If you’re a mom on TikTok, you’ve probably noticed a post by a Nevada mom named Lauren Rodriguez that’s making the rounds. In her post, she shared how her 9-year-old daughter, Ashlyn, ended up skating alone at a roller rink after the rest of the birthday party she’d attended left and went home.
At party drop-off, Lauren asked the host mom if she could leave Ashlyn there to run a quick errand which the host mom assured her was fine. She told Lauren that pick-up was at 5 p.m., which she took at face value, but when she arrived at 4:30, no one was around. She found the party room locked, the decorations gone, and her daughter circling the rink by herself like an extra in a sad coming-of-age movie.
Cue the instant mom guilt.
If you’re a parent, you probably felt a pang of sadness just reading that. Nobody wants to imagine their kid being left alone, confused, and hungry at what was supposed to be a fun event.
Lauren said she called the host mom eight times, sent multiple texts, and was met with radio silence. And, to make it worse, her daughter hadn’t eaten or seen her friend open gifts.
That’s the kind of detail that twists the knife for a mom.
But here’s the thing… I can see both sides here.
On one hand, the host mom dropped the ball. If you agree to watch someone’s child, even just for a couple of hours, you’re responsible until that kid is safely back with their parents. Period.
Kids aren’t luggage you can misplace because the party moved from one room to another. Someone should have noticed Ashlyn wasn’t with the group. If the party moved from the rink to the party room, that detail needed to be shared with all the partygoers and parents so nobody got lost in the shuffle.
On the other hand, Lauren admits she’s not blameless either.
As parents, we all know dropping your child off at a party is a leap of faith. Some moms will never do it unless it’s at someone’s house they know really well. Others, especially when you’re juggling multiple kids, see it as normal.
That doesn’t make Lauren neglectful, it makes her a mom who believed another parent had her back.
Honestly, I’ve been on both ends of this.
I’ve hosted parties where parents dropped kids off, and I was responsible for wrangling them. And I’ve also been the mom who dropped my kid off thinking, “Wee! Two hours to run errands.” It’s a delicate dance, and it only works when everyone’s on the same page.
The real lesson here isn’t about placing blame. It’s about how parents set expectations and communicate with each other.
Birthday parties today aren’t the same as the backyard pizza-and-cake affairs we grew up with.
Venues have time limits, there are transitions between activities, and kids can easily slip away in the chaos.
Lauren herself said it best:
“She’s my daughter; she’s not the host’s daughter.” At the end of the day, we are ultimately responsible for our own kids, even when we’ve placed them temporarily in someone else’s care.
But the host parent also has a duty not to forget the commitment they made when they said, “Yes, you can drop her off.”
If anything, this story is a wake-up call for all of us.
Maybe it’s time to have clearer conversations before parties.
Ask: Will there be transitions? Where will the kids be at each point? And if the answers feel at all shaky, maybe it’s better to stick around, even if that means another Saturday spent making small talk at the roller rink snack bar.
