Dear Prudence,
I travel by air quite a lot. I find myself sitting in front of a child who will kick the back of my seat throughout the flight with surprising frequency. Depending on how bad it gets, I might ask the child’s parent, “Can he/she please stop kicking?” This mostly works, but more than once, the parent in question gets irritated or huffy. The last time this happened, the kicking child’s parents had a stage-y little conversation meant for me and others to overhear after we landed about what a jerk I was: “Well, you know how SOME PEOPLE are.” I said nothing, but it really got under my skin. I get that flying is stressful, and I can only imagine how challenging it must be for parents of young children. I’m all for giving parents a break. In fact, I recently endured a three-hour flight full of kicking because I could see that the mother was so overwhelmed that I couldn’t bear to add to her woes by asking her to stop it. I hate to be “that guy,” but hours of having your seat kicked can be exhausting. I think I’m in the right to speak up about this issue. What say you?
—Kicked Around