There’s some nuance to a story about the pregnant wife of a Major League Baseball pitcher who was purportedly asked to pick up popcorn on her hands and knees that her young children spilled on a regional aircraft operating on behalf of Untied Airlines. Even if the flight attendant request was unreasonable, it should never have reached that point in the first place. Yes, the woman should have at least attempted to pick up the mess herself.
Pregnant Woman Forced To Clean Up Popcorn On Floor Of United Express Airplane? She Should Have Cleaned It Up Without Being Asked!
There’s a baseball angle here. We’re talking about the wife of Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Anthony Bass who was traveling with her two daughters while her husband traveled on the team charter plane. Growing up, I was a huge Los Angeles Dodgers fan and loved attending home games at beautiful Dodger Stadium in Chavez Ravine. I still vividly recall leaving games and seeing how everyone just dumped their trash under their seats. Was that encouraged?
The family approves @BlueJays 👍🏻 pic.twitter.com/v0CEV29eRY
— Anthony Bass (@AnthonyBass52) April 10, 2023
In any case, an airplane is not a baseball stadium and Mrs. Bass was traveling with her two young children. Popcorn was served onboard (this is included in one of United’s snack boxes) and her children–as children do–spilled it all over the floor, including in the aisle. But according to Bass, a fight attendant demanded that Mrs. Bass clean up the mess herself:
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?!?! pic.twitter.com/vLYyLyJC54
— Anthony Bass (@AnthonyBass52) April 16, 2023
Mr. Bass was outraged, noting that it was not his wife’s job to clean up the mess, but that of the cleaning crew:
The cleaning crew they hire!
— Anthony Bass (@AnthonyBass52) April 16, 2023
United appears to be running damage control to mollify Bass, but I’m not sure whether that is reasonable at all.
Thank you everyone for the support. United Airlines is taking care of matters with the flight attendant internally.
— Anthony Bass (@AnthonyBass52) April 17, 2023
Here’s how I think about this:
- As the father of two young children, I know how difficult it can be to travel with two young children
- Sometimes, just keeping your children quiet is a herculean task and giving them food or electronic devices to keep them still is reasonable on an airplane
- Children do make messes
- Mrs. Bass should have at least attempted to pick up the mess herself
- Assuming the flight attendant demanded that Mrs. Bass pick up the mess (and that is a big assumption – I’m simply taking her at her word for hypothetical purposes of this story), that crossed an unreasonable line
- But it was also unreasonable that she made no attempt to clean up after herself
- The 22-weeks pregnancy excuse strikes me as unpersuasive; my wife was doing squats in the gym and cleaning the attic the day she went into labor, so unless there are health complications we do not know about, 22 weeks does not incapacitate a pregnant
womanperson
Do you see the twist? The flight attendant had no right to be rude or even “force” a passenger to clean up the floor, but the situation should never have reached that point because Mrs. Bass should have proactively cleaned up the mess herself. That is what reasonable, polite, and responsible people do.
CONCLUSION
If you make a mess on a plane, you should make a reasonable effort to clean it up. This is not always possible, but the idea that an airplane is just a movie theatre or baseball stadium is just wrong. Yes indeed, there are cleaning crews and their job is to clean the plane. That does not release us of our obligation to be responsible and tidy. If the flight attendant yelled, the flight attendant should be corrected and potentially disciplined. But the floor should have been cleaned before the flight attendant even felt the need to intervene.
So throwing garbage runs in the family? pic.twitter.com/4VaMyVuUTF
— Mike Schuster (@mcs212) April 17, 2023
(H/T: View From The Wing)
Matt, why did you cross out the word “woman”?
I was making a point about the absurdity of using the term “pregnant person.”
It’s even better when the word mother is replaced by “birthing person”, LOL.
LoL
“my wife was doing squats in the gym and cleaning the attic the day she went into labor”
I’m glad your wife was able to do that but many women can’t. We dont know the health history of this lady, but for instance I would think any women with a history of miscarriage would try to avoid a lot of time curled up in a tight space picking up popcorn… or doing squats
Of course, which is why I prefaced that statement with, “…unless there are health complications we do not know about.”
She’s healthy enough to travel across the country on an airplane while carting around two toddlers and all the gear required to support them without any additional help. I think it’s safe to make assumptions about her capabilities.
No. Have you ever taken a 5 year old and a 2 year old on an air travel journey by yourself? It’s not like 2 year olds walk themselves from car to gate and carry their own luggage. Taking 2 young kids on a trip like that is a pretty big task. Doing that 22 weeks pregnant? This is a very strong, capable woman. Let’s not pretend she can’t pick up popcorn.
Picking up popcorn is pretty low on the list of things likely to induce a miscarriage, too.
I have zero issue, or sympathy, with forcing her to do this. As you even stated, it’s her kid. Sure kids are messy. Nobody is disputing that. But why should the plane be forced down for “cleaning” after her and her rugrats get off just because she feels she is immune to the consequences of her children? If she doesn’t want to clean up after them, then she shouldn’t have had them.
My wife and I didn’t have children but we occasionally take our nieces and nephews on trips. From my experience, when they’d make a mess, we would clean it up and tell the children not to do this. However, here, the woman is pregnant and doctors say to have pregnant women to not be in certain positions or avoid awkward bending of the body. So, the FA should have been a bit more considerate and should not have told her to clean it up herself but rather give a warning/reminder.
Whoops typo in my name.
The fact that she immediately went to “the cleaning crew should clean it up” tells me all I need to know about the type of person she is. If she is unable to do this, she should mitigate what her children do with things that she can accommodate. They make bibs and such to catch food. She is clearly one of those that “it takes a village” types. Her kid isn’t my responsibility.
..better yet, that lazy-a** husband of hers, should have done it.. as opposed to going on an rampage in social media.
He wasn’t there. He was on the team charter jet.
Interesting article. Some random thoughts – I don’t fly often so I didn’t realize people treat an airplane very differently than a stadium or a theater. If my child spilled some popcorn (especially if that’s popcorn that the airplane provided), my first thought would not be to get on my hands and knees to pick it up. How are people supposed to know that that’s the expectation? The floors of the airplane are not clean as potentially a hundred people just walked through that aisle, so I wouldn’t be too keen on getting on my hands and knees on that surface.
On a separate issue, if the flight attendant really put up a fuss about it needing to be picked up, the older child looks in the picture to be plenty old enough to get down on her hands and knees and pick up the popcorn that she spilled.
it’s also a good life lesson to the child about personal responsibility to pick up their messes and to help their pregnant mother (how about that wording, Matt? 🙂 There is no “cleaning crew” at 30,000 feet and the entitled woman’s attitude appears to be that the FA should do it.
I’m supporting United’s FA on this and will chime in on social media.
Why does it have to be on “hands and knees”? Where did this come from?
Did the FA specify that there is a rule against bending at the knee to pick something up off of an airplane floor?
She’s 22 weeks, not 42 weeks, and there’s a picture of her above from 9 days ago– does she look like someone who can’t bend at the knee pick up the vast majority of the popcorn in a flash and return to a standing position.
It’s described as if she was required to scrub the entire floor with an old brush and metal tub like something out of Cinderella.
Any capable individual could clean that up in less than 15 seconds. If she doesn’t want to do it because she’s an entitled, inconsiderate slob, then just say that and next time fly Spirit instead.
The original tweet. It’s in the post.
As the mom of one who has travelled extensively with our only since he was 3 months old:
I would not have allowed the children to have the popcorn, way to messy to clean up and no way would I be on my hands and knees on that carpet. I always travelled with his own snacks.
As far as public messes, I do think parents have a responsibility to clean up as best as they can. Not that it would work on a plane but we had a drop cloth for under his restaurant chair that I folded up and took with me – zero mess for the staff.
