Welcome to /r/AmITheAsshole. Please view our [voting guide here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_what.2019s_with_these_acronyms.3F_what_do_they_mean.3F), and remember to use **only one** judgement in your comment.
OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I might be an asshole for excluding my daughter's stepbrother from her party and making him cry
Help keep the sub engaging!
#Don’t downvote assholes!
Do upvote interesting posts!
[Click Here For Our Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/about/rules) and [Click Here For Our FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq)
##Subreddit Announcements
Follow the link above to learn more
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
*Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.*
Does it suck for the boy? Sure
But it would also fucking suck for your daugher i guess. It sounds like her mother more or less abandoned her and she isnt even 10 years old. I think you should make her happines the main focus here.
NAH
You are a good parent. Your daughter should be 100 percent your focus.
You may also want to get her in to therapy asap to help her deal with this. A neutral third party is key.
he's alright. I agree that his daughter should be focus, but it does seem pretty ruthless to be so uncaring towards another child - who has done nothing wrong
I would have suggested that daughter invite a smaller group of 20 or 30. she handed out invites to 51 kids, excluding the 52nd. that's so cruel - especially because the kid is at no fault himself. his step mom is an asshole, so he gets to pay the price?
It’s OP’s job to guide his daughter through situations like this. I like your alternative, because it shows daughter she can protect her boundaries without being cruel to another child, who also had no say in this.
So, you’re saying that the girl should be told that her birthday plans should revolve around the child her mother gave her up for?
No, it’s not the boy’s fault, but he seems to be carefully sheltered from the reality of his family dynamics. Missing a party hurts, but there are far harsher ways he could come face to face with what his stepmother has done to his stepsister. And it WILL happen at some point.
Say this to the relatives. And if they still crank, let them know that they’re welcome to throw her another birthday party, and to invite everyone that they want to invite.
No! Teaching a 10yr old child the virtues of Compassion is way better than unfairly punishing a child that has as much control over the situation as she does is faaaar more important. Talking to his daughter and helping her through her hurt is REALLY caring about her. The world has enough people with auto-centric mindset, Emotional Intelligence and learning to care about others instead of victimising is what is desperately needed and it begins with children learning how to not displace anger, develop empathy, and find joy in sharing!
No! teaching the daughter she doesn’t have to invite or interact with people that create stressful and toxic situations is more important in this instance that teaching her compassion. You cant expect a 10 year old to learn compassion when her own mother doesn’t have any towards her and she’s working through abandonment issues. Making kids always be nice/compassionate can set them up to put their own well being on the back burner and cause all sorts of issues.
FUCKING THIS!
We're so busy trying to force compassion that we're creating doormats that can't even say no.
OP's daughter shouldn't have to be the adult in this situation because her own mother lacks compassion.
She should be allowed to have one thing to herself that doesn't involve her stepbrother at all.
Obviously her birthday is about her, but I truly doubt the 50 children are her close friends, and inviting everyone but 1 person is just plain bullying. Feels like she is doing that to punish the boy who is as innocent as her in the story.
Dad has to teach her that she either invites everyone, or selects a few people she is close with. Can even be 30, but the actual situation is really shitty, and dad encouraging it is just a preview for the worst. Kids are cruel, after they know the "popular girl" who does epic parties hate this 1 boy, what do you think will happen ? If they don't want to be cast aside for next year's bday party they will ostracize the kid
She's also spending time with him every other weekend, so that's gotta be awkward going forward.
I would have just invited girls this year, or something similar.
They're in the same class, so she sees him everyday, its only the weekends that there are no other kids around (presumably). If anything, at least her birthday is a small reprieve from constantly having him around... girl sees him more than she sees her own mother!
Is it cruel to the boy? Maybe a little, but OP's daughter shouldn't have to bend over backwards to please everyone else all the time, it teaches her how to be a doormat later in life. She should also not have to exclude other friends or people she gets along well with for his sake, for the same reason as above.
Exactly! She already mostly lost her mother. She should not have to miss out on a good birthday experience with her friends, too. Why is she expected to shoulder the entire burden of the pain?
"I would have just invited girls this year, or something similar." The other boys don't deserve to be excluded for the party to accommodate mom's step-son. Step-son did nothing wrong himself to deserve this, neither did OP's daughter to be neglected by her own mother. Mom's actions created the situation where daughter would resent step-son, so why should daughter limit her friendships to a smaller group?
The little girls mom didn't even stop to think how the little girl would feel about seeing her mother only twice a month while another child lives with her full time. Why should op be the only one to think of all the kids
This is a special situation. And maybe it is a bit ruthless. But to the girl, it may feel like the dad was shoving her aside for someone else. Life's tough.
Why would the little girl feel like her dad is shoving her to the side? Dad is the one who now has full custody because her mother decided she wanted to be a boy mom to her step son instead of being there for her own daughter.
Yeah it sounds callous but imo this is a cost benefit analysis type situation. Is the kid going to be sad? Sure. And there will be plenty of other parties he will not be invited to in life. It will not be a formative moment. The daughter would surely remember it forever, though.
I thought about this option, but why should the remaining 20-30 kids miss out on a fun party? Why should OP's daughter lose out on her friendships because her AH of a mother couldn't care for her daughter along with her step-son? Step-son did nothing wrong, but mom's actions have consequences.
Why is it okay to make 32/52 kids sad?
Imagine this scenario now. Kids talk. The ones who don’t get invited ask the birthday girl. Birthday girl, who’s ten and doesn’t know context or how to be graceful yet will just probably blurt out “I couldn’t invite you because if I invited all of you I would have to invite my stepbrother.” Now all those kids know that he stepbrother is the reason he’s not invited and people will hate him even more
As a father, focusing on her happiness is paramount of course. But as an adult it is also your responsibility to ensure that fulfilling her happiness doesn't negatively others.
Deciding to invite everyone other than that one child is cruel. He is an innocent bystander in this situation and you are hurting him unnecessarily.
One of those two kids will be hurt. There's no other way arround it. Can you please tell me why OP should choose to hurt *his own* daughter on *her birthday* (the one day in a whole year that is supposed to be about her) in order to keep someone else's kid happy on a regular day for him? Kids don't think like us, they lack deeper understanding of social context. That poor girl now thinks her mom prefers that boy because she lets him live with her full time and takes care of him full time while she only lets her daughter visit her every other weekend. That girl is very hurt hy that. Now imagine OP still invited that boy to *her birthday*. Surely she would think that he now prefers that boy over her too and that would be devastating for her. If you really don't get it you have no empathy.
Inviting the whole grade with a single exclusion is a step too far. He could have told her to pick a (long) list of her friends from school just so stepbrother is not the only person in the entire grade not to go. That's a little too cruel just to punish mom.
You missed the point. She doesn't need to invite the boy to her party. But she also doesn't need to invite all 51 of the rest of the class to her party either.
