A women claims she has been "mum shamed" after posting on the internet that she left her child in economy while she checked herself into business class.
Travel influencer Karen Akpan shared a clip of her and husband Sylvester holding glasses and toasting each other while seemingly sat in the luxury section of a plane.
"POV: Enjoying business class with my husband on a 13-hour flight while our 10-year-old sits in the back in economy class because he doesn't have United Premier 1K status like we do and didn't get a complementary upgrade," the caption on her post reads.
Karen, who has 305,000 followers online, is a "digital nomad" who posts photos from her travels with her husband and her son, Aiden.
She added "sorry son" to the post, followed by three cry-laughing emojis.
The reaction to the post was fairly furious. Many - in response to Karen's later question of what others would do if they're offered two upgrades when travelling as a three - suggested one parent should've gone in business with the son, or stayed in economy with him.
Some commenters expressed outrage at the influencer's, calling her "irresponsible" for leaving her child on their own on a flight.
"These parents are too trusting, naive even!" one user wrote.
After all the hubbub had died down, Karen posted again to explain that she didn't actually leave her son in economy and that he was in another row of the business class section.
"I prob wouldn't let me son fly alone in economy, YET!" she wrote next to a video of Aiden living the highlife in business class.
Karen also talked about the intense reaction her initial post had received, and urged people to stop laying into mums on the internet.
"On my last post I agreed with every response because whatever option you chose to go with is fine as long as it works for your family," she wrote.
"There's no right or wrong answer, please let's stop with the mom shaming."
The issue of whether to bring your child with you into business or first class is a nice problem to have, given how expensive a ticket in that part of the plane is likely to be.
If you fancy a taste of the highlife but don't want to spend the enormous amount of money required to secure it, it may be possible to land a first or business class seat without paying extra.
Sometimes flight attendants are able to bump passengers up if they ask or if there is a spare seat going in the upper echelons of the plane.
According to flight attendant Miguel Muñoz, there are ways to get free upgrades including your choice of outfit.
Miguel said: "I would say dirty clothes 100%. Sometimes passengers come on board looking scruffy, smelly, with stains on their T-shirts, etc.
"You can tell when they come straight from the beach and they haven't changed. I've even seen passengers boarding the plane in flip-flops and sandy feet!
"It's obviously not nice to have passengers like these and I would never upgrade them to the first class if I could.
"I also wouldn't upgrade smelly people or drunk passengers, or passengers who give me the impression that they are going to cause trouble."
