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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/LucyAriaRose on 2024-07-04 04:52:38+00:00.

I am NOT the Original Poster. That is u/Intelligent-Tap-1832. They posted in r/AmItheAsshole

Do NOT comment on Original Posts. The latest update is 7 days old.

Mood Spoiler: light post, but freaking weird behavior

Original Post: May 23, 2024

I have three kids (8M, 5M and 1F). My younger son is friends with a classmate I’ll call “Mikey”. His brother “James” is in the same class as my older son, but they’re not friends.

Back in March, the boys’ mother informed the class’ mom groupchat that James had the flu, and his birthday party would have to be canceled. My older son had not been invited to that party. My wife and I didn’t even know about it until she saw the text. But since my son wasn’t friends with James, we didn’t mind it.

My younger son just got his invitation to Mikey’s birthday party, which will take place in the first week of June. On it, there is a reminder to bring an additional gift for James.

Both me and my wife were confused. When we asked their parents about it, they said that since James didn’t get to have his friends over for his own birthday, they wanted his friends to have the opportunity to give him gifts during Mikey’s party.

Again, my older son is not friends with James and had not been invited to his canceled party, so we were never planning on giving him a gift in the first place. We didn’t even know it was his birthday. Even if we were buying him a gift, we’d give it to him on some other occasion, not during his younger brother’s party. It doesn’t feel fair to Mikey.

Once my wife and I had agreed on that, we informed the boys’ parents we wouldn’t get a gift for James. We told them all our reasons, but they argued that we were being petty and vindictive, and that it was unfair to deprive James of a birthday gift just because our son doesn’t like him (from what I gather, that’s not the case).

Their mother is threatening to uninvite my younger son from Mikey’s party over this. Their father is less harsh, but still thinks we should reconsider our decision.

WIBTA?

Relevant Comments:

Commenter: So for starters…you are most definitely NTA here and the parents are incredibly strange and entitled for this. However, it makes me feel badly for both of their children. It is not you and your wife’s job to provide gifts for the older child but I would look at it like this…how important is Mikey to your child? Could you spare even a small gift for the older child, even if it is from the Dollar Store so your son could spend time with a friend who is important to him. It makes me feel like the children are not treated right by their parents and it makes me feel sad to see this kind of behavior from them.

But no…you are not “wrong”.

OOP: While I wouldn’t say money is a problem here, we’re not made of it. My daughter turned one weeks ago and we’ll have family coming over from our home country in July, so we’re trying not to spend too much.

Even if I looked for an inexpensive birthday gift, I have no idea what James likes, and neither does my son. I also would not give it to him during Mikey’s birthday party. I know it was their parents’ decision, but if I wouldn’t do it to my own kids, I won’t do it to theirs.

Commenter: OP, are they also inviting your older son to the party? Is he getting food and cake as well? Then maybe a gift is fair to offset the costs of him as a guest.

OOP: My older son is not invited to the party, only my younger son.

Commenter: NTA. Super weird. You literally couldn’t pay me a million dollars to be in a classroom mom group chat

OOP: My wife is there because they give out information about the school sometimes, but she hates it.

OOP is voted NTA

Update Post: June 27, 2024 (a little over a month later)

The main piece of advice I got when I first posted here (or at least the one that stuck with me the most) was to buy a smaller, inexpensive gift for James. I was more than fine with doing that, but I had no idea what he liked. I also didn’t want to give him that gift during his brother’s birthday party, as that didn’t feel fair to Mikey.

My wife and I talked, and we settled on getting James a gift card to a bookstore. We also had our older son give it to him at school, days before the party. He said James was grateful.

Later that day, the boys’ mom texted the mom groupchat saying she didn’t want people “cheaping out” on James just because it wasn’t his birthday. My wife agrees that it felt targeted, but we can’t prove anything. Either way, we’ve given him a gift. We don’t need to indulge in this any more than we already have. We’ll just complain to each other.

Our younger son wasn’t uninvited from the birthday party. I was working, so my wife took him. According to her, the party was clearly Mikey’s. The only thing indicating otherwise was the fact that James opened his gifts during it.

My wife said she avoided their parents, but did get a few dirty looks from them, specially when Mikey opened the gift my son had picked out. It was a Spider Man toy car that he thought Mikey would like. We’d bought it before this whole fiasco. Since we actually know Mikey, it was more personal than the gift card.

I still don’t understand a single decision the boys’ parents made, but I’m glad my son’s friendship is intact. I just hope my wife and I don’t need to interact with that family too much in the future.

Thank you.

Relevant Comments:

Commenter: I can’t believe you actually gave a gift AND went to the party. This is ridiculous and disgusting that they would even write on the invite to bring the sibling a gift. I would have not went and kept my family away from that shit storm.

OOP: We didn’t want to upset our son. He wanted to go to the party, so we let him. Whatever problems we had with James and Mikey’s parents are none of his concern.

Commenter: I know people recommended that at the behest of the children, but it feels like you’ve just taught their parents that the behavior was OK.

Why wouldn’t the kids who were going to go to the other boy’s party not go to this new one? Why didn’t they just throw a combined birthday for both of them where each friend brought a gift for the person they were going to originally?

Also the entire message of “don’t cheapen out” would’ve had me cancel going altogether. Now neither of their children get a gift, and they get to miss out on my kid at their party. I’ll take my kid out somewhere fun with the money we would’ve wasted on their brats.

OOP: As much as I don’t regret getting James a gift, I’m very upset at his parents. The kids didn’t deserve any of this.