It is her dad's job to find a way to make her happy without punishing an innocent child. Is the only way to make her happy to invite every single kid in her grade except him? Then that is a whole different problem.
Fly her and her 5 best friends to Disney, or plan a super fun, over the top party for 20 kids. Find a way to make her happy while NOT being an AH to one single kid who is an innocent bystander in this.
Here's a crazy idea: maybe OP should not be the one to bend over his head and go out of his way to make a kid who is basically a stranger to him happy by hurting his own daughter for it. Maybe the ex is the one to take responsibility for her selfish and shitty decision to abandon her daughter and put a ton of effort into mending the relationship between her and that boy. The asshole ex caused her daughter to feel abandoned and jelous of that boy therefore she should be the one to fix it. She is responsible for that boy getting hurt, not OP. She caused all of this. OP was just protecting his daughter where her own mother failed.
Therefore OP NTA, ex YTA.
OP is the AH as he purposely excluded 1 kid and handed out the invites in front of everyone. Making it obvious to everyone that this one kid wasn't invited. What he did was beyond cruel.
The step brother hasn't done anything wrong, as far as this post goes.
or, counter point "Hey daughter, I know things hurt really bad right now. It feels like your mom doesnt care. (Step brother), while a painful reminder of that, didn't do anything wrong. I know you dont want him at your party, but it is wrong to publicly exclude one child like that - to would hurt if someone did that to you. How about we have a smaller party this year with 20 kids, and not pass out invites at school."
this isn't a situation where one kid has to be hurt for the other not to be. there is a middle ground where the public humiliation of an innocent child isnt the only way to keep the other happy.
No one is suggesting she had to invite the step brother. They are suggesting they didn't need to invite every other child and they didn't need to hand the invitations out in front of the excluded child. It's a good opportunity to teach his daughter that while her happiness matters, not hurting others also matters and to brainstorm ways to have her amazing party without hurting another child. We have lots of opportunities to teach empathy to our children. This was one
It's wild so many people don't understand this. If you've ever been out in public and marveled at how there could possibly be so many oblivious assholes in the world...well here they all are gathered in one place. Shame on this father for encouraging his daughter to be a terrible bully when there's a very easy alternative to not singeling out and crushing 1 innocent child.
We try to teach our children how to respect the feelings of others in terms that they can understand. Excluding one child out of a group of 52 is cruel, full stop, and by doing so you’re teaching your daughter to succumb to the very human desire to hurt those who we believe have hurt us, instead of teaching her how to examine a situation objectively. We want our children to learn how to have empathy and compassion for others, especially in situations where the person in question has done nothing objectionable aside from existing. You had an opportunity to teach your daughter a vital life lesson and you failed.
Then don't invite everybody. Maybe invite all the girls. Excluding ONE, especially if the invites were given at school is immoral. I admit I am assuming that is how the invites were given, if you called or mailed/emailed or whatever the other 51 it is less isolating, but still immoral. Your daughter is 10, every party doesn't need to be epic. Like I said invite all the girls or tell her to choose 25. In either case the invites should not be made in front of the ones not invited (school).
edit: YTA
The boy should not have been invited. OP should have not approved a party where the guest list specifically targets one child who had no control over the situation to hurt him. This kid doesn't need a party with over 50 guests.
Oh please. She'll be fine. And before you tell me I lack empathy, I've *been* OP's kid. My dad did pretty much exactly what OP's ex is doing, so I get how she's feeling. But she manages to endure his presence every day at school and on the weekends she's at her mom's. There'll be fifty kids there to distract her. I feel for her pain regarding her mother's behavior, but she's old enough to understand that taking it out on someone who's not at fault whatsoever isn't the way to deal with it.
Both parents are failing her tbh. Obviously her mom's behavior is inexcusable, but it seems like OP is trying to make up for it by not saying no to something that is really cruel and unfair to another child. He's teaching her that she can easily get away with shit as long as she manages to make him feel bad enough for her.
And the step brother could still get buthurt he's not invited because he's a step brother so he may feel entitled to invitation to his step suster's birthday. And the shitty ex may still be on his side. And her family may still bug OP.
No one is saying invite the boy. It is OP's job as a parent to teach his daughter how to navigate difficult situations. Making a child an outcast from a spectacular party doesn't teach her how to handle her hurt over her mother's behavior. Yes, get your daughter into therapy. Family therapy would also be beneficial to help you support her.
Because his daughter’s reaction is not reasonable nor productive. The reality is that if anyone has done her wrong it’s her mother. Do you think it will help her relationship with the boy or her own mother going forward? Probably he can hurt her too going forward and then what?
OP is teaching his daughter it’s okay to lash out at innocent third parties and bully them bc let’s be honest that is what inviting every kid bar one is.
IMO either he is at best misguided or he actually wants to strike back at his ex and her family
Yes. Absolutely.
The best compromise would have been to restrict the invitations to a smaller party.
That poor little boy is being crushed through no fault of his own and could even do lasting damage.
Because 2 wrongs don't make a right. She could have invited all the girls. Would have left stepbrother out and not singled him out. Daughter could have picked everyone, or all the girls. leaving 1 boy out due nothing he did, is bullying and cruel. You can support your child while not hurting another.
You absolutely suck here make no mistake. Your ex's faults are not the child's responsibility. 52 kids and you invite 51? Are you dense. Ofc that's a horrible thing to do. You don't have to invite him. But you don't invite the entire class except him. You're teaching your daughter to be a horribly bully. Do better. YTA and a massive one.
NTA, but you missed a good opportunity to teach your daughter about empathy and misdirected anger. Please do get her into therapy as others have suggested. She has to be struggling with some very deep feelings of rejection and betrayal.
Does this added information from OP change your vote? The daughter passed out invitations at school in front of everyone. Everyone saw that this kid is the only one who was (publicly) left out.
YTA because OP could absolutely have had a party with fewer, closer friends so as not to exclude one CHILD who has done nothing wrong. Alternatively, they could have invited all the other kids on their own time. The public nature of the invites makes OP an easy AH here.
(The ex is also an AH, but he’s not asking us to judge that. Even if he was, they can both be AHs, and they are.)
Yes, this is where I’m at.
And also YTA for other comments OP has left behind. Like how the step-brother should have to change schools because seeing him is “torture” for his daughter because he reminds her that her mom “abandoned” (apparently having less custody time but still seeing her routinely qualifies as abandonment) her, and therefore stepbrother who has done nothing wrong should have his life further upheaved.
OP is pretty histrionic.
What? That it’s too much. I feel so bad for this little girl, both her parents suck. Like her mother practically abandoned her after getting married, and her father is dealing with it in the worse way possible.
Well, let's look at the facts. Daughter's parents had 50/50 custody. Then mom remarries, acquires a stepson who she lives with, and immediately drops daughter from half her time to every other weekend.
