I'm warning you all.....this is a rant!
I should hope that not one single FT parent would have the audacity to pull this stunt which I experienced over the weekend. On a flight home from LAX on Delta, I was the last person on the plane. That was a whole new experience for me but I was held back at security for over 1 1/2 hours. Anyway, when I got on the plane and got to my seat in coach, a middle seat unfortunately, there was a baby in a car seat strapped to my seat. I asked the mother if there were some kind of mixup and showed her my boarding pass with 39B on it. She said that she wanted that seat for her little child and that the FA said she could have it.
The FAs were stuck up front but I hit the call button anyway. This woman was completely unreasonable and thought that since I was late getting to my "fabulous" seat, she should take it because she could not possibly hold her baby on the entire flight. I said that unless she bought a ticket, she would have to do just that.
A flight attendant finally came with the woman complaining that I'm causing her precious child to be inconvenienced and because of that, the baby will probably scream at the top of its lungs because of me. I told the FA I'd be happy to sit anywhere else on the plane (why not, I was in 39B). Well, the flight was overbooked and this wasn't going to happen. The FA said that she could NOT ask the woman to give up that seat. Of course you can and you must, I said as I am not leaving this plane since nobody else is ticketed for that seat. I then got the attention of the head FA. The woman then stated again that my being there would cause the baby to scream the entire flight. I retorted, "then you clearly won't be elected mother of the year by anybody with a brain". People laughed. The head of FA told the woman to free the seat and then checked the carry on seat. I took my seat and put on my music.
And you wonder why I think so little of parents today? Geeez.