Mom Turns To Reddit After “Possibly Ruining” Her Daughter’s Friend’s Birthday Party

It’s never fun to see your kid left out of something, maybe especially a friend’s birthday party, and it can be tough to know what to do in these delicate situations. Do you just leave it alone? Do you say something about it? In the case of this mom on Reddit, she spoke up... then wanted to know “Am I the a**hole (AITA) for trying to invite my daughter to someone’s party and possibly ruining it?” Hoo boy...

The mom in question took to the sub-Reddit “Am I The A**hole” forum to get some advice on a recent birthday party debacle. Her 9-year-old daughter found out that she hadn’t been invited to the birthday party of a friend “Addy” through a mutual friend “Sarah.” Every other member of their mutual, bimonthly book club had been invited, and “Sarah’s” mom suggested it might have been a mistake of oversight. “I texted Addy’s mom and reminded her my daughter hadn’t been at the last book club and if she was also supposed to receive an invite,” the Reddit mom explained. “She responded that they had hired someone to do a spa for the girls during the party and the service had a limit of 10 so they decided to only do the girls in the book club. She didn’t expect us to find out. I responded that I understood but felt it was wrong to not include just one. I told my daughter we can’t expect to be invited every time and this was just a life lesson.”

That was not the end of it.

Sarah’s mother reached out to ask if her daughter had been invited and this mom took a screenshot of her conversation with Addy’s mom and sent it. After seeing the text exchange, Sarah’s mom pulled her out of the party. Then Addy’s mom reached out to say four girls were not attending. “She felt I had ruined her daughters party and was creating drama. I explained that I had no intentions of ruining her party and had only spoken to one other mom about it.”

After speaking to her own mom, she’s wondering if perhaps she was out of line for involving Sarah’s mom in the conversation. And it seems people overwhelmingly felt the poster hadn’t done anything wrong and that Addy’s mother was the one at fault for excluding just one child. “NTA [Not The A**hole]- you don't exclude one kid from a party, it's unnecessarily cruel. Have only 6 sure, 10 of 11 no, and they shouldn't be surprised it's had consequences,” wrote one Reddit user, u/ladyatlantica, while u/Broad-Discipline2360 applauded Sarah’s mom for getting involved.

“I freaking love Sarah's mom. She has class. She didn't tolerate that one girl was excluded in a small school/class/group. What an amazing woman. What an awesome spine she has.”

It wasn’t a universal “NTA,” however (it rarely is). “YTA [You’re The A**hole],” another Redditor, u/Caisla, wrote. “You knew you were starting drama when you sent a screenshot of a conversation between you and one person to a 3rd person.”

Others still thought this was a situation where everyone was a little bit wrong at least. Redditor u/PikPekachu opines:

“ESH [Everyone Sucks Here]. Not inviting one girl in a class and expecting no one to find out is really, really dumb. ... Sending someone the screenshot of the conversation with the birthday girls mom is a AH move that is also pretty much guaranteed to start drama.”

Whether or not 9-year-old Addy’s birthday party went forward with a smaller group is still a mystery. Birthday party drama tends to get churned up by parents, not kids, every single time. And sadly it’s the kids who end up paying the price, not their parents.