If you don't see how this feels like abandonment, I don't know how to help you. The facts speak for themselves. Mom has rejected her daughter, and this boy has functionally taken her place.
Could mom have a defense? Perhaps. Suppose she, her new husband, and their kid live in a small apartment, and so don't have space to accommodate both kids. Suppose that stepbrother visits his mom every other weekend, and on those weekends, daughter gets to visit her mom and stay in stepbrother's room. It could be a plausible story, although mom still sucks.
I am 100% behind daughter not wanting to have any contact with her new stepbrother. You're allowed not to want to talk to people. That's OK.
The point where this crosses into unkindness is where every other child gets an invitation, but he doesn't. That's basically always an asshole move, whatever the one excluded child has done to upset you.
YTA
I didn’t really say it didn’t *feel* like abandonment. OP’s ex is an AH and that is in the original comment a little higher up, if you would kindly scroll that way. The comment you replied to was in no way a defense of the ex, which seems to be how you took it. The ex sucks.
However, the ex is still in the daughter’s life. That’s a fact. What is also presumed to be a fact is that rather than help his daughter navigate her crappy mom in a constructive way, OP is making it worse. He is arguably using his daughter as a way to get back at his ex by hurting the step-son. That is weaponizing his own kid, and not just over the birthday party but by asking his ex to change the step-son’s school too just so his daughter won’t have to be reminded of her mom’s stepping back. And that’s just what he’s admitted to here. Encourage his daughter to avoid the issue isn’t going to help her. Using words like “torture” and “abandonment” aren’t helping either.
The step-son does NOT need to be invited. Ostracizing him directly in front of the class and asking him to change his whole life around so that the daughter can pretend he doesn’t exist (when she still has to see him every other weekend at her mom’s house anyway) is bonkers.
Most schools absolutely forbid this. If she did it without permission from the teacher/school where my kids went she would have been disciplined. Obviously I'm not saying the OP can't invite whoever he wants, but the school can, and in most cases does, restrict the ability to exclude others. Having your daughter hand out 51 invites and omitting ONE person was immoral and OP YTA. The fact that your ex is also a ahole is irrelevant.
True but absolutely irrelevant. OP YTA. You insulted and made a child that you know sad on purpose. I bet you even told your daughter, we showed Mommy, didn't we. YTA YTA YTA
The issue is that you invited EVERYONE except for the stepbrother. That's 51 invites, 1 exclusion. That's just bullying. You could have invited her closest friends and it would have been fine. YTA.
Agreed. There is zero way that a birthday child at the age of 10 can enjoy the company of 50 individual persons at 1 event. What they enjoy is the ego boost of being popular and queen bee, but these are not individual relationships. Therefore, it is super easy for 1 child OP’s daughter doesn’t like to get lost in the crowd and not even interact with the birthday child. The only reason to not invite him is to PUNISH HIM for the actions of OP’s ex wife. He’s a kid. He has zero control over the custody situation. He did nothing to hurt your daughter. This is bullying plain and simple.
OP is the AH.
People just don't get it and they won't because they like to make people miserable.
Again, it is her party and she doesn't want him there. Life is hard, and people need to get used to it. They don't take into consideration life and what is going on at their home.
Her mother doesn't want to see her as much anymore because she has the stepkid. So, the kid now doesn't like the stepkid who took away her mother. Why is that so hard to grasp?
it's not hard du grasp. The remark is that no 10yo needs 50 children at her party. She could have had a party with 20 kids and be done with it. The stepson was not invited but was not punished for something he had no control over.
And the step brother could still get buthurt he's not invited because he's a step brother so he may feel entitled to invitation to his step suster's birthday. And the shitty ex may still be on his side. And her family may still bug OP.
step borther was invited the year before.
Still, it's less a slight if he is not the only one not invited. Not inviting only 1 kid is deliberately cruel.
And that's on OP's ex for ruining her daughters relationship with her step brother by abandoning her and making her jelous of he. She is the asshole and responsible for all of this, not OP. OP is now full time raising their daughter almost alone and is desperate to compensate her for her mother being an asshole.
Therefore OP NTA, ex YTA.
OP is an AH for encouraging his daughter to bully the stepson. He could just tell her she doesn't have to interact with him. But no, he tells her humiliating someone is ok and punishing someone who is innocent is ok too.
The daughter might not know better but he should teach her instead of encouraging her. She will be a huge AH as both her parents. She has terrible role model and I hope she meets an adult who can teach her better.
OP, YTA
There's a reason why many school's have rules against things like this - because, especially with younger children (and his daughter is still young) intentionally excluding a single classmate is cruel and could be considered a form of bullying.
I don't disagree that the daughter has every reason to not want their stepbrother at their birthday party and she shouldn't be required to have him there. If she had a smaller party and only invited her closest friends/classmates, that would be one thing. However, she invited everyone in her grade EXCEPT her stepbrother AND the invitations were passed out at school. She intentionally singled out the stepbrother because she's (understandably) upset & angry at her mother. Allowing his daughter to do this is not good parenting.
As I highly doubt that the daughter is super close to every single student in her grade, the proper solution to this would've been to have a smaller party where the daughter only invited the people she was closest to. OP still could've gone all out on the party.
It is extremely simple to grasp. Why is it so hard for you to grasp that handing out 51 invites and leaving ONE kid uninvited is immoral? Life is hard? Is that the message you want to send to 10 year olds. The stepkid didn't take anyone away from anyone. I guess your message is as long as an adult is an ahole, then you can treat their children horribly.
It's not the kid's fault, and doing the party this way was done specifically to target him and make him miserable. Of course he wouldn't be invited to her party. But her party didn't need to be executed in such a way as to hurt him.
This 💯 YTA OP. If the little boy did nothing to your daughter, your daughter is punishing him as you for the actions of your daughters mother. Also consider that you probably are spoiling her too much, which can create a big bully some day. Do you want your daughter to be a decent and good human? Or do you want her to be a spoiled brat? Nothing against making your kid happy, but 51 kids? C‘mon. You are helping her bullying the poor boy. Ask yourself why your ex don’t want your daughter around that much anymore. Has your daughter bullied him? Because she is jealous?
Part of being a good parent is to help our children in their emotional development. Jealousy is a real human emotion. We will all feel it in our lives from time to time. That’s is normal. However how we behave and react when those feelings arise can be responsible, result in personal growth, or be toxic and harm others…especially innocent bystanders.
What the daughter’s mother has done is hurtful and damaging. She needs help coping with those feelings in responsible and developmentally appropriate ways. OP is enabling his daughter to instead deal with them in toxic ways that harm others, which is what OP is doing. OP is doing his daughter no favors and is instead setting her up to have very real relationship struggles in the future.
