The story was posted by an anonymous user on the “r/AmItheA-hole” (AITA) subreddit. The user said that she once threw a birthday party for her 10-year-old daughter, and when an uninvited guest showed up, things got crazy.
Someone showed up with a child who wasn’t even invited to the party, even though the hostess said her instructions and guest list were clear and left no room for confusion.
In the end, she had no choice but to decide that she couldn’t let the child come to the party.
She says in her post that she decided her daughter’s tenth birthday party should be on the smaller side this year.
“We thought to take the kids to a craft party where each child gets a pre-chosen crafting pack to work with for the event,” she explains.
The kids were able to keep their social distance and still have fun because they were making crafts. Because of this, this kind of event went well.
She also made a point of saying that the event had already been paid for, which meant that a certain number of kids had already been paid for and would have their own craft kits. Any extra kids would not be paid for, and they would not get a kit. She stressed this point more than once.
“Inevitably on the day parent A wants to drop [off] child A who was invited as well as child B who was not,” she explains adding that these parents offered up “excuses [like] ‘they can share a craft pack and it’s not fair to child B’ were stated aggressively.”
When asked why the child can’t stay with the parent, all they say is that the child was upset that they couldn’t come to the party, but that’s not a good enough reason.
“I stuck to it and firmly told [the] parent that child B could not come,” she continued.
The child ended up throwing a temper tantrum, and even though everyone pointed the finger of blame at her, she stayed firm in her decision.
“Now had this been a small at-home event then sure I probably wouldn’t have made the fuss, grit my teeth, and dealt with my private feelings on the matter,” she explained. “But this was a paid per-child event and it’s hardly fair to child A or B that they would have to share a craft pack.”
It would have been unfair to make the child who had been invited share, but the parent didn’t seem to care, and they ended up taking both kids home anyway.
She was told by a second parent that she should have just taken the child with her, but she was very sure that this was not the right thing to do.
“I feel teaching my children the value of your word and sticking to it is more important [than] sparing the feelings of a child and parent who should know better,” she explained.
Most of the people who used Reddit agreed that she was “Not the A-hole” (NTA).
“They should have spoken to you first, instead of dropping a random kid on you like that as if you run a daycare,” one of the top comments read.
“‘Who says no to a child,’” one user asks rhetorically, referring to what she wrote. “Who brings a child to a party to which they’re not invited is the better question?”
People said that the parent of the child who brought the other child to the event did a bad job of parenting because it is not someone else’s job to watch your child.
Another user wrote, “The parent was exhibiting extremely selfish and entitled behavior, and it at least did that child good to see that that isn’t universally tolerated.”
