Emily Duprie
Having a birthday during the school year as a child is kinda a big deal. Your parent may have brought cupcakes for your class, or pizza, or the principal made an announcement for you in the mornings. When you’re young, your birthday is special, although I can say that I don’t remember a single one of my birthday parties before the age of 9.
Although it’s not too financially burdening to buy a dozen cupcakes from the Walmart bakery, having a party outside of school can be a different story. Kids don’t want to sit around a table and eat dinner and drink a glass of wine, kids want to go absolutely insane on a bounce house or “slippin’ slide.” So, making sure your child’s birthday party that includes other children has enough entertainment, can be a little costly sometimes.
One young mother (u/randomness57317) recently came forward on Reddit to ask if she had made a bad move regarding her 8 year old son’s birthday party outside of school. She had invited only her son’s close friends, which makes perfect sense. I guess the party was a little too fun, because soon parents from the school had began to make snide remarks to the OP about their children “not being invited.” The subreddit “Am I The A-hole?” was quick to tell her what they thought about her situation. Read her post below along with some of the top comments!
This young mother asked Reddit: “AITA for not inviting my kid’s whole class to his birthday party?”
I(28F) am a mother of a wonderful 8 years old son. This whole thing happened last April, but I am still getting complaints. So here I am asking strangers for a judgement on the internet.
So last year was my kid’s first year in “big kids’ school” like he calls it, since his first grade coincided with the pandemic. We are not in the best place financially; like most families, our consumer debt piled on and we are throwing every spare cent at it.
So when it was time to throw him a party, I only invited 5 of his classmates, the ones he considered his friends. For the others I sent 2 dozen cupcakes and juice boxes to class.
The invites were delivered to their houses and not in front of the other kids.
Like I said, money was tight so I got creative. I made 9 small cakes (box cakes, vanilla, chocolate and funfetti), buttercream in different colours. Also made big sugar cookies and different coloured frosting and sprinkles. And finally bought tortillas, made pizza sauce and had a variety of toppings. I asked that the kids bring swimsuits and water guns.
We had a make your own pizza station for lunch, then they played with their water guns. Then they decorated their cakes and finally their cookies to take home with them. That was a Saturday. Well the next Monday, the kids would not stop raving about how fun the party was, how it was the best birthday party ever. The other kids were not happy to not be invited.
At pick up Tuesday, a couple moms confronted me about not inviting their kids. I said that I am sorry, but it was a small party for his close friends only. They kept complaining about me excluding their kids. I didn’t take it seriously then, but now it is a new school year, almost 6 month later, and I am still getting the occasional comment thrown at me. So AITA?
Redditors were outraged at the audacity of the other kids parents:
