Reddit Entitled Parents

Entitled mom thinks her family's rules apply to everyone

Last week I was traveling for work. It had been a long two days of meetings, and I was exhausted. I had just arrived at the airport for my evening cross country flight home when I got the dreaded text from the airline saying my flight was delayed two hours due to mechanical problems. I decided to pass the time by getting something to eat. I found an airport restaurant and sat down to order.

I ordered my food and pulled my phone out of my bag to catch up on email and browse the web while waiting for my food to arrive. While I was waiting a family with a mom, dad, little girl about 5 years old and a middle school aged looking boy sat at a table near me. I didn't pay them much attention as I was looking at email on my phone, but then I hear the little girl exclaim in a rather loud voice "look mom, that lady is on her phone at the table!" I then hear the mother reply "yes, she shouldn't be doing that. It is rude to have a phone at the table." I glance over and the mother says to me "We have a rule that no phones are allowed at the table." My first reaction was to say something snarky as exhaustion was definitely getting the better of me, but then I thought better of it and decided to be polite. I looked at the little girl and said "We have the same rule in my family, but since I'm here alone I'm not being rude to anyone by looking at my phone now." At this point the son looks like he wants to crawl under the table from embarrassment and the dad is trying to hand the mom a menu and says "it's ok, let's just order."

I think that will be the end of it, but no. The mom says "obviously you have a family, so you know how important it is to follow rules. I would appreciate it if you would put away your phone." in a tone that a parent would use on a petulant teen. The little girl chimes in and says "yeah, you have to put your phone away. My brother can't have his phone at the table, so you can't either." I look at the little girl and say in as sweet a tone as I can muster "Well, the great thing about being a grown up is that I can do whatever I want, so now I'm going to keep looking at my phone." and turn back to my e-mail. The mother sighs loudly, the teen looks even more embarrassed, and the dad again tries to get the mom to just order and leave me alone. The mom calls the waiter over and asks to be reseated. He grudgingly moves them to a different table. My food arrives, and I eat in peace enjoying browsing Reddit.

- u/Takenbyme12