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A mum has blasted an airline after staff laughed at her five-year-old daughter’s name – Abcde (pronounced ab-city).

Traci Redford said her epileptic child was ridiculed by Southwest Airlines staff as they boarded their plane home after a holiday in Orange County, California, earlier this month.

It left Abcde distraught, she added.

“She said ‘Mum, why is she laughing at my name? And I said not everyone is nice and not everyone is going to be nice and it’s unfortunate’,” Ms Redford said according to The Mirror.

A check-in agent is also said to have laughed at the family’s faces at John Wayne Airport, and shared a photo of the boarding pass on Facebook to share with pals.

Ms Redford continued: “The gate agent started laughing, pointing at me and my daughter, talking to other employees. So I turned around and said, ‘Hey if I can hear you, my daughter can hear you, so I’d appreciate if you’d just stop.'”

“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.

“And after two weeks of doing a formal complaint, Southwest hadn’t done anything,” she told ABC on Wednesday.

Southwest Airlines issued an apology but refused to reveal whether or not the agent has been fired or faced any other kind of disciplinary action.

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  • Just going on the information posted here……
    Firstly, the airline staff could have talked privately and had a bit of a giggle if they wished but under no circumstances should they have done this publicly and there is no way that they should ever post a copy of someones boarding pass.

    Secondly, Why on earth does this mother feel the need to even mention that this child is epileptic? Please dont use that as an excuse as to why this child requires special treatment or an excuse for bad behaviour, etc, There was no reason at all why this needed to be mentioned. One of my daughters has endo but she doesnt pull that out anytime she has a dispute with someone. Please stop. Dont let her being epileptic define her.

    Third, Naming your child is one of the most important things that you will get to do for your child. If you have a daughter you need to think of many different things then if you are naming a boy. With girls you should look at the initals Stephanie Tracy sounds lovely but what if in years to come she marries a guy with the last name od Daniels and then her initals are STD. You have to take all these things into account and I would think that a high percentage of people would see that naming your child Abcde is just asking for trouble. Im guessing that this mum didnt ask people what they thought before naming her as if she had asked I doubt very much if there would have been anyone honestly saying “oh thats lovely”

    Lets be honest. This Mum stuffed up and let her child down bigtime and now this poor girl will be faced with a lifetime of this sort of reaction.

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  • Thei airline staff should have been a bit more professional. But anyone who names their kid Abcde has to brace themselves for a lifetime of this.

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  • Wow, I’m not quite sure what to say about this one. If you’re going to call your child Abcde, you are opening yourselves and your child up to judgement. However, to take a photo of someone’s boarding pass and sharing it on social media would be illegal. That staff member should be sacked.

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  • The little girl may have enough to contend with if her seizures are obvious to other people at all. There needs to be a lot more education about Epilepsy. There is a high % of people of all ages who have a type of epilepsy. The bullying rate for people who suffer from any disability is very high.

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  • As much as the employees should not have laughed nor mocked it on social media it is the mother’s fault. I would have questioned if she was joking or serious, she is cruel to have named her daughter Abcde even if others have also named their child the same. She is going to be mocked for her whole life & it is the mother’s fault, you don’t name yr children deliberately to cause drama in the future. Would you name yr child after cutlery or crockery? Hi, my name is Spoon or Hi my name is Fridge. I know I went through a lot of names in the baby naming bools I had & thankfully they have normal names.
    Children will make fun of her at school & she will be a target for bullying. At least change the spelling to Absidee which is how it is pronounced, if she uses the name Abcde as an adult she will never be taken seriously.

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  • My guess is that the agent hasn’t been fired however that behavior is totally inappropriate but I do think the mother should have thought about the name and spelling of it. Unfortunately there are bullies around and she was setting them up to be teased.

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  • I would have thought it was against company policy to post anything about a passenger on Facebook. Where I work it’s definitely not on.

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  • That’s so not on, this mum has to right to be upset about this behaviour of the airline employees.

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  • It is the mum’s fault for choosing a stupid name. The kid is going to cop it until she is 18 and changes her name.


    • How dare you!
      People need to be polite about the names others have.

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  • i would have thought it was against company policy to post anything like that on social media.

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  • Definitely shouldn’t be mocking a childs name but the Mum must have known she was setting her child up for ridicule with that name

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  • No matter of how unusual someones name is, it does not give anyone the right to ridicule it. It was highly inappropriate for it to uploaded to social media.

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  • It is so unfortunate and people should have some manners and respect towards others. It’s totally a shame m.

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  • Disgusting people are so terrible my both my daughters have gender neutral names and I did choose because of that I have just always loved the names my first daughter is Darcey boy did I cop it off a lot of people by her name saying that’s a boys name how could etc strangers as well then I would tell the history of the name that doomed shut them up
    What ever a parent chooses to call their child is their choice no one one else and you don’t say it so mother and child can here

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  • The staff have no right to share this name on social media nor make fun of it in front of other people. The mother and daughter have the right to their privacy.
    Some people needs to think before they do things.


    • There should be a code of conduct for staff and there should be disciplinary action for not following the code.

    Reply

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