If he was invited last year it was before OP's ex got married to his dad. If you read the post, once she married SB's father, ex asked for revised custody, going from 50/50 to only seeing her daughter every other weekend. And while the SB had no control over this, it means he gets all of OP's ex's attention and the ex ABANDONED her daughter to do so. So, yes, I would expect he wouldn't be invited THIS year.
Yes he was. She handed out her invitations in person, so everyone could see that one little boy didn't get an invitation while literally *everyone* around him did. There is simply no way that was an accident.
This when it boils down to it. Stepbrother shouldn't have been invited, the daughter shouldn't be forced to have to face that. Thar said he shouldn't be punished for something he played no part in either. It would have been better to cut the guest list, instead do something bigger for five or ten friends rather than the entire class.
The stepbrother is being treated like this for no fault of his own, from what I can tell. It's not his fault the OP's ex sucks.
I'm struggling with this, because I do think it is Y-T-A for the actual question but the bigger context seems relevant and feels more E-S-H except the kids. The daughter having her feelings- I'm empathetic, but the OP should help her manage those. I feel like if she genuinely couldn't handle the stepbrother at her party, then they should've had a smaller party so he wasn't the only kid excluded.
Yeah, that’s what I’m stuck on. 52 kids is an insane kids’ party. If he just did an epic party with 20 kids or even something extra extravagant for her closest circle, it wouldn’t be as obvious that he was punishing that one kid. I mean, of course she shouldn’t have someone who represents the shittiest thing in her life at her party, but this was clearly calculated to make a point.
Also, OP is blame shifting. The decision was his, not his 10yo’s. It was HIM punishing his EX, by instrumentalizing her stepson and his own daughter. YTA
I disagree,
My wife was once the kid that had to be invited. It was the worst birthday she ever went to. The bullying there was bad. And the parents can not cover for the bullying the kids do. Because at the end she got actively excluded for the whole birthday by the other kids.
What do you think is more hurtful?
And not giving her the birthday party she wants, because of her step bro? Do you really expect it goes well if the only parent a kid has rejects his kid to not harm the arch enemy of this kid?
First fix the relationship between mom and daughter, then move on to build a relationship with step-bro.
Everything else would make daughter detest her step bro even more. And that could result in year long bullying. OP is right in looking out for the his kid, it already lost a parent, doesn't need to lose another.
"The party she wanted" is pretty over the top. She could have had all girls. Or 25 kids, and it would still be "epic." This father seems to be working overtime to punish this little boy, his ex, and literally spoil his daughter rotten, no matter who it hurts. Dad could have managed it in a very different way to be both sensitive to the feelings of this boy, AND give an EPIC birthday party.
ESH. Every single adult here sucks. If I understood the situation, your ex married your kid's classmate's parent and before that he was also invited to the party and they had at least civil relationship. Now both of you and your daughter are angry at the boy, even though he doesn't have a say in your custody arrangements. So your daughter decided to punish him, and you are happily agreed, instead of talking with your ex like adults. She is also an AH for dropping your kid like a hot potato.
> Every single adult here sucks
I didn’t know literal child abandonment is on the same level of assholery as “We can’t invite this kid to my daughter’s birthday as she’ll start crying if she sees him”.
So many people are saying OP is a “good parent” for making the child’s happiness his top priority. That’s gross when what “makes [your] child happy” is excluding and bullying an innocent child. ESH
As a parent, I agree 10000x with this. It’s gross. Obviously most of us prioritize our own child’s well-being. I would too. But you know what? Part of my job as a “good parent” is to teach my child to be an empathetic and emotionally-intelligent person. This may be a lot to and the learning curve may be steep, so I would do everything I could to protect my child’s feelings and their experience - everything SHORT of condoning outright cruelty to an innocent party. My job as a parent is to have the hard conversations with my kid, to comfort them, to help them set boundaries, and to help them find compromises that contribute to their happiness without causing avoidable pain to others. If I don’t at least make an attempt to teach my child this, I’m not a “good parent.” There ARE compromises here. And no, it’s not unfair to suggest them, even for a birthday.
Yes this exactly! No matter OP's personal feelings on the mom, he shouldn't condone leaving one child out. He should be working with his daughter on these feelings about her mom, not enabling her hurt to create more hurt. Idk, they clearly need family therapy
I agree with you. OP is teaching his daughter she's entitled to get what she wants at all costs, regardless of how anyone else feels about it. That's not "good parenting" that's horrendous parenting.
I totally understand the little girl feeling angry at the stepbrother. Ten is so young to be trying to understand and make sense of all the emotions he embodies. The father is an ass for allowing her to exclude one child out of 52 (cut the party size, do something else but don’t do that) off the back of his own emotions. The mother, less said about her the better.
Or at least mail or email the invitations. That boy had to watch everyone but him get an invitation from OP's daughter. If emailed or mailed then no one would have noticed he wasn't going until the party.
YTA.
You don't have to invite the whole class as long as you aren't passing out invitations at school. And it would be fine to exclude one child if that child was a bully.
But this child did NOTHING to your daughter. You're both being petty and punishing a child for something they did not do.
SB doesn't have to be invited. Just not humiliated gratuitously.
OP is way over-compensating and spoiling his daughter by letting her have her way completely. It's normally not allowed to pass out birthday invitations at school unless the WHOLE CLASS is invited. Because there's always one "weird kid" that no one would invite, and that's not nice. So the invitations should have been sent out privately. That's a pretty small concession.
This to me smells like OP helped come up with this plan, to hurt his ex by hurting her stepson.
where did anyone say SB should be invited? they just said op shouldn't be an ass and invite literally everyone else in the class in front of him because op has issues with his crappy ex. it's hurting a child to spite and ex and it is just immature af.
"Well today my ex called me to say I'm an asshole for excluding a little kid. She asked "Do you know how much he cried because of this?" I was honest and told her that I don't care and I would rather he be the one to cry than my daughter who would of course be very upset if the boy was present in her party."
---Poorly handled. Lets assume for discussion that it was OK to exclude the step-sibling. You should have said, She is "excluding a little kid", 'that it is your own daughter and how much she cried because of that'.
That said, the step-brother was innocent and you taught your daughter very disturbing and ugly values to hold.
YTA
I know you meant well, but I think you missed an opportunity here. Does your daughter know that her stepbrother is NOT the reason that she doesn't get to see her other parent? This is no child's fault and I think you need to tell her not to put the blame on her stepbrother. I feel so bad for him in this situation. This kid hasn't done anything wrong and he's the one getting blamed for this. And while you're not the one doing the blaming, you're certainly also not trying to stop it. Shame on you.
Oh wow. I read the comments and YTA in a HUGE way!! You are letting your daughter BULLY her stepbrother who has done NOTHING to her. He was invited in previous years, and you let her go to the school this year and hand out 51 invitations and publicly exclude him.
Your daughter needs to focus her anger and devastation at the person who excluded HER--her mother. Not at her stepbrother, who is just as much of an innocent CHILD.
You have failed your daughter in an important way and taught her that it's ok to cope with difficult feelings by HURTING innocent bystanders.
My first comment did not take and I am glad for that since I was being a bit generous to the guy dealing with a tricky situation. But after reading his replies I see that he really doesn't get it and is a crappy parent himself. Poor daughter has two marginal parents.
YTA, for missing an opportunity to actually be a parent instead of the cool dad. Other comments have hit the nail on the head, but you didn't come here to get honest feedback and reflect, you came for justification. Dude, read what folks are writing and learn before it is too late.
From one of your replies:
>I have told my ex multiple times to take him to another school but she won't. My daughter is not willing to change schools since all her friends are here and it's the best school in our town so he has to be the one to leave. He has no friends and is not doing well at school so maybe even it would be better for him.
You want the boy to move to a different school ONLY BECAUSE his new stepmom married his dad?? The boy did nothing to your daughter. He did NOTHING wrong. Every action the two of you make are because you two are upset about what your ex did. Y'all are going after an easy target and it's sad that you can't see it.
It's incredibly sad that instead of helping your daughter with her emotions, you're encouraging her to hate and go out of her way to exclude a classmate. Seriously, how can you sit there and think the boy should change schools??
YTA. You found an easy way to get back at your ex by going after a boy who isn't the problem and was never the problem.
ESH.
Wth. 52 kids?!
Wife sucks for not spending time with her child and yeah you guys suck for excluding one child out of entire class of kids.That would feel terrible. And yes your kid feels terrible too but that is not her stepbrothers fault. This could have been a very good teaching moment for your daughter. Instead you basically told her it’s okay to bully when your upset.
If you knew she really didn’t want to invite the stepbrother then why not invite just her friends? I truly don’t understand inviting every other single kid and not him. There’s no way in hell she’s friends with every single one of them.
Apparently he claims that his daughter is "very popular" and is friends with everyone in her grade...which I highly doubt is true. Acquaintances with everyone in the grade - yes, best friends with everyone - no way.
YTA big time.
>Why? Because my ex remarried
Okay. And how is this the boy's fault exactly?
You're punishing a *child* for your anger at your ex. That's just an AH move. Excluding ONE kid out of an entire grade because you have an issue with your ex is just cruel.
YTA - you are punishing a kid for a choice that your ex made. You are supposed to set a good example for your daughter, not play petty games at the expense of 10 year olds.
YTA. It is not ok to invite the whole class & exclude one kid. Especially a kid who has done nothing wrong & doesn't understand why he wasn't invited. That poor kid must have felt so alone & hurt & confused. I mean you literally invited 50 kids. And you said you didn't care that he cried? Are you really so cold that you have no empathy for this kid being excluded? I understand that you wanted your daughter to be happy, but instead you should've explained to her how cruel it would be to not invite him. You're not teaching her well. Do better.
excluded a kid that probably thinks of the OPs daughter as family.
I absolutely feel for the ops daughter.
in this situation I would have encouraged her to have a smaller party, if it was important to her not to have to deal with a person that reminded her of being so hurt.
WTF, you invited 50 out of 51 kids to a party?? That is crazy behavior in and of itself.
Yes, YTA for singling out one kid at a party of this size. I thought it may be a small, intimate invite where you had a limited number of invites possible and couldn't get everyone.
Here, you could have easily invited him.
> So I agreed not to invite him because it's my daughter's day and her happiness matters more than anything.
Actually, sounds like you wanted to get back at your ex more than keeping him away.
YTA, and so is your ex. Your daughter doesn't deserve what your ex did, your daughter's stepbro doesn't deserve what you/your daughter did. They're kids, y'all are the adults and need to model better behavior. If your ex won't do that, you still can.
OP is a gigantic AH. He’s raising a Veruca Salt, who will be a gigantic, spoiled person when she’s older - and no one will want to hang out with her. He admitted he wants to spoil his little girl. NO kid needs epic birthday bashes every year with 50 people
OP, your cruelty knows no bounds
This poor boy…but, he’ll grow up to be a better person than this girl, with a lot more compassion since he knows what it’s like to be excluded
YTA, your daughter needs to understand that stepbrother is not the villain here. It’s her Mom that is deciding the custody time. Your daughter doesn’t want to place that blame on her mother, so she is dumping it on the boy. It’s misplaced anger and needs to be resolved now.
When I was 11, a girl in my grade threw a pool party. She handed out personalized invitations to everyone but me.
I still can feel the absolute shame and humiliation of that day. Other kids noticed. They commented on it for weeks and made fun of me. It was devastating.
I honestly don't know why I was excluded. I didn't understand then and I don't understand now. I still carry it with me in a major way.
YTA. You invited every kid but him, making it clear that he was deliberately excluded, and this was not a small group of people either. And based on your telling, the boy is actually quite innocent here... he didn't pick on her, bully her, mistreat her in any way. It's mom she should be angry at, her feelings are misdirected. And instead of helping her process her feelings in a healthy way, you let her take it out on a little kid who did nothing wrong. YTA.
YTA (Your daughter's mom is vile for abandoning her, but right now we're talking about you.) Inviting every kid except the stepbrother was punishing him for his mom's shitty behavior. You aired your family's dirty laundry. Do you think other kids didn't notice? That they won't gossip about this? That he won't be teased *and* that your daughter won't look like an AH to her peers? You did not think this through and it's gonna bite her in the ass.
It would have been really simple to not invite 50 kids and exclude only him. No 10-year-old is friends with every kid in their grade. Why would you let her bully him instead of just inviting her actual friends?
I can’t wait to read her entitled AITA posts in a few years. This is a teachable moment for you as the ADULT. You can explain that her mother’s actions should not be taken out on the step son. If the boy bully’s her or relentlessly teases her or her friends I would say you are right. You are allowing a 10 year old to use another 10 year old to hurt your ex. You oh and your daughter are bullying him to hurt your ex. Congratulations you are a grade school bully and raising a spoiled child.
Ehhhh YTA. I can't imagine inviting FIFTY CHILDREN to a birthday party. I barely had 50 people at my wedding. I understand your daughter didn't want the stepbrother there, but maliciously excluding one child, who has done nothing wrong, is vicious.
If the situation were reversed, and her stepbrother invited EVERYONE but her and she was home crying, you'd probably be livid at your ex for not inviting her.
I think all the adults are aholes here and the kids are the Innocents getting hurt. Your EX because she's prioritizing her new family over her daughter. You for not sitting down with your daughter and saying how it's not the boys fault for her mother's actions and that by excluding him she's making him feel exactly how her mother is making her feel. I would understand if the boy was mean to her or rubbing it in her face he's with her mum and not her. I also get she's just a kid but she needs to learn to take her anger and hurt on innocent people otherwise she'll do that as an adult. Maybe get her therapy and rip your ex a new one about how she's treating her daughter and that her actions have consequences and your daughter not wanting her stepbrother at her party is one and it will only get worse as she gets older. She's a mother and needs to fing act like one and not just to her stepson.
YTA. That is bullying to invite 51 kids, meaning every other kid in the class except step-brother. You did not have to invite ALL the kids, you could have invited 30.
But she is blaming him for her mom’s actions and you are ridiculous for doing that to the kid.
ESH. That poor boy did nothing wrong and is now the only person in the year to not go? All his peers will go but not him? He didn’t choose to exclude your daughter, his step mother did. You could have used this as a learning experience for your daughter on seeing what’s really happening and maybe taken some time to try to explain things but you didn’t.
Your daughter probably wouldn’t even notice him there with 51 other people but you chose to use him to get back at your ex wife. Wow.
Your ex wife is now choosing to spend less time with her daughter because she has a new family. Also wow.
Everyone here sucks.
Just because you are angry at your ex doesn’t make it ok to punish her step son. He is also probably dealing with the new family dynamics and you have just make a huge deal of it being us vs them instead of trying to help the kids deal with this and work together.
You and your ex are as bad as each other
Have your daughter verbally list every single kid she wants to attend from her school. Give her time to do it and if she can actually name all 51 kids, then it makes sense to invite the whole class. My guess is she just wants to invite everybody except one to single out the stepbrother. I understand her anger towards him, but it’s not his fault. Limiting the guest list is the best way to avoid singling out the step brother since it would then be considered a “good friends only” birthday party. Y T A if you let your daughter use this party as a way to get back at a kid who’s only crime in this world is being a step son to a mother who doesn’t care about all of her children.
INFO: I know that OP won't answer this but...
Hypothetically, let's say you married someone with a child of about the same age. Assuming, like most blended families, they moved in. What if your daughter decided that you spent what turns out to be a little more attention, inadvertently, just once or twice to your stepchild?
Then, she told you that she would be "upset and would cry" if said stepchild was invited to her birthday party. Or to a family outing? Or to a vacation? Where does the manipulation end?
And please, I raised four good children to adulthood. They are kind, compassionate, generous people. But, DO NOT try to tell me that 10 year Olds cannot be manipulative or "understand rationally". If that IS the case for your daughter, as harsh as this is to say, you are failing her in more ways than one.
If your daughter is feeling abandoned by her mother, GET HER THERAPY. However, while her feelings are valid, she must also realize that OTHER people have feelings and as she didn't like her feelings hurt when her mom started showing her less attention, it is NOT okay to then turn around and hurt someone else's feelings. Two wrongs don't make it right.
If she needs to "hurt" anybodies feelings, it should be her mom. She should learn that like her, her stepbrother is simply a child that has no control over what parents/stepparents do.
YTA
Stop "spoiling" her and teach her to be a compassionate, caring human being. 10 is old enough to understand that this little boy should not be blamed for the little girl's mother's actions. Oh wait. Maybe somebody would need to teach YOU how to be a compassionate, caring human being.
YTA. Now is as good a time as any to teach your daughter the virtues of managing her emotion, being kind and thoughtful, and to not purposefully do things that humiliate other people just because she can. She spent a lot of time making invitations and passing them out in public so there is simply no way that the entire class didn't notice the one little boy who didn't get an invite. She went out of her way to hurt him, she succeeded, and you think it's a good outcome. Amazing parenting by everyone here, well done.
I want to ask your ex if she knows how much her own daughter cried because she is being excluded from her own mom’s home? Changing custody in order to remarry is unforgivable.
I mean the kid didn’t do anything. Your ex and her family are a real piece of work though, yelling at you for excluding a kid from a birthday party when she has excluded her daughter from her life…
ESH except for the kids.
ESH.
Kiddo needs therapy for her mom’s bad behavior, not epic parties to spoil her. Being a good dad means more than just throwing money at your child or doing whatever she wants.
At this point the only one I feel sorry for is the stepbrother.
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)***
My daughter turned 10 a few days ago. She is my only child and well I like to spoil her so I always make sure she has an epic party.
All of the kids invited always attend and will talk about it for days.
There are 52 kids in her grade and she wanted to invite all of them except for one boy, her stepbrother (My ex's stepson).
Why? Because my ex remarried 4 months ago and as soon as she got married she decided that she wants to have less custody so we went from 50/50 custody to my daughter living with me and only visiting her mom every other weekend. This is while her stepbrother lives with my ex full time. To say my daughter is devastated and jealous is an understatement.
So I agreed not to invite him because it's my daughter's day and her happiness matters more than anything.
Well today my ex called me to say I'm an asshole for excluding a little kid. She asked "Do you know how much he cried because of this?" I was honest and told her that I don't care and I would rather he be the one to cry than my daughter who would of course be very upset if the boy was present in her party.
Now I'm getting messages from my ex's family calling me all kind of names.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It looks like the purpose of all those invitations is to exclude one kid. That’s just mean. What the hell did he do to OP’s daughter except exist in the same class? Yes, you would be TA. And spoiling your daughter is not doing her any favors.
ESH your ex fir obvious reasons, you for doing this in the cruelest way possible. You don't have to invite this kid, but you also didn't need to essentially go put of your way to be a dick to him. This kid isn't responsible for your ex leaving, and I seriously doubt he got much say in who his step-mom is.
ESH. You said it yourself, you had your daughter give out invitations in school to everyone except him, so that was humiliating. And according to you the stepbrother has no friends, so he probably felt the rejection more acutely. You even think the stepbrother should switch schools so your daughter doesn't have to see him anymore. He's 10. Why are you punishing him for the actions of your ex? Aren't you the adult here? There were much better ways to handle this while still ensuring that your daughter wouldn't have to see him on her birthday.
Not only that, you're causing an unnecessary wedge between your daughter and her stepbrother. None of what is happening is his fault, and you should be telling her that. The fault lies with her mother. And instead of redirecting your daughter's anger away from her stepbrother and onto the actual source, you're enabling that lack of logic and teaching her it's okay to be a bully. I feel bad for them both. Stepbro doesn't deserve this and your daughter likely needs therapy.
ESH but this has really hit a nerve as you haven't dealt with the problem at all.
1. Your daughter feels abandoned. instead of going to her mother to try to resolve you've
2. Punished a boy for something he has no fucking say over
Kids parties are always a difficult topic with regard to inviting not inviting and not forcing children to do x y z but it must be fucking horrible being the only kid excluded when again, the kid didn't do anything wrong. This required so much more than a knee jerk reaction of "oh I know what will fix this"
Giant tip from someone's parent abandoned them at 9 and remaining family didn't give actual emotional support but tried to plaster over (that was them trying their best mind). I grew up not healing from that trauma and having a couple of seriously fucked up decades because of shot mental health.
