'AITA for not inviting someone to my kid’s bday party because their family eats too much?'

"AITA for not wanting to invite someone to my child’s birthday party because they have too many kids and their family eats too much?"

Before we begin, I would love to say that I’m going to keep this short and sweet but I have ADHD so my mind wanders. Anyway - For context, I (28F), have 2 kids, and for my son’s birthday about a little over a month ago we decided to celebrate on the weekend by taking a trip to the big waterpark about an hour drive away.

We wanted to keep the guest list for this event small, as we were already doing something at home on his actual birth day during the week, the drive is a bit far and the cost for admission to the park is pretty pricey.

I created a Facebook event and invited a few of our closest family and friends. I stated on the invitation that all guests would be paying for themselves, we would have a meeting point with shade, a table snd decorations set up, and we would provide lunch and cupcakes.

Well… when I was going through my friends list, I guess accidentally clicked on someone (24F, let’s call her Sarah) who wasn’t originally on my guest-list. This friend, Sarah, was someone who I was not super close with, I had only met her through mutual friends.

Sarah & her kids had never been invited to any of my children’s birthday parties before, as we mostly only see each other at events and through our mutual friends, only a couple times a year. We don’t necessarily hang out on our own terms. Her kids and my kids are somewhat around the same ages, but I wouldn’t consider them to be friends.

They’ve played with each other before in passing, but not close friends by any means. Sarah’s kids are rude, entitled, obnoxious, they say cuss words and get unlimited unsupervised iPad/screen time. My children, are the exact opposite.

When I created the Facebook event, at first, I didn’t even realize that I had clicked her name for the invite… until I got the notification saying that she had marked herself as GOING!

I checked the settings to see if maybe I had set it to public, or if anyone else had added her. Nope, invite by host only. Crap. I didn’t freak out, I remained calm, I just seen her recently at a previous event and figured it would be rude to un-invite her now. What’s the harm in adding a couple more people, right? Wrong.

Now here is the part where it all starts to tie into why I think that I might be an AH, but please hear me out. Sarah, has 4 kids. All within the ages of 5 months old to 6 years old.

Sarah also, has unfortunately raised some red flags within our friend group in the past, in regard to not showing up as a good friend, setting a bad example for her kids, getting too involved in other peoples business, borrowing money and issues surrounding food. What I mean by issues surrounding food: they eat, a lot.

And I know what you’re probably thinking, well of course her family is going to eat a lot? It’s 4 kids and 2 adults, that’s 6 mouths to feed. Yes, I understand, I really do. But it’s more than just that. I’m not judging them on their weight! I’m not trying to shame them or call them fat, I promise! I’m just saying, that when they are present at events, their family noticeably eats more than any other family.

Sarah, is really close friends with one of my besties - let’s call her Tatiana. At Tatiana’s daughter’s birthday party, Sarah alone ate 5 slices of pizza, her fiancé 4, and her 2 oldest children each ate 3, at the time her youngest wasn’t born & her 3rd only had a few teeth so he just gnawed on a small piece. That’s 16 slices of pizza for her family alone, not to mention the rest of the guests.

When ordering the pizza Tatiana asked me if I thought it would be enough for everyone, i told her to add an extra pizza or two just in case and then she could keep the leftovers. She ordered an extra 2 cheese pizzas for the kids. If it was a small get together, sure, eat as much as you want. But when the pizza came, Sarah and her family were first in line.

And when you’re the first family to get in line to grab a plate, you don’t take a majority of the pizza.. that’s rude. Unless you’re the host / the one who paid for the food. The courteous thing to do, would be starting with 1 or 2 slices and then go back for more once everyone has had the chance to eat.

Tatiana and her husband didn’t even get a single slice of pizza because they waited until everyone got at least 1 slice. The birthday girl herself only got 1 slice, and when she asked for a second slice, there wasn’t any left. It wasn’t like Tatiana was unprepared, she ordered extra. It was frustrating, people noticed and whispered but no one said anything to Sarah.

Fast forward to thanksgiving, another friend - let’s call her Kaylee - in the friend group invited Tatiana and her family over for a little “friendsgiving” meal the weekend before actual Thanksgiving day. While on a Group FaceTime call with Sarah and Kaylee, (Kaylee also only met Sarah through Tatiana.) Tatiana had brought up that she was going to Kaylee’s house for friendsgiving.

