Fury at woman’s response to encounter with unruly child on flight

An operating room nurse turned influencer has sparked a fierce debate on whether she and her husband did the right thing in threatening to discipline a stranger’s child who spat at them on a flight.

Shayla Monnier and husband Andrew boarded the packed connection from Atlanta to Denver to find themselves seated behind a couple and their young daughter who they guessed was between three and five years old.

The child repeatedly turned around to blow raspberries at the pair, showering them with spittle and resisting her parents attempts to reign her in.

Monnier said her husband ‘lost his cool’ and told the parents he would control their child if they did not, but she was shocked by the blowback after posting her experience online.

‘Is everybody seriously gentle parenting these days? Because I’m not about it. Not if you’re spitting in my face,’ she said.

Monnier, from Windsor in California, said the child had been asleep in the seat between its parents for most of the flight before waking up and taking an interest in the passengers behind.

The girl decided to blow a raspberry, sending ‘spit flying all over my face and my husband’s arm’, she said in her viral TikTok.

‘I was kind of shocked and the parents like told her not to and then it just became a thing,’ she added.

‘And she fought against them and turned around on the seat and spat on us again.

‘This time I put my hand up- just to block the spit from me and her parents grabbed her and made her sit down, well she fought, trying to turn around and spit on us some more, and she did.

‘She turned around a third time, now when I say spit I mean (blowing raspberry) but spit was going everywhere.

‘After the third time my husband very sternly said to the parents, ‘If you don’t get your kid under control, I’ll do it for you,’ and ‘why don’t you put a mask on her? You guys are both wearing masks, why doesn’t she have a mask?’.

‘Then the mom yelled back at him and said, ‘If you had kids maybe you’d understand,’ to which my husband replied, ‘We have five children and six grandchildren and I promise you not one of them would do something like that’.’

The 44-year-old’s TikTok page lit up with thousands of comments praising, criticizing and suggesting what she could have done differently.

‘My first thought when you said you got spit on your hand… stand up and wipe your hand on the parent’s arm,’ wrote Karen Lewis.

‘I’m 63 and I can feel the palm of my dad’s hand on my butt,’ wrote another. ‘I can tell you I would have only done this once in my life.’

‘I have no idea why there can’t be adult only flights,’ sighed a third.

‘Well aren’t you high and mighty lol,’ remarked a fourth. ‘Your kind just do everything perfect right?

‘Blowing raspberries is not spitting, you are def raging for nothing. I bet you’re someone that is always p***ed.’

‘I guess you don’t understand how out of control she was,’ Monnier said in a follow-up video.

‘I have children and my children would never have done that.

‘Yes I considered the fact that the child may be special needs, okay sometimes that’s obvious sometimes that’s not, it was not obvious to me.

‘If that is the case and you’re the parent then you need to have some sort of plan right?

‘So I don’t know what that is whether that’s you sit in the last row of the plane so that your kid can’t go to the people behind them, whether that’s you bring a car seat and strap them in, whether that’s you talk to your doctor about helping them have some medication so they can sleep on the plane.

‘Whatever that is the answer is never that they are just allowed to spit in somebody else’s face.’

Monnier said there was nowhere else to sit on the packed flight and that no-one would have wanted to swap seats after seeing the child’s behavior.

But she said the situation was resolved when a flight attendant saw the disturbance, came over and ordered the parents to put a mask on their daughter.

She and her husband were offered flight credits and the child immediately fell back asleep for the rest of the flight.

‘It’s such a tricky situation,’ wrote learnthoughts. ‘Even if someone’s kid is misbehaving if you correct them-the parents sometimes overreact! and get mad at you! Some parents just let them misbehave then look for a fight.

‘You were showered with the spit of gentle parenting,’ added SRA.

‘I have no idea why there can’t be adult only flights,’ sighed a third.