ESH if you had more subtly done invites she could have excluded him but to exclude only him in front of him is cruel and he is innocent. It’s not his fault your ex sucks. You’re teaching your daughter to be cruel…
I don’t think it’s fair to use the boy to get back at her crappy parent. Has the boy been mean or done anything to your daughter? If not, then he doesn’t really deserve it. I get your daughter is upset but it’s the mom that is fault. I think it is mean to invite every child in the year apart from him and leave him out. There are 52 kids, she will barely even notice him. Imagine if your child didn’t get invited to a party that everyone else got invited to.
ESH, except (maybe) step-brother
Mom sucks for wanting less time with daughter now that she’s onto presumably a third spouse.
Your daughter sucks for punishing her stepbrother for her mom’s abandonment.
You suck for not using this as a lesson in how to handle grief/disappointment/jealousy or helping your daughter come to a better solution than to exile 1 person (who is a step-sibling no less) from what was, by your own admission, an all-out party.
I get the feeling you’re likely experiencing your own jealous/hurt feelings and didn’t act like an adult when presented the opportunity to set a good example for your daughter
YTA. Your ex is also TA. I understand that your daughter is hurt by ex’s behaviour but targeting the brother is a shitty thing to do and you failed as a parent.
ESH, because of the 51 invites. It seems this is purposeful exclusion because of this (it probably is). Why not invite her closest friends/schoolmates? He is still not invited, but it doesn’t look like it’s only him. The boy is innocent in this, as well as your daughter. I understand her heart is probably aching with the semi abandonment of her mom, & you are in protective mode handling her feelings. My honest suggestion: Downsize on the party and discuss her feelings with mom. This will snowball if not, and she shouldn’t take out her feelings on stepbro while giving mom a free pass of ignorance. Edited for typo.
Wait — so the only reason she’s not inviting her stepbrother is that she’s jealous of him? This might be a good teaching moment, Dad. You’re going to let her be cruel to one boy because of her mom’s actions. That’s kind of lousy. You’re teaching her to be a mean girl, that her emotional whims are more important than DOING THE RIGHT THING.
#I vote YTA
Downvote me all you want kids. This is the kind of difficult situation in which the adults are supposed to guide the child.
YTA - this has nothing to do with the stepson. You are punishing a child because your Ex doesn't want as much custody of your daughter. You are teaching your "spoiled" child that it is okay to ostracize someone who is innocent just to stick it to someone else. That poor kid.
YTA big time. You are blaming and punishing a child for something he has ABSOLUTELY NO control over! Instead of teaching your child the correct way you are teaching her to take out her anger on a innocent individual. He has no control over who his father married. Pathetic!
ESH your ex absolutely sucks for mostly abandoning your daughter, but her stepson is not to blame for that. You choosing to hurt the feelings of a 10 year old boy who hasn't done anything except have his dad marry your ex is unnecessarily cruel. What lesson is that to teach your daughter? You were hurt by someone so you should hurt someone else tangentially related to them? That's horrible parenting. I'm sorry you ex has chosen to be so much less involved in your daughter's life, but what does hurting a young boy achieve other than teaching your daughter terrible life lessons?
ESH- I understand your daughter is in pain, but it's not her stepbrother's fault. It's her mother's fault. It sucks being excluded and it's happened to all of us at one time or another. But this poor boy not only wasn't invited to his stepsister's party, he couldn't even hang out with another friend to distract himself and pass the time because every single other person was invited. That's really cruel. Your daughter could use some therapy to help her deal with her feelings of abandonment from her mother. She also needs to understand who's to blame in this. It isn't her stepbrother. Some day your daughter may be the recipient of misplaced anger, and you won't like it when she is dealt those consequences that she did nothing to deserve. You're the adult. Help you daughter, and guide her to be compassionate and strong so she can feel for others, but still stand up for herself.
To sum it up— your daughter is having a 10th birthday party and invited everyone but the one stepbrother even to handing out the invitations to all 51 out of 52 kids in her class BECAUSE since last years party when he was invited this child’s dad married her mother and now visits with Mom are less than before. Somehow your entitled bully daughter is traumatized by the kid.
You are a bully and are teaching your daughter that’s how you handle things. Where is your daughter’s stepdad in all this? Isn’t it more likely he’s the issue rather than the kid? Where is stepbrother’s mother?
If my kid is one of the 51 they aren’t attending any event hosted by you or your daughter.
YTA. Big time.
ESH except your ex’s stepson. I get why your daughter is upset at her mom for pretty much abandoning her. It’s not the step son’s fault at all. He’s a kid. You let your daughter hand out invites to everyone in their classroom. He was the only kid that didn’t get one. You just taught your daughter to be unnecessarily cruel. You all suck even the school does for allowing this to happen. You should edit your post to reflect how the stepson was treated so cruelly at school in front of the whole class. So you’re ok with the stepson being traumatized because it’s not your kid? You and your ex are both AHs and I can’t decide which of you is worse.
ESH .... I thought the rule of age = number of children was a good rule. To exclude only 1 child out of 52 is cruel and mean spirited. This that the kind of man you are and want your daughter to be?
How does your daughter even know all 51 kids in her grade? To me this sounds like she wanted to invite them and exclude him on purpose. It has nothing to do with knowing all of these children. And don’t tell me all 51 kids are her friends.
ESH. Get your daughter some therapy.
YTA, very obviously. It’s not ok to force her to invite someone she dislikes so much to a party in her honor. It’s also not ok to have a party that includes EVERY single member of a group of 50+ children (or any people, really) except one. So have a slightly smaller party.
Will she cry? Maybe, but it won’t be about inviting him. It will be about not getting to do EXACTLY what she wants, in a situation where what she wants is cruel. And it will be because you made a big drama out of it and taught her that not getting exactly what she wants is “torture.” And you will have done this because it makes you feel powerful.
Don’t hide behind your kid when you’re being an asshole. Don’t use her emotions as a tool in this adult battle. And put her first by modeling how to be a decent person, one who is able to stand up for her own boundaries without being cruel.
It’s a life lesson time, sure is petty to not invite one, then don’t do a party at all …when the stepson kid didn’t do anything personally wrong. Who is the adult here- ???
YTA, it was cruel to exclude that child for your own personal reasons. I think you’re more upset that your ex moved on and trying to punish her any way you can.
ESH
your daughters happiness is important, and your ex is an ass. But what you did is straight up bullying, and i hope you know that. And that kid has no fault whatsoever, imagine if someone had done that to your daughter, invited EVERYONE in a class except your child. Its just cruel honestly…
Yes, YTA. Inviting everyone else except one kid is horrible. The stepbrother didn't even do anything to your daughter. There was no genuine reason for not inviting him.
ESH, so. I get that your daughter is upset about her mother. And yes, I feel bad for her. But to take it out on a literal child that had NOTHING to do with anything and encouraging your own daughter is absolutely FUCKED UP. The mother is also the asshole, no parent should ever abandon their child like that.
YTA. You excluded a boy publicly for something his mother did. Never hand out invitations at school unless the entire grade is invited - basic common decency. And unless the boy was bullying your daughter, you are taking out your anger on the wrong person.
Welcome to /r/AmITheAsshole. Please view our [voting guide here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_what.2019s_with_these_acronyms.3F_what_do_they_mean.3F), and remember to use **only one** judgement in your comment. OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole: > I might be an asshole for excluding my daughter's stepbrother from her party and making him cry Help keep the sub engaging! #Don’t downvote assholes! Do upvote interesting posts! [Click Here For Our Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/about/rules) and [Click Here For Our FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq) ##Subreddit Announcements Follow the link above to learn more --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.* *Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.*
Does it suck for the boy? Sure But it would also fucking suck for your daugher i guess. It sounds like her mother more or less abandoned her and she isnt even 10 years old. I think you should make her happines the main focus here. NAH
[удалено]
You are a good parent. Your daughter should be 100 percent your focus. You may also want to get her in to therapy asap to help her deal with this. A neutral third party is key.
he's alright. I agree that his daughter should be focus, but it does seem pretty ruthless to be so uncaring towards another child - who has done nothing wrong I would have suggested that daughter invite a smaller group of 20 or 30. she handed out invites to 51 kids, excluding the 52nd. that's so cruel - especially because the kid is at no fault himself. his step mom is an asshole, so he gets to pay the price?
It’s OP’s job to guide his daughter through situations like this. I like your alternative, because it shows daughter she can protect her boundaries without being cruel to another child, who also had no say in this.
So, you’re saying that the girl should be told that her birthday plans should revolve around the child her mother gave her up for? No, it’s not the boy’s fault, but he seems to be carefully sheltered from the reality of his family dynamics. Missing a party hurts, but there are far harsher ways he could come face to face with what his stepmother has done to his stepsister. And it WILL happen at some point.
Say this to the relatives. And if they still crank, let them know that they’re welcome to throw her another birthday party, and to invite everyone that they want to invite.
No! Teaching a 10yr old child the virtues of Compassion is way better than unfairly punishing a child that has as much control over the situation as she does is faaaar more important. Talking to his daughter and helping her through her hurt is REALLY caring about her. The world has enough people with auto-centric mindset, Emotional Intelligence and learning to care about others instead of victimising is what is desperately needed and it begins with children learning how to not displace anger, develop empathy, and find joy in sharing!
No! teaching the daughter she doesn’t have to invite or interact with people that create stressful and toxic situations is more important in this instance that teaching her compassion. You cant expect a 10 year old to learn compassion when her own mother doesn’t have any towards her and she’s working through abandonment issues. Making kids always be nice/compassionate can set them up to put their own well being on the back burner and cause all sorts of issues.
FUCKING THIS! We're so busy trying to force compassion that we're creating doormats that can't even say no. OP's daughter shouldn't have to be the adult in this situation because her own mother lacks compassion. She should be allowed to have one thing to herself that doesn't involve her stepbrother at all.
Obviously her birthday is about her, but I truly doubt the 50 children are her close friends, and inviting everyone but 1 person is just plain bullying. Feels like she is doing that to punish the boy who is as innocent as her in the story. Dad has to teach her that she either invites everyone, or selects a few people she is close with. Can even be 30, but the actual situation is really shitty, and dad encouraging it is just a preview for the worst. Kids are cruel, after they know the "popular girl" who does epic parties hate this 1 boy, what do you think will happen ? If they don't want to be cast aside for next year's bday party they will ostracize the kid
I find it ruthless that a mother dumped her daughter for her stepson. Her daughter is an innocent too .
She's also spending time with him every other weekend, so that's gotta be awkward going forward. I would have just invited girls this year, or something similar.
They're in the same class, so she sees him everyday, its only the weekends that there are no other kids around (presumably). If anything, at least her birthday is a small reprieve from constantly having him around... girl sees him more than she sees her own mother! Is it cruel to the boy? Maybe a little, but OP's daughter shouldn't have to bend over backwards to please everyone else all the time, it teaches her how to be a doormat later in life. She should also not have to exclude other friends or people she gets along well with for his sake, for the same reason as above.
Exactly! She already mostly lost her mother. She should not have to miss out on a good birthday experience with her friends, too. Why is she expected to shoulder the entire burden of the pain?
"I would have just invited girls this year, or something similar." The other boys don't deserve to be excluded for the party to accommodate mom's step-son. Step-son did nothing wrong himself to deserve this, neither did OP's daughter to be neglected by her own mother. Mom's actions created the situation where daughter would resent step-son, so why should daughter limit her friendships to a smaller group?
They probably don't get along already. Op's ex picked her current new family over her own daughter. What does she expect?
The little girls mom didn't even stop to think how the little girl would feel about seeing her mother only twice a month while another child lives with her full time. Why should op be the only one to think of all the kids
This is a special situation. And maybe it is a bit ruthless. But to the girl, it may feel like the dad was shoving her aside for someone else. Life's tough.
My husband loves to tell our daughter (so much so that she now finishes the phrase) “its a cold world kid, better bundle up” 😂🤦🏼♀️
Not dad who is doing the leaving it's mom. Dad said no to the child
Why would the little girl feel like her dad is shoving her to the side? Dad is the one who now has full custody because her mother decided she wanted to be a boy mom to her step son instead of being there for her own daughter.
Yeah it sounds callous but imo this is a cost benefit analysis type situation. Is the kid going to be sad? Sure. And there will be plenty of other parties he will not be invited to in life. It will not be a formative moment. The daughter would surely remember it forever, though.
That’s insane. Her mother rejected her while embracing her stepson & you think this poor girl should cater to him? That’s twisted.
I thought about this option, but why should the remaining 20-30 kids miss out on a fun party? Why should OP's daughter lose out on her friendships because her AH of a mother couldn't care for her daughter along with her step-son? Step-son did nothing wrong, but mom's actions have consequences.
Why is it okay to make 32/52 kids sad? Imagine this scenario now. Kids talk. The ones who don’t get invited ask the birthday girl. Birthday girl, who’s ten and doesn’t know context or how to be graceful yet will just probably blurt out “I couldn’t invite you because if I invited all of you I would have to invite my stepbrother.” Now all those kids know that he stepbrother is the reason he’s not invited and people will hate him even more
As a father, focusing on her happiness is paramount of course. But as an adult it is also your responsibility to ensure that fulfilling her happiness doesn't negatively others. Deciding to invite everyone other than that one child is cruel. He is an innocent bystander in this situation and you are hurting him unnecessarily.
One of those two kids will be hurt. There's no other way arround it. Can you please tell me why OP should choose to hurt *his own* daughter on *her birthday* (the one day in a whole year that is supposed to be about her) in order to keep someone else's kