A mom has taken to Reddit to ask users if she was wrong for banning her daughter’s bully from her birthday party…
The woman who goes by the username SomeSeriousToast, asked “AITA or not inviting my child’s bully to her birthday party?”
The mom explained that her daughter’s 6th birthday party was coming up, and she was in charge of handing out invites, so in order to make the day go as smoothly as possible, she decided not to invite her class bully.
She wrote: “Her [daughter’s] class had an end of the year party yesterday so I decided I’d hand out her invitations while she was distracted. I gave all of her classmates’ invitations except this one girl who has been bullying my daughter since school started.”
The mom gave some background on the bullying which has been going on since her daughter started at the school: “My daughter is Korean in a mostly white school and this girl has apparently made it her life’s mission to bully my child every day about it.
“She calls her mean names, makes fun of her eyes, the food she brings for lunch, and even has gotten physical. The teacher tries to separate them as much as he can but it still continues. So I decided not to invite her, I didn’t want anyone to ruin her birthday party and I wasn’t taking any chances.”
However, when their teacher caught wind that the girl was the only one who wasn’t going to be invited, he asked to speak with her. “I picked my daughter up from school today and her teacher asked to talk with me. He said it was really inappropriate of me to not invite the one girl and just because my child can’t take a little teasing doesn’t give me the right to not invite someone,” she said.
She concluded: “I told him unless he was going to make that girl’s bad actions suddenly stop then she will not be allowed anywhere near my child’s birthday. The girl’s mom has tried to reach out a couple of times, none of which are apologizing for her daughter’s actions. I feel bad that I have to not include her as I was always the kid who never got invitations to parties but my baby will always come first. My husband is on my side but I still can’t help but feel a little bad.”
Despite the mom questioning her move to ban the bully from her daughter’s surprise party, many Redditors backed her decision and bashed the teacher for his comments. One user commented: “NTA, and the teacher is the AH for telling you ‘you don’t have the right to determine the guest list of your kid’s party.’ I mean. What.”
Another agreed with the above comment, writing: “How are our children supposed to learn how to set healthy boundaries if parents are being called out for teaching them exactly this?
“There is something seriously wrong with teachers or schools demanding to have a say in who parents invite and who not. This is just as if my boss demanded I invite all my coworkers to my house if I invite one. It is just insane.”
However, some suggested the mom could have handled the distribution of the invitations a little better, to prevent the teacher’s outburst: “I would say NTA for not inviting her, but questionable for handing out the invites at school. It’s more work, but calling the parents of invited kids directly would probably have been better and saved this headache with the teacher.”
Another echoed this comment, saying: “I don’t think it’s considered good form to hand out invites to a whole class, in front of the whole class, and exclude anyone. Likewise cookies, Valentines, and other treats. But I could be wrong.”
What do you think?