'AITA for refusing to take my daughter to 'her' birthday party?' UPDATED

"AITA for refusing to take my daughter to 'her' birthday party?"

My (33F) daughter “Cleo” (5yo) hates pink. She has disliked the color and almost everything to do with it since she was about three or so. She has one pink shirt she likes and one pink stuffed animal, and that’s it. My father’s partner, “Prue,” refuses to accept that Cleo doesn’t like pink.

Over the years, she’s made several attempts to push the color onto her (pretty much every gift she’s ever given her was somer shade of pink), no matter how many times I tell her to stop. She has tried to give me dozens of different reasons why I should encourage my daughter to “try different shades.”

It clearly upsets Cleo, but Prue keeps doing it. About a week ago, my father invited me, my husband and our children for dinner at his place. He said he and Prue had a surprise for the kids. Right before we left home, my younger sister (who still lives with our father) texted me.

She warned me that the “surprise” was actually a small birthday party Prue had planned for Cleo. That alone threw me off, because my daughter’s birthday was in November. My father did miss her actual birthday party due to work, but still. Also, my son turns 9 in March, so I had figured his would be the next party we’d have.

Then she sent me photos of how the place was decorated, and it very clearly wasn’t actually meant for Cleo. Literally every piece of decor was pink. The table, the tableware, the balloons, everything. She had gotten pink banners and glued pink foil fringe curtains on the doors. Even the cake was pink.

I showed everything to my husband, and we agreed not to take the kids there. I texted my father the following: “Hey, (sister) told me everything. We’re not coming. We’re taking the kids to McDonalds and telling them that was your surprise. You and Prue can come if you want, we’re paying.” We did exactly that. My father did show up (without Prue), but he was cold with us and left 20 minutes after arriving.

Both him and Prue are p&^%ed. My father is angry that my husband and I dismissed his partner’s “heartfelt gesture” towards our daughter. Prue also told me that I’m the reason Cleo is “restrictive” (I also don’t like pink), and I’m raising her to be an ungrateful, spoiled brat who is unwilling to compromise.

To be honest, I get how I could be in the wrong here. But at the same time, this just felt like Prue trying to push something Cleo doesn’t like onto her yet again. My sister and one of my brothers are on my side (though my sister did say I had been rude). My other brother is on the fence. AITA?

Here's what people had to say to OP:

hadMcDofordinner said:

NTA. You handled it well, and avoided the worst. You were not rude so much as clear that you would not let Prue manipulate you/your daughter. Your father is the weakest link here. He should be reeling in Prue's pink obsession, not encouraging it.

Tell your father and Prue that there are things more important than the color pink in this world and that if they cannot stop giving pink to your daughter, then they should stop giving, period.

tinyd71 said:

I'm not sure that Prue's efforts were "a heartfelt gesture"! Her insistence on pink seems to be more about Prue than about Cleo. Does Prue have children of her own? I would think that most people who've had some exposure to children know that they go through phases of liking, loving, or disliking things, and that you can't really force things on them if they don't like them.

Your father and Prue really aren't hearing you/Cleo. The party wasn't for Cleo, so not attending doesn't seem any worse than throwing a party for someone when you know they'll hate it! NTA.

Large_Effective_812 said:

NTA, but your family sure are, I am now 50 always hated pink and I was a tomboy and I hated dresses. I had an Aunt like your Dad’s wife. I hated her she said the same crap Prue says and she never respected my feelings so as I grew older I never respected hers.

I still don’t wear pink and I have ripped my Aunt a new one every time she brings it up. Your daughter is allowed not to like something and your sister says you were rude at what point do you not if your daughter’s wants and desires are not respected. Cleo would not being seeing my parents for a while till they acknowledge and respect her choices.

Affectionate_Big8239 said:

Prue seems off balance. A birthday party 2 months late is bizarre on its own. The insistence on everything pink sounds really like some sort of issue she’s got that she should work through. Did she not have children of her own? Is your daughter seen as some sort of “do over” child? It’s all a little weird, even without the obsession with the color pink. NTA (forgot a judgment the first time around!)

WhereWeretheAdults said:

NTA. What Prue is doing is what we call projecting. Look at her response. "You are raising her to be an ungrateful, spoiled brat who is willing to compromise." Now look at Prue's actions. She is acting like a brat who is unwilling to compromise. Hold firm in your boundaries. You are teaching your child that her likes and wants are important and that she shouldn't give them up to "keep the peace." Thank you.

Different_Guess_5407 said:

NTA - why the hell would anyone keep "pushing" the colour pink after being told time and time again that the child hates the color. Totally don't blame you for not taking the kids - and well done to sister for giving you the heads up. "I’m raising her to be an ungrateful, spoiled brat who is unwilling to compromise." You could say that Prue is acting like an ungrateful spoiled brat for being unwilling to compromise.

A week later OP added these clarifications:

Hey guys. I ended up leaving a LOT of comments on my AITA post, many of which say the same things over and over. Because I don’t think it will be easy to read them all (and because many of you were quick to make inaccurate assumptions about me and my family), I'm writing this to clarify some things.

• Cleo and Prue are both fake names.
• We’re not American.

