When it comes to birthday parties, typically the person who is being celebrated is usually the focus of the day.
But one mum has come under fire after stealing the spotlight at a child’s birthday party.
The unnamed parent sparked backlash on Reddit’s Am I The A**hole forum after admitting that she gave her nine-year-old daughter her big birthday present while at another child’s party.
Her daughter received a Nintendo Switch console at her friend’s party, while the other child didn’t get any gifts quite so expensive.
This left the other parent fuming and accusing the mum of being “selfish” and “petty” for not waiting until the party was over to give the Switch to her daughter.
The post on Reddit reads: “My daughter Stephie just turned nine on Saturday. She’s been asking for a Switch for a while now, and I think she’s gotten old enough and mature enough that I can trust her with a big present like that. So the plan was always to give Stephie the Switch at her birthday party which was the same day.
“However, that ended up falling through. We ended up not being able to pick up the Switch until Sunday morning.
“See, Stephie was invited to her classmate Jolene’s party on Sunday. So I figured that since we were still in the party spirit, I would just give Stephie the Switch after cake at Jolene’s party. Nothing more than that. Just the unwrapping and then the spotlight would be right back on Jolene. Besides, the girls are friends so I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal. They’re nine, they’re old enough to understand this was an extenuating circumstance.
“Or so I thought.”
The mum, from the US, goes on to say that everything went as she had planned until the phone rang when she got home from the party.
“After the party was over I got a call from Jolene’s mom essentially asking me what the hell I was thinking. That I was ‘undermining’ her because she couldn’t afford something like a Switch for Jolene,” she said.
“Correct me if I’m wrong but I have not raised Stephie to even really care about things like how much a present costs. Also, Jolene didn’t even care because she had numerous new things to play with, and Stephie shared her Switch with her so it seems to me like everyone made out well.
“Jolene’s mom also called me petty and a show-off (she and I do not like one another and I won’t sugarcoat it, but I put that aside for the kids because our issues aren’t their fault, which Jolene’s mom is definitively not doing).”
She adds that her husband understands why she gave the gift, but thinks she should have waited until Jolene had opened all her presents.
More than 1,500 people have responded to the post, with many agreeing that the mum was an a**hole for what she did.
One person replied: “Why would you do this at another girl’s birthday party? Why couldn’t you do this at home with just your daughter? I can’t imagine bringing a gift to someone else’s party and making it about you and your daughter.”
Another wrote: “I have nine-year-old twins, if a birthday present hadn’t arrived by their birthday/party, guess when they get them? At home, whenever they arrive. I would NEVER, in a trillion years bring a present for one (or both) of my kids to open at a friends birthday party. Even if you dislike the child’s mother, you owe them a giant apology.”
A third added: “She did it deliberately to undermine the other kid’s mother because they don’t like each other. It’s gonna come back and bite her in the a**. Her daughter will grow up expecting to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.”
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