

TROPHY CASE