Some aspects of parenting are harder than others, but one reality that not enough people talk about is how hard it can be to get a quality babysitter, which makes it difficult to attend events.
But no matter how difficult this might be, a parent shouldn’t force their children onto someone who wants to host a child-free event, just so they can still attend, pointed out the members of the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITAH) subReddit.
Redditor Express-Clue-5563 hosted a child-free birthday dinner for herself, planning to have a nice and quiet evening just for adults.
But when one of her friends showed up, not wanting to “miss out” on her birthday, the Original Poster (OP) had to ask her friend to leave, because she’d brought her three-year-old daughter instead of getting a babysitter.
She asked the sub:
“AITAH for telling my friend she couldn’t bring her kid to my child-free birthday dinner?”
The OP recently hosted a child-free birthday dinner for herself and some friends.
“I (29 Female) recently hosted a birthday dinner at a nice restaurant with a group of close friends.”
“It was meant to be a small, child-free evening; nothing wild, just a quiet, adult-only dinner with good food and conversation.”
“I made it clear on the invite that this was an adults-only event so that everyone could plan accordingly.”
“One of my friends, Laura (31 Female), has a three-year-old daughter. When I first sent out the invite, she asked if she could bring her child since she didn’t have a babysitter.”
“I sympathized but told her that, unfortunately, I really wanted to keep this an adult-only event, and I totally understood if she couldn’t make it.”
“She said she’d figure something out and never brought it up again.”
But it seemed Laura’s idea of “figuring something out” did not match the OP’s.
“The night of the dinner, everyone was arriving at the restaurant, and Laura walked in, holding her daughter’s hand.”
“I was immediately caught off-guard but tried to stay calm. I pulled her aside and asked, ‘Hey, I thought we talked about this? I really wanted this to be child-free.'”
“She shrugged and said, ‘Yeah, but I couldn’t find a sitter, and I didn’t want to miss your birthday.'”
“At this point, I was frustrated but still trying to be polite. I told her I understood, but I didn’t think it was fair to the rest of the guests who also made arrangements for childcare, expecting an adult environment. I asked her to leave and come back another time to celebrate separately.”
“She got upset and said I was being ungrateful and ridiculous, and stated that her daughter was ‘well-behaved’ and wouldn’t cause any trouble.”
The OP didn’t appreciate having her boundaries pushed.
“But the whole point was the principle of the thing. I had set a boundary, and she just ignored it.”
“Laura ended up leaving in a huff, and later, she sent me a long text about how I ‘humiliated’ her in front of our friends and made her feel like a bad mom for bringing her daughter.”
“A couple of our friends think I overreacted and should have just let her stay. Others agree that it was unfair of her to put me in that position.”
“Now I feel torn. I didn’t want to make a scene, but I also feel like I shouldn’t have to justify a boundary I was clear about from the start.”
“AITAH?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You’re the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
Some reassured the OP that her friend needed to respect the boundaries that she set.
“NTA, OP. Laura humiliated herself.”
“Imagine actually having the audacity to show up to a group setting of adults only, with a toddler, actually delusional enough to think everyone will be SO STOKED to have paid for their own babysitters, but now they are a group of adults all babysitting the one small child!”
“Hah. Nope. Bye.” – jubangyeonghon
“NTA. You set a clear cut, defined, and reasonable boundary.”
“And she decided to test it, and when you very politely stood by your boundary, she made herself the victim and tried to invalidate your boundary.”
“That was super disrespectful of her, and I have zero doubt that in her mind, she would absolutely get away with it, and that’s why she reacted so strongly, because instead of buckling and just appeasing her to save face, you reinforced your boundary. Her only remaining option was to attack you personally.”
“Let me put it this way, there were multiple steps she could have reasonably and easily taken.”
“She could have brought it up again, like, ‘Hey, I’m having a really hard time finding a sitter, are you sure I can’t bring my kid?’ To which it would have been no, I’m guessing, which is your right.”
“And then the night of, ‘Hey, the sitter flaked and now I have my kid, are you really sure she can’t just come? I promise she will behave,’ to which I’m guessing you would have stood by your boundary, which is still your right.”
“No, instead, she chose willingly to circumvent those no’s by challenging your boundary, directly and publicly, in order to illicit guilt in the expectation you would buckle under pressure or those around you would back her up making you the bad guy if you didn’t buckle, thus increasing the strain already.”
“I mean, look, you’re already torn about whether you did the right thing by standing by a boundary you clearly and politely set, and then clearly and politely reinforced in a seriously f**ked up position to be out in, on your celebration.” – eeeeeeeeeEeeEEeeeE6
“I’m willing to put money on she never tried to get childcare. She either didn’t think it was a hard and fast boundary or didn’t want to/have the money to get a babysitter for a few hours. The sneakiness of just showing up with her daughter tells me this wasn’t a last resort.”
“And also, they’re all friends, right? So if she had really looked into sitters but couldn’t find one, why didn’t she reach out to one of the other friends to ask to share a sitter with them? Looking after one or two toddlers is quite the same, especially if she’s not lying by saying she’s well behaved…”
“That’s what I don’t understand… (I did a lot of babysitting even as a teenager and it never bothered me when I had one added kid, it meant more money honestly.)”
