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Mom Accuses Southwest Airlines For Name-Shaming Her 5 Year Old, Internet Name-Shames Her Even More
The world can be an unkind place and one little girl got a taste of this when her name was a subject of public shaming by a gate agent at John Wayne International Airport. Five-year-old ‘Abcde,’ (pronounced “Ab-city,”) who suffers from epilepsy was catching a flight to El Paso, Texas along with her mother Traci Redford when the incident occurred.
According to the Social Security Administration database, 328 girls have been given this unique name in the United States. Abcde shares a spot along with such unusual girls’ names as Ianthe, Uri, and Abiona, just to name a few.
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Abcde and her mom had gone to the gate for priority boarding when the gate agent began to mock the girl
Redford explained in an interview with ABC7 that “The customer service started laughing, pointing at me and my five-year-old daughter, talking to other employees. So I turned around and said, ‘Hey if I can hear you, my daughter can hear you too, so I’d appreciate if you’d just stop,” she recounted. Despite the confrontation, a photo of her daughter’s boarding pass with her name ended up on social media.
“She said ‘Mum, why is she laughing at my name?’
“I said not everyone is nice and not everyone is going to be nice and it’s unfortunate. While I was sitting there, she took a picture of my boarding pass and chose to post it on social media, mocking my daughter. It was actually brought to my attention by somebody who had seen it on Facebook and reported it to Southwest Airlines.”
An incensed Redford filed a formal complaint with the airline. The company responded two weeks later with disciplinary action against the mocker and a formal apology to the family: “We take great pride in extending our Southwest Hospitality to all of our Customers, which includes living by the Golden Rule and treating every individual with respect, in person or online.”
Well, Southwest Airlines might treat people with respect online, but the rest of the internet wasn’t as sympathetic to the situation
Many people started saying that it’s all the parent’s fault
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Other people just could not hold it in and started joking about the name as well
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What do you think about this situation?
What do you think ?
Rob Chapman 6 years ago (edited)
If this article was supposed to generate sympathy for the mother, it failed. I truly feel sorry for that child, though. She has to go through life with that name because her mother is an attention starved dingbat.
Donna Cheung 6 years ago
Ok, so I agree that you definitely should NOT name a child ABCDE, and that the child is gonna get mocked at for the rest of her life (or until she changes her name). However, for the airline staff to take the photo and post it on social media is absolutely unprofessional as well.
Virgil Blue 6 years ago
ind of, but I must admit that I would have had a hard time keeping a straight face in a similar situation and I have an unusual name myself. But at least my parents put some actual thought into it instead of just writing down the start of the alphabet.
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Rob Chapman 6 years ago (edited)
If this article was supposed to generate sympathy for the mother, it failed. I truly feel sorry for that child, though. She has to go through life with that name because her mother is an attention starved dingbat.
Donna Cheung 6 years ago
Ok, so I agree that you definitely should NOT name a child ABCDE, and that the child is gonna get mocked at for the rest of her life (or until she changes her name). However, for the airline staff to take the photo and post it on social media is absolutely unprofessional as well.
Virgil Blue 6 years ago
ind of, but I must admit that I would have had a hard time keeping a straight face in a similar situation and I have an unusual name myself. But at least my parents put some actual thought into it instead of just writing down the start of the alphabet.
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