Sarah lives in a different city, and had plans that weekend with her in laws, who happened to live close to Kaylee’s house. Kaylee knew that, and said to Sarah, that if she had time to come say hi that she would love for her to come stop by for a quick visit on her way to or from her in laws house since it’s been a while since they’d last seen each other.

It seemed that Sarah apparently took that sentence, as an invitation to the feast. It was not an invitation to the feast. The feast was organized and paid for by the small group of 2 families who all contributed mutually.

Later that evening, Sarah had texted Kaylee saying something along the lines of - she’s too tired to come over for a visit but if Kaylee could make her a to-go plate with the left overs and meet her at the door, then they could come by and pick it up on their way home.

Kaylee was APPALLED. She had never invited Sarah and her family to join them for dinner in the first place, and then to say you’re too tired to come visit but then ask for the leftovers in the same text message? Unreal.

^TLDR; Enough background stories on Sarah, let’s jump back to my son’s birthday. As I mentioned before, the price of admission for the water park is pretty expensive. They don’t offer any deals, discounts, or special rates for groups or families. If your child is above 36 inches, they pay full price for admission. Sarah, does not work. Her fiancé is also between jobs.

Sarah had mentioned to Tatiana on a phone call about how she didn’t have a babysitter for her youngest baby for the waterpark and she didn’t want to bring him with her because she wanted to enjoy the pool and waterslides.

Tatiana was offering suggestions and solutions for a babysitter, when Sarah cuts her off mid sentence and says that she’s too broke to afford the park passes for all of them, and asked if she could borrow some money to cover the cost for some of the admission. Sarah had previously borrowed money from Tatiana in the past and at that point, still had not paid her back in full.

Tatiana explained to Sarah that she couldn’t afford to pay for her family on top of paying for the cost of her own kids and herself. Tatiana only has 2 kids as well. Sarah seemed to get noticeably irritated, and ended the call shortly after. 2 days before the event, I was going through my list and just confirming my numbers for attendance, finalizing my head count for food preparations.

I had called Sarah to confirm if her family was coming. She told me she wasn’t sure yet, but would let me know later when she figured it out. She never got back to me. Now, the day of the party. For food, I ordered a big Costco sized platter of sandwiches for lunch, and provided chips, candy, fruit and veggie platters as well as meat and cheese.

I had more than enough for the small number of guests attending. Everyone starts to arrive, and walking through the crowd I see Sarah, her fiancé and their 4 kids in tow. I had no problems with them coming, but a little heads up would’ve been great. During the party, their family ate a majority of the food. Costco cuts the sandwiches on the platter into halves.

As I was cleaning up the food, getting ready to sing happy birthday and light the candles on the cupcakes, I had the sandwich platter in my hands as well as a few other things stacked on top. Sarah asks me if there was any more sandwiches left. Sarah and her family had all already eaten at this point. I said yeah just give me a second to put this stuff down, and then I walked over to where she was sitting.

I opened the platter and let her pick which sandwich she wanted. There was only 6 halves of the sandwiches left, so that would make 3 whole sandwiches. Sarah reaches her hand in, and grabs 3 halves and as I’m closing the lid, her fiancé comes up behind me, reaches his hand in, and takes 2 halves. Leaving only 1 half of a sandwich left.

As I’m walking over to put it away, my daughter asked if there was any sandwiches left, I gave her that last piece. I myself, the one who paid for the platter, only got to eat 1 half of a sandwich.

My own fault I know, I should’ve ate more but I was so busy trying to chase my kids around the park and host the party, I didn’t take a second half sooner because I thought there would be enough with the amount of leftovers in the box when it was time to clean up. Sarah’s kids had been asking for the last 20 minutes “when is it time for cupcakes?”

Over and over and over again, even though I had told them over and over and over again, when we would be having the cupcakes. Once I set the cupcakes out on the table, before I could even reach around to grab a lighter to light the candles, Sarah’s daughter pushed past me and stuck her fingers directly into the blue icing on the cupcake right at the top of the 3 tier stand.

This happened to be the exact cupcake that I was going to put the candle on for my son. I was furious. I gave her trouble, and told her not to stick her fingers in the cupcakes. I told her to go sit down and wait for us to sing happy birthday like everyone else or she wouldn’t be getting any cupcakes at all. She didn’t like that. She ran away crying looking for her dad.

I didn’t care. Don’t touch my son’s cupcakes. After we sang, I handed out cupcakes to everyone. With the last minute addition of Sarah and her clan, There was only enough for everyone to have 1 cupcake, not 2. I told everyone this from the start.

I told my kids that if all the kids got a cupcake, and all the adults got a cupcake and there was still some left over, that they could have another one once we left for the drive home. Well, apparently while I was helping my daughter in the bathroom, Sarah’s kids decided to take it upon themselves to just go crazy with the cupcakes! Every other child had 1 cupcake only. Sarah’s kids each got 2.

Sarah and her family ate a majority of the food, and also were the only ones to not bring a gift. Not that gifts are a requirement to attend a children’s party, but all I’m saying is - I’ve never shown up to a party empty handed and especially one that I didn’t 100% confirm my attendance at, before showing up and eating all the free food. I was so annoyed by the end. I do not want to invite them to another event.

Now, my daughter’s 3rd birthday is coming up next month. Like I said above, I had never invited Sarah or her kids to any of my children’s birthday party’s before, as we are not that close and our children are not really friends. I do not want to / do not plan to invite them to this birthday party.

Once again, I’d like to keep it small. Her 1st birthday was way too crowded with 50+ people including majority family and some friends. Her 2nd birthday we had a family emergency come up and had to cancel her party, so we only did a small celebration at home. This year, we want to do something fun and really special for her. I only want it to be super tight close friends and family who are apart of her every day life.

I also don’t want to invite Sarah because 1. She’s not a close friend and 2. ITS GOING TO BE MORE EXPENSIVE FOR FOOD BECAUSE HER FAMILY OF 6 IS GOING TO EAT ENOUGH FOOD FOR A FAMILY OF 16.

I’m just worried that now since she’s been invited to one party, it might have set the unintentional expectation/assumption that she’s going to be invited to future event… and she might be offended if she doesn’t get an invite to this one. So, would I be the AH for not wanting to invite someone to my daughter’s birthday party because they have too many kids and their family eats too much?

At the end of the day, even if I’m the AH, I really just don’t want to invite insignificant people to my child’s birthday party who don’t have a meaningful connection with her.

*quick but I feel is a necessary edit, I only posted this about half an hour ago Every single other person who was in attendance at my sons party, will be invited to my daughters party. That’s why I’m wondering if I’m the AH, because I’ll be excluding ONLY her family.

It was supposed to be a small number of people from the start with my son’s party, the only people who were out of place was Sarah and her family. But Tatiana & Kaylee (mutual friends) will be there…

and I’m not so much worried about them telling her about it before hand, it’s her seeing pictures of us after the party and making snide comments to us / making a fuss over not being invited because, well, she’s just like that.

It’s annoying and petty, and she’s younger than us and her frontal lobe hasn’t fully developed yet so maybe that’s why? But she just LOVES the drama and loves to start stuff, almost like petty high school beef.

(the whole group of 6 of us, is all 28-31 she’s the only 24 year old.) and my anxiety with the people pleaser in me has just been causing me to way overthink this, that’s why I came here to air it all out… thank you for reading my super unnecessarily long post <3

What do you think? AITA? This is what commenters had to say:

MissMurderpants said:

You are waaay over thinking this. NTA. Don’t invite her. It’s ok. She and her family are horrible mooches. Please be sure her close friend doesn’t tell her about the party and comes anyway. Tatiana? If asked you say no, I’m not inviting them. You don’t need a reason. And you just grey rock respond if asked why or shrug.

p3canj0y363 said:

YTA for allowing yourself to be treated that way. NTA for not inviting rude, entitled people to your events. You aren't supposed to, or expected to do that to yourself or your other guests.

Trin_42 said:

OP, you need to grow a damn backbone. No WAY am I letting somebody just come in and eat everything without calling them out. I’m an a hole like that.

Glittering-Horse-231 said:

Nobody is owed an invite to anyone else's soirée. Doesn't matter who else is there or who went last time. Don't like her don't invite her. Pushy kids would do it for me. NTA.

Far-Juggernaut8880 said:

Why is no one setting boundaries with Sarah? You are all adults act like it… “Not everyone has sandwiches yet. I will let you know after everyone gets their first serving if there is more” or “Couple other guests also want seconds. Please start with one half” or “When will you pay back the money we leant you” NTA for not inviting them next time

And Marguerite_Moonstone said:

Nta. But also, communicate, if she takes it upon herself to ask or gossip, contact her and tell her why. Otherwise she’ll never learn that her behavior is unacceptable.