What was the husband thinking by posting that message? Could it be neither of the parents are experienced travels and don’t realize who and how a plane is cleaned?
In my opinion, it’s that neither care. Anyone whose first throught is “it’s the staffs problem” aren’t people who live in reality. They live in a bubble where people just cater to them. He is a “professional” ball player after all. This speaks to the mentality they have around those that are considered “lower class” than them.
If everybody cleaned up their mess, there would be no need for cleaning crews and all those people would lose their jobs. In the interest of preserving jobs, you should never clean up. In fact, I throw trash on the floor because I care about people and I want them to have jobs.
I agree with you; there are cleaning crews. And the fact that Americans are messy in general, is a fact even though I may be biased in saying this.
This is ridiculous. If you have kids and are traveling with them, you are responsible for them. You should either clean it up yourself, or even better, have them do it since it teaches them consequences for actions. Our kid traveled with us since he was 4-months old on planes, several times a year ,and he quickly learned that throwing = it gets taken away. This is a two-year old who could know better but the parent’s choose not to teach the lesson to be courteous to others in a public space. Even an attempt to clean up by someone in the party puts the FA in the much better position of being able to say, oh thank you, I’ll take it from here, or, thanks the cleaning crew will get it later. No attempt and an immediate blame the “servants” attitude is just awful. And the pregnancy thing is also BS. I would have tried to pick it up, or had the other kid help, or said clearly to the FA, I am sorry I am not allowed to do XYZ bc I am under doctor’s orders (which begs the question, how are you traveling with two little kids alone and can’t bend over? I can’t count the number of times I had to squat to help a kid do whatever or tie a shoe, etc.)
I think both the FA and the ball player come off as a little bit entitled here. It’s tempting to complain about everything that an airline does wrong on Twitter, but sometimes no matter if you’re right or wrong, you come off looking like a jerk. Just ask that BA Gold that didn’t get recognized properly. We should probably save our Twitter complaints for things that are actually a problem. (Note to self: don’t complain on Twitter about no PDB on AUS-DFW)
Brandon is spot on. I know what it is like because I was a bus boy at a restaurant and some people are truly pigs.
Brandon sounds like an a$$
I’ll admit I’ve left some messes behind at restaurants with the kids– sometimes things just get out of hand dining with kids, and you have to bail out. It’s an a–hole move. But, you know what I’ve never done– take to social media to try to get someone in trouble at work for pointing it out. Leaving a mess is one thing, trying to get someone in trouble at their job because YOU left a mess is extra special a–hole behavior.
Your comment is totally right. Big, tough, professional ball-player feels entitled to get the FA in trouble or fired because his poor little wife can’t handle a small mess. Pretty sure he probably makes $ millions – does she do diapers and vomit when they are at home ? As well, $millions = they probably have a nanny and a housekeeper – so take your nanny with you when you fly, tune out the kids, sit in another row and let someone else to the parenting that you obviously want to be – a parent – if you are on your third kid (but not really?). Also I’m sure the exaggeration/ pity/ whining level was off the chart and a total exaggeration about the flight attendant.
When my kid was 5, they were able to help clean up messes. Heck, even at 2 they helped clean. But this would have required the parent to turn off the screens for a few minutes.
The family must have a cleaning person that lives in the house or visits daily. If not, do they follow the Big Daddy method of layering newspapers over spills?
Instead of using this as a teaching opportunity, mom and dad used their status to complain to the masses.
I’m with everyone who says it’s the parents/mothers responsibility (if hubby was not there!)…. The fact that they think someone else should clean up after their children is ridiculous. At the very least, the mother should’ve had the older child picking every piece up off the floor. But like someone else mentioned, popcorn does not have a place on the airplane when it comes to tiny hands! She is irresponsible if she allowed her children to have some thing like this instead of some thing they can easily hang onto. Maybe I’m missing it but I don’t know where are the flight was leaving from or going to, nor how long the flight was, but if it was less than an hour, I should hope that they would bring some thing, other than food and especially popcorn for their children to keep them busy.
In no way do I think it is the cruise responsibility nor the airlines to clean up after an irresponsible mother and or parents! As someone else mentioned, the speaks volumes about the kind of people they are thinking everyone else is beneath them!
Why would anyone serve popcorn to a child on a plane? A kernel could get stuck in the little ones throat. Why would someone fly if they were a high risk pregnancy? Wifey had a voice she could have told flight attendants she had not thought clearly and fed her kids popcorn and that she was pregnant. Her sister could have picked up the mess. Just because hubby is a baseball player, flight attendants are not your personal cleaning staff. They are there to keep everyone safe in the event of an emergency and keep folks comfortable. I would suggest wifey using her voice next time and not expect those around her to read her mind. More than likely they did not know she was pregnant. Not their job, too.
No, a flight attendant should not have asked her to. The fact that her kid is messy
should have been told to her in a discrete way, but not asked her to clean up.
There are people that clean the planes overnight; hopefully.
Am I the only one that consistently sees the flight crew cleaning the plane between boardings rather than some professional “cleaning crew”?
That said, I don’t see busboys in restaurants anymore either. I see the servers or hostess cleaning tables between customers and it irks me to see them having to clean up the mess some people leave them because they can’t control themselves or their kids.
What a ridiculous story AND Family. As a Flight Attendant I’ve had this same thing happen… ironically enough with Popcorn. The Mother traveling alone said to me, “She Always Does That’ and I responded to her, “Then Correct Her”. It’s all about Parenting and this wealthy Baseball Mom thinks she can do whatever she wants wants to do. What they don’t realize is that some Carriers require their Crew to contractually tidy their Aircraft’s so shame on the Father for wasting everyone’s time with this nonsense claim. He needs to teach His Family to respect the property that does not belong to them.
Popcorn, while it may be a popular snack, is counter productive to quick turns on an airplane due to the increased cleanup time even when adults are involved. In the early 80s the airline I worked for had a number of innovative inflight meals and snacks. We tried popcorn as part of a sports theme. It lasted about 2 weeks before it was killed due to the extra cabin cleanup time involved.
i’m sure it was a frustrating mess to the flight attendant, but that is clearly wrong move. Where is United’s training department?
More like where is the regional carrier’s training department?
Every single person here posting on this website is an absolute douche bag and should be cleaning up popcorn out of each other’s asses. Seriously…go outside, breath in some fresh air and do something towards changing your life. Imagine that one day, you could be happy.
Amazing comment and so true.
Justified? NO, absolutely not. The glorified waitresses and waiters can do it. They are so lazy.
Exactly lol. They are certainly not too busy. Bust out a portable vacuum in 3 seconds it’s gone. People who are traveling don’t have access to those tools. And traveling is stressful, traveling pregnant, with small children, is hard. It was a time for lazy stewardess to give the mom some grace and *do a thing* I know you just like to travel and not actually work, but it is an actual job too. What does the job entail?
Another detail that I’d like to ad is that judging by the picture, this is a regional jet, so the FA isn’t really a UA FA. The FA gets paid by either Skywest, Republic, or Mesa, and if Skywest or Republic was the carrier, the FA’s next flight could’ve been on AA or DL. Even the boarding pass will most likely say “operated by [regional carrier]”.
Did the FA offer her a hand vac or a hand broom to clean the pop corn up with? Might have been offensive to the woman to be asked to get down on the floor and pick it up piece by piece.
Let’s not pretend that this is some injustice the flight attendant is trying to put right. Demanding she get down on her hands and knees to clean up the mess was a power play designed to humiliate her, probably because the FA thought she was rich and entitled. I wonder…if we find out that the flight attendant in question was a man, does that change how you view this situation?