• Prue is 46 years old. I don’t call her my stepmother because she’s only 13 years older than me. Also, she’s not married to my father, but they’ve been together for 12 years. I have nothing against her, we’re just not close.

• Cleo’s interests are pretty balanced. She likes princesses, cars, robots and dolls. She loves science and outer space. She does ballet and loves it too. She’s the only girl in her ballet class who wears black. Her teacher calls her Black Swan. She’s not a girly girl, but I wouldn’t call her a tomboy either. She’s just a kid who hates pink.

• Cleo’s favorite colors are yellow and blue.
• Though I understand the assumption Cleo dislikes pink because of me, that’s not the case. I hate pink, but I’m not disgusted by it. I wear pink clothing around my children, I occasionally dressed Cleo in pink as a baby, I own pink stuff and buy it for myself.

• My kids don’t know I don’t like pink. They’ve chosen pink gifts for me in the past. According to my son, I “love all the colors.” My father and Prue know it because I’ve disliked pink since long before I had children.

• There’s plenty of stuff I hate that my kids like and vice versa. They don’t have to care about these things, so I don’t tell them.

• Cleo’s more “boyish” tastes also annoy Prue. Not as much as the pink thing, but enough that my husband and I know. Cleo’s birthday party last November was themed after Super Mario Bros., and Prue actually asked me why I was allowing that.

• Cleo is open about hating pink. She has expressed that to Prue several times, specifically because she keeps pushing it.

• Both my kids are polite. Whenever Prue gives my daughter something pink, Cleo thanks her. She'll sometimes ask Prue if she can give her something yellow next time, and she doesn’t act as excited as she gets when other people give her something she actually likes, but that’s it.

• We let Cleo choose which of her gifts she wants to exchange. She always asks to exchange pink stuff. If it can’t be exchanged, she won’t play with it or wear it. We either give those away to her friends or donate them to charity.

• Cleo does have friends who like pink (her best friend loves it), and wouldn’t complain if they threw pink parties for themselves. She’d know those aren’t about her. But the second you made it about her (AKA, threw her a pink party), then she’d be upset.

• Cleo would have loathed the party. She would have started crying immediately. She wouldn’t have eaten the cake, she wouldn’t have had fun.

• I didn’t tell Cleo about the party for a number of reasons. Most importantly, I didn’t want her to get upset. I also knew that letting her see it would ruin my father’s image in her eyes. Cleo is already upset that Prue doesn’t care about what she likes, and I didn't want to get frustrated at her grandfather too.

• Yes, my daughter does in fact hate pink. Yes, I’m very well aware that might change someday. No, I wouldn’t care if it did.

I think that’s all I wanted to say here. Feel free to ask me any other questions you may have.

The same day OP posted this update:

First of all, I apologized to my sister a few hours after I made my original post. I am very grateful for what she did, but I’ll do my best to keep her away from these conflicts moving forward. Thank you to those who defended her.

Secondly, I went through your comments with my husband, and our main takeaway was that we did what we had to do to protect Cleo, even if it wasn’t what we’d do in most circumstances.

Had either of us been surprised with a party decorated with something we openly hated, we would have sucked it up and ignored it. It sucks, but we’re adults and it comes with the territory. Cleo, however, is 5 years old.

She wouldn’t deal with this the same way, nor would we expect her to. Knowing my daughter, she would have been miserable at the party. So ultimately, we don’t regret not taking her there. On Saturday, we took the kids to spend the afternoon at my brother’s place with their cousins. In the meantime, we invited my father and Prue over to talk.

My husband and I told them we wanted them to abide by the following: 1) No more surprise parties without our knowledge and approval; 2) No more pushing the color pink onto Cleo (including pink gifts); and 3) No more calling our children spoiled for being allowed to dislike something.

If they didn’t agree to our terms, we would no longer take the kids to their place, and there would be a good chance we’d lower our contact with them in the future.

Prue didn’t say anything at first. My father tried to argue that we should at least thank her for the party, but I said no. I told them the problem wasn’t that Prue threw a party for my daughter that was dedicated to her own interests, it was that she specifically chose something she knows my daughter hates and centered everything around it. We wouldn’t thank her, and we wouldn’t apologize.

That’s when Prue chimed in. She tried to tell us we were raising our daughter to be a brat again. So I asked, “Why are you so insistent on pink?” She didn’t answer at first, but then said she knew Cleo did love pink, she just didn’t know it yet. And to that I asked, “Would you be this pushy if it was about any other color?”

Prue tried to say that didn’t matter, but when my husband asked her if she’d care if Cleo hated blue, she said, “She doesn’t need to like blue.” He replied that she didn’t need to like pink either.

He told Prue that she had no right to decide what Cleo should and shouldn’t like. Cleo hates pink, and if she can’t be an adult and respect that, then she doesn’t need to be around our children.

In the end, my father and Prue agreed to our terms. I’m not confident about her, but I did speak to my father. I said I know that he has a hard time saying no to Prue, but he will ruin his relationship with me and my children if he keeps enabling his partner. My father promised he wouldn’t let this happen again.

I hope this works out. Cleo is a great kid, and I hope my father and Prue can finally start seeing that. Thank you all for everything.

Here's what people had to say about the update:

MyAskRedditAcct said:

Yeah, she's 100% buying her more pink shit. She's not going to drop it.

iceblnklck said:

There’s no way Prue is dropping this. To even ‘throw’ the party in the first place shows that she cares not for Cleo’s feelings, but only for herself - as she basically showed with throwing the party in the first place. Still NTA OP but you definitely need to lessen contact with Prue.

Roostroyer said:

You're an awesome parent for defending your daughter's autonomy. Kids know what they like and don't like. I remember being 3-4 years old and hating this sailor dress my mom made me wear all the time. She finally gave up when she saw me throw it in the trash can many, many times.

Same with my hair. I had long hair, past my waist. I hated it because my mother would pull really hard when untangling it to the point of me crying. I begged and begged to get it cut. Nope, she liked how it looked, so I eventually gave myself a haircut at age 5. The hairdresser fixed it and I ended up with a he-man haircut (80s he-man, I'm old) until I was 10 or so and able to do my own hair.

Lazuli_Rose said:

At this point, I would just completely cut Prue out and keep her away from Cleo. I sure as hell wouldn't let her spend any time alone with Prue.

BlueSkies-2000 said:

Prue sounds like one of those braindead people who think if a girl doesn’t like pink then something is wrong with them, that it somehow makes them "less than." If it turns out that Cleo is not too interested in makeup or jewelry or other stereotypical "girl" things Prue will probably lose her mind.

babymish87 said:

NTA, she isn't going to stop. I hate pink. Have always hated pink. First time I wore pink clothing one of my classmates teased me bc she knew of my hatred. I do not look good in it and I hate how when I was a kid most girls stuff was pink.

One of my sons use to love pink. He looks good in salmon pink. He wears it sometimes (in a black kick now). Kids are figuring out themselves. You are doing the right thing, Prue is not.

8 months later OP posted this "final update":

Hey guys. I wasn’t planning on coming back, but stuff happened recently and I remembered writing my previous posts.

Things with Prue were mostly fine the months after my last post. On one hand, she didn’t try to push pink onto Cleo in any way. No pink gifts, no preaching, no weirdly timed parties.

On the other hand, Prue didn’t change much about the rest of her behavior. She was still annoyed whenever my daughter’s non-girly tastes were mentioned. She wouldn’t say anything, but I could see she was making an effort not to. Cleo didn’t seem to notice it or be bothered by it. I don’t have much to say about my father’s behavior, but I will say we didn’t have any problems related to this.

Anyway, Cleo’s 6th birthday is coming up in early November. Her best friend’s birthday is about two weeks before hers, and we’re doing a joint party for them near the end of this month.

The girls have both become obsessed with the Wicked movie this past year, so they’ve decided that will be the theme. We’re also looking into taking them to see the musical sometime between their birthdays. The girls are very excited.

Last month, we had dinner with my father, and Cleo started talking about the party. Prue was happy about the theme until Cleo mentioned she’s going to wear an Elphaba costume and her friend will dress as Glinda. The kids eventually shifted the subject, and Prue didn’t say anything else about the party.

I got a text message from Prue later that night. It was long and not in English, so here are some bullet points:

• She’s been “holding a lot in” these last few months.
• I’m influencing my daughter, and raising her to be a tomboy “isn’t as cool as I think.”
• Cleo is obviously confused and it’s my fault.

• It’s embarrassing that I won’t “let my daughter be special” on her birthday.
• It’s bad that my husband lets Cleo watch F1 with him (why she felt the need to bring that up is beyond me).
• It’s sad that I won’t let my daughter be herself (which I found very funny).

• I’m failing my daughter.
• She wasn’t going to say anything, but “couldn’t help herself.”

The text solidified everything I already thought about Prue. She won’t drop this, and she won’t change. And I don’t want to keep putting my daughter around someone who won’t respect her for who she is.

Both me and my husband blocked Prue the next day. I sent my father a screenshot of her text and told him we’re lowering our contact with her. We’ll only see her during family events. That means the only other time we’ll see her this year is Christmas Eve. He can still see the kids without her. And if she tries to pull anything in front of the kids, we’re cutting ties permanently. A few hours later, my father asked, “I can’t get you to change your mind, can I?” I told him no, and he said he agreed.

I told my siblings everything. My sister is moving in with her boyfriend in January, so I’m not too worried about her getting mixed up in this any further, but I told her to let me know if anything happened. So far, all she’s had to say is that Prue has been telling her she wants to apologize to me. I don’t care whether she does anymore.

Also, Cleo found a type of pink she likes. It’s a deep magenta, she calls it “purple pink.” She still hates every other shade, but it’s something. And because of the theme, there is going to be a lot of pink at her birthday party, even if it's not "her half." Both my children are doing great, and I grow prouder of them every day.

I have zero intention of updating again. I have a lot going on in my life right now, and just thinking about the fact all this happened because a grown woman couldn’t accept that my child hates a color exhausts me. I’m more than happy to stop talking about this.

Once again, thank you for everything.