“NTA.” – Awkward_Cucumber_110
“There are times when it’s acceptable to bring a child to a not-ideal-for-children event.”
“Like… my father’s funeral was last week. If our childcare plans had fallen through I absolutely would have taken my eleven-month-old son to the funeral with me and exactly no-one would have been entitled to say sh*t about that.”
“Because a.) it was my father’s funeral and b.) my son was basically his favourite person in the universe anyway.”
“And my parents had one child they wanted to be present at their otherwise child-free wedding, so they made him the ringbearer.”
“The key element here is that the people with the authority to decide on the exceptions made the decision, not random guests. That should have been left in OP’s power, on her birthday, not Laura’s.” – Emergency-Twist7136
“NTA. A boundary is only as strong as your willingness to enforce it, and you did exactly that, no more and no less. What would have been rude is if you made this exception for one person while everyone else made proper arrangements for their children.” – Informal-Arrival678
Others said this was about something much simpler than boundaries: not being invited.
“I don’t even know that I’d say this is about boundary setting, it’s about basic manners. It is extremely rude to bring someone to an event who was not invited to that event.”
“The official invitation for the party said it was adults only. The friend contacted the host and asked if the invitation could be extended to include her daughter and was explicitly told that children were not being invited to the event.”
“She knew that she was bringing someone to the event who had not been invited, which is rude and presumptuous.” – readthethings13579
“At the beginning of the post, Laura said she’d ‘figure something out,’ but what she probably actually meant was ‘do the thing anyway and hope that the person I’m doing this to will be too polite to protest.'”
“I really don’t understand people who do this. If I’m out at a grown-up birthday celebration, I wouldn’t dream of taking my kids along with me. If I don’t have childcare, I’m not going.”
“I do find it very telling that OP had to specify to people that the dinner was child-free. In my circle, we wouldn’t need to be told that kids aren’t included to that kind of event.”
“The only time that I’ve ever come close to doing what happened here was with my aunt’s birthday dinner. She was home from another country for this and I knew in advance that my partner would be working, so I had no childcare as our usual babysitters (my parents) were going to the dinner. I let people know that I wouldn’t be able to join them for dinner, but that I would pop in for take-out at the time that they had the booking.”
“On the evening of the event, I spoke to my aunt for a few minutes while I waited for my order, and she got to meet my then-toddler. I did not attempt to join the group at the table. That wouldn’t have been fair on the party, and it also wouldn’t have been fair to my child, since it was almost his bedtime.” – irish_ninja_wte
“I had an uninvited couple turn up to my very grownup cocktail party with their toddler on NYE once. We had invited a few of my husband’s co-workers, and one of them randomly invited another co-worker without telling them about the no-kids stipulation.”
“I didn’t feel like I could turn them away because it might reflect badly on my boyfriend at work. Their two-year-old was fussy, demanded a lot of the guests’ attention, put a major damper on conversation, and grabbed and broke the locomotives from my train set.”
“They also asked to put him down for a nap in our bed, and he wet the bed. The party fizzled out shortly after midnight.”
“I was so p**sed off. Who takes a toddler to a New Year’s party, much less without checking with the host?!” – f**kyourcanoes
“It’s totally irrelevant how well-behaved the kid is. Their very presence impacts the vibe and the expectations of suitable conversation topics and language of the group. No one would be able to fully relax and just enjoy the company while needing to watch what they say and how they say it.”
“And for those who have kids and made alternative arrangements for them, it takes away a rare opportunity to be free of that ever-present guardedness.”
“Not only that, but I can’t properly relax and enjoy an event like that with any of my kids around. I constantly have to keep an ear or an eye on them to make sure they’re behaving, they’re not being hassled, they don’t need anything, they aren’t imposing on others, etc., and even when it’s not my kids, I’m hal-doing that with others kids too because it’s really hard to switch that off.”
“NTA, OP, you made it a child-free event for a reason, and your friend disrespected you and everyone else in the group by acting as though she is somehow the exception.” – SublimeAussie
“NTA.”
“My parents had me young, and I was the only kid amongst their friend group. Mostly, I went everywhere with them. Sometimes, it was an adult-only event. Either I had a sitter, or one of my parents stayed home. That’s just how it was. No wailing about it being unfair!”
“Same thing when I was the parent.”
“Now, I’m the grandmother, and I’m firm with my grandkids. Sometimes, there are events they don’t get to attend.”
“It was good for me. Taught me that I wasn’t entitled to be everywhere and that the world didn’t revolve around me. No matter how well behaved I was!”
“That seems to be a lesson getting lost recently.”
“Good for you. You maintained your quite reasonable boundary, and you modelled good behaviour for that little girl, which was more than her actual parent did.”
“Hope you had a fantastic birthday!” – Significant-Spite-72
The subReddit could empathize that sometimes it can be hard to find a babysitter and that Laura could have reached out to the OP to explain what the issue was before she showed up at the birthday dinner with her daughter by her side.
However, the sub seemed to think it more likely that she did not attempt to make babysitting arrangements and preferred to pressure her and her daughter into the event.
The bottom line is that this was meant to be an adult-only event, and when someone is not invited, they are not invited, even if they are a child in need of a babysitter.