In my humble opinion, one of the greatest gifts you can give someone is the gift of travel. I truly believe it’s the best education, especially for children. RELATED: The Craziest Things People Ask Flight Attendants
However, a recent video by a father is dividing the internet and I can understand why. Michael Rutherford posted a video to Instagram of a Singapore Airlines flight attendant spoon-feeding his five-year-old son in business class on a recent flight between Los Angeles and Tokyo. He captioned it with: “What would you do if this happened to you? We’re having the greatest flight ever and this just made it even more perfect.” See below.
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If you’ve ever flown Singapore Airlines, especially in their premium seats, then you know how amazing their service and seats are. I’ve been fortunate to have flown the airline multiple times, including an almost round-the-world trip on their A380 (New York-Frankfort-Singapore-Tokyo-Los Angeles). Here are my trip reports.
Although I’ve been able to take my kids to many places, including eight countries this year, and sometimes in the front of the cabin, this video doesn’t do service to Mr. Rutherford or his child. His son, who is too old to be spoon-fed, is watching his iPad while being fed and not even looking up. It makes the child look like a spoiled brat. Many of the commenters on the video appear to agree.
One commenter said, “Raising a monster, on his screen not even looking at this angel. Have fun with that in a few years.” Another said, “You see a good flight attendant, I see a spoilt brat.” Yet another person said, “Flight attendants are not babysitters. They are there for the safety of the passengers.” Very true.
In Mr. Rutherford’s defense, he told Business Insider that the flight attendant offered to spoon-feed his son and that he did not request or instruct her to do so. “The flight attendant asked if she could help him and showed him so much kindness, holding his hand, talking to him, and even feeding him a few bites.” He continued, “He engaged with her, talked to her, said thank you and the 13-second clip was just one part of a 12-hour flight.”
When I showed my wife this video, she commented that while this child was clearly too old to be spoon-fed and that the short clip did make him look spoiled, she wondered about the motivation of the flight attendant. My wife said that there was something maternal about it and who knows why the flight attendant felt compelled to do it. Perhaps the boy reminded her of her own son. Or perhaps she yearned for a child herself. There’s often more to a situation than meets the eye, she said.
Good point. Although, unless my son wasn’t capable of feeding himself, I wouldn’t let a flight attendant feed him – even if they offered. It’s just reeks of privilege. But not everyone agrees. Another person commented, “Little man is living his best life! Kudos to the awesome flight attendant!!”
I do agree the flight attendant is awesome but this is going just a little too far. During the pandemic, my wife and I were so freaked out about Covid, that I flew us first class between New York and Los Angeles so we didn’t have people all around us. When we got off, my son begged me never to put him in one of those sleeper suites again because he just wanted to be next to his mommy. I can’t blame him.
What do you think? Is it okay to have a flight attendant feed a child that’s perfectly capable of doing so himself?
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This reminds me of a Korean long haul flight my wife and I flew in business class around eight years ago. There was a wealthy Latin American mother with three children from around ten down to an infant in the row ahead of us. The infant cried. A lot. The mother was completely nonplussed and simply ignored her child, obviously accustomed to someone else handling any problems with her offspring. Finally the flight attendants had to take turns coddling the child every time it started up again. Boy was that a long flight.
I’m reading Johnny says about half the people thinks it’s OK, also the kid is old enough to feed himself.
But this is Singapore airlines after all. Likely never to happen on say Alaska Airlines.
My opinion is if half the people think it’s not cool then it’s not cool and therefore a flight attendant should not spoon feed a child for that reason.
But then again, I don’t care who feeds who in first class. I only wish I had the means to fly first class more often to witness a flight attendant spoon feeding a child.
Maybe everyone should take a chill pill here. I was born in another culture, where people of all income levels and classes are kind to children. I bet there are some really poor people in China or Bolivia who would also spoon feed a poor child, because being nice to children is a universal motivation for some. You know it’s always a challenge to get littles to eat the last few bites, and sometimes they don’t have great motor control for cutlery or chopsticks.