'AITA for not inviting my neighbor's autistic 8-year-old to my 2-year-old son's toddler party?'
"AITA for not inviting my neighbor's autistic 8-year-old to my 2-year-old son's toddler party?"
My son has just had his 2nd birthday and we had a party for his friends from playgroup, my neighbor messaged me after the party saying "the cherry on the cake" to all the stuff going on in her life was that I didn't invite her autistic 8 year old son to his toddler party. She's made me feel really guilty like I'm the reason for her upset.
Her son is non verbal and smacks himself in the face if over stimulated. I didn't invite as it was a toddler party with only 5 2-3 year olds. My living room isn't very big and I know her son is sensitive to loud noises and thought with all the screaming and fighting it wouldn't be a good idea. He also has to blow out candles even if its not his birthday, which, in my opinion isn't fair and would take focus off my boy.
He doesn't share toys and, in previous experiences, not even let my son play with his own toys in his own home, and even though the other children were fighting over toys, the parents, including myself, were stopping snatching and enforcing sharing, even if it caused a tantrum.
I am getting mixed reviews from people around me and I still personally didn't think it would be a good idea but she's made me feel like I was wrong for it.
Here's what people had to say to OP:
Worth-Season3645 said:
NTA…her child is 8. Your child is 2. Her child does not do well with a lot of commotion. You had a party for two years, who, were loud and noisy. Her child does not share. Which would not be good in a group of two year olds.
I am not sure why she expected her child to be invited to your child’s party, when she knows, that age aside, it would not be a good environment for her child? I would just tell her, sorry, but it was a party for my two year old and a few of his playmates. Not sure why you thought I would invite your 8 year old child to a 2 year old child’s party.
LlaputanLlama said:
NTA. It would be weird to invite an 8 year old to a toddler's party unless it was the older sibling of a toddler.
Ok-Raspberry7884 said;
NTA. You had a party with toddlers from playgroup as guests. Your neighbor’s son is neither a toddler nor from playgroup. If you had a family party you wouldn’t invite the neighbor’s son either because he’s not family.
Children don’t have to be invited to a party just because they happen to be near where the party is held. If your son was around 8 and you had a party with neighborhood kids as guests she might have a point about her son being excluded (although he unfortunately sounds difficult to include) but there’s no reason to invite an 8 year old neighbor to a toddler party with children from a different group.
NotAgain1871 said:
A neighbor is not always the same as a friend. Your party, your guests. End of story. Your neighbor can be as spikey as she likes, it’s not your problem.
GothPenguin said:
There seem to be multiple reasons not to invite this child to the party and unfortunately his mother has added to them. NTA.
SamBartlett1776 said:
NTA. I wouldn’t invite any non-related 8 year old to a toddler party.
No_Rent_5363 said:
NTA one bit, but your neighbor sure is! You are under no obligation to invite anyone to your child’s party, especially a child who will most likely make the day more difficult and/or less enjoyable. His disability is not an excuse for that. Hold the boundary and don’t let her entitlement make you feel bad.
Pretend_Speech6420 said:
NTA. Sounds like mom was looking for free respite care for a few hours with the birthday party as a convenient foil for it.