An anonymous mom on Reddit is venting about her daughter's birthday party, which turned out to be a total bust. According to the mom's post, she was expecting six kids to show up for the party since all of their parents RSVP'd yes to her invite. But in the end, only two kids actually came, including one who was actually a relative.
The post was shared by u/cholbrooks14
In it, the mom says she'd planned a small but meaningful birthday celebration, which was all set to take place at a local arcade.
The plan was pretty simple: The kids would meet up, spend a few hours playing games and eating food, and end the party singing "Happy Birthday" to her newly minted 8-year-old.
According to the original poster (OP), invites were sent via text
So when the big day rolled around, the OP (and her daughter) were expecting six little kids to walk through the doors of the arcade.
"Two, only two of the kids showed up," the mom shared. "One of them was her cousin, she was even 35 minutes late."
Yikes.
The crushing disappointment was hard to mask
Especially since the OP says she didn't get any sort of heads-up about any last-minute changes.
"Not one parent contacted me to let me know they wouldn’t make it," she recalled. "Everything was paid for in advance, based upon RSVPs."
That said, she insists that she doesn't actually care about the lost money but rather her heart breaks for her daughter who was upset when more of her friends didn't show.
"After about 45 minutes of her party, she came up to me and asked if anyone else has called or showed up," the mom shared. "The hurt in her eyes when I told her no will forever be ingrained in my brain. It’s a sh-tty core memory for her."
There's something else that makes this sting even more, too: The OP has gone through this herself.
"It happened to me growing up more times than I can count and that feeling never ever goes away," she confessed.
Now she's wondering what (if anything) she should do about it
"Do I reach out to the parents and say something?" she wondered, adding that it feels as though the children owe her daughter some sort of an apology for hurting her feelings.
But on the other hand, she doesn't exactly want to be "that" parent. So what should she do?
Hundreds of comments quickly flooded the mom's post
Many replies were from parents who had a similar experience and shared how terrible it feels.
"I had my daughter's entire class RSVP to come to one," one parent said. "We paid to have it at an awesome swimming hole. Over 40 class mates. Zero. Zero showed up. Luckily, all of the family showed up. I never again paid for a party like that. All the BBQ food wasted. All the party favors I went all out on … Wasted …"
There were even quite a few people who had this happen during their own childhoods.
"I’m with you," one Redditor shared. "You know why I hate birthdays? Because of the two years I had birthdays and no one showed up. Come to find out later another girl had the same birthday as me and everyone went to her parties [instead]."
"This happened to me every single birthday party," another person shared. "My birthday is in the summer around the time a lot of festivals and concerts are happening and such so it carried into my teen years too. I’d invite like 10 people and 5-7 would say yes and then 2 would show. While thankful for the two, it sucked about the others."
Other commenters were simply mad for the mom and couldn't hide their anger
"I am so damn sick of reading these posts," one person said. "Not because people post them, but because people have to post them in the first place. Why do people just find it acceptable to say yes and then bail?!"
"I can’t believe there are this many horrible adults out there," someone else added. "I’d be ashamed to act like that, let alone model this behavior to my children."
One of the biggest points of frustration was why some parents couldn't at least send a polite text explaining their child's absence. After all, last-minute things come up, but not giving the other parent the courtesy of a heads-up is … well, just kind of cruel.
There were a few people who tried to offer the mom some advice, though
"My advice would be to focus on your daughter right now, not the a–holes who didn't show up," one parent wrote. "Sweep her up, take her to the movies, get the biggest ice cream sundae you've ever seen, and have the best 'makeup birthday' ever (yes, even if it's on a weeknight – trust me!). She may remember those crappy people, but I promise she will remember this outrageous, unexpected, fun [outing] and look back on it some day and smile, thinking about how her parent(s) were always there for her, no matter what."
We second that.
