Dad devastates mom when he refuses to have expensive party for 3-yr-old son's bday.
When this dad doesn't want to celebrate his son's birthday, he asks Reddit:
'AITA for not celebrating my 3yo son's birthday?'
My girlfriend and I have a 3yo who is a good kid. My girlfriend liked to host parties, and when he reached his first birthday, she wanted to have a big birthday party, but I managed to convince her to massively downsize to just us, our parents and siblings, and just have some cake, little guy was still too young.
The next year she again talked about her plans to have a big party for our 2yo, but again I told her it would be just close family and a cake and a happy birthday song. This year she told me about her plans and again I told her to just do something small, but this time she was frustrated and told me to let her do something bigger for our son for once.
I explained that it is ridiculous to have such big parties for toddlers, they will not remember anything. For example, when I was 2, my family threw me a huge birthday party, the theme was Toy Story, which had just come out. I have no recollection of it, just some VHS tapes of me looking stupid in a Woody costume while the older kids had fun on their own.
She said it doesn't matter because there will be lots of people taking pictures and he can just see them when he gets older. I told her again that it would just be having fun at his expense, the little guy is a heavy sleeper who plays and runs for 30 minutes and then falls asleep on a sofa or a chair or his bed.
She still doesn't understand my point of view, it's not like he won't ever have a birthday party, we should just wait until he's like 6 or 7, you know, when he can actually remember.
My girlfriend is still mad at me and says she is going to plan a birthday party whether I like it or not. I tried talking to her mom to see if she could talk some sense into her, only to be verbally slammed by her, telling me I'm depriving my child of a childhood. My mom says I should just do what my girlfriend says because Dad's word is not that important and I should know my place as a father.
Its an excuse for adults to have a party at the expense of the toddler who wont remember it. It's a selfish reason. I play with my son, we spend time together, we go to the park etc. My son has a childhood, I just think we should save the bigger events for a time when he is old enough to remember it and fully enjoy it. AITA?
Let's find out.
sallybip writes:
So you shouldn’t do anything fun with your kids until they’re old enough to remember? Why bring them to the park? Why read them books? Why watch movies with them? Why do anything fun at all until they can have a memory of it? Do you see how stupid that sounds? YTA.
aljava writes:
YTA. You got your way for two years - if she likes planning events like these, you should not take it away from her. Some day you might regret not having those cute pictures to share. For now, you kind of just sound like you are close minded to what she wants to do for her child. And, going behind her back to talk to her mom (to try to get your way) is a real jerk move.
sallybip writes:
YTA. You're technically correct in all your statements, but you're missing the point. Events like this are for the memories you can form as parents, not for the kid. Kind of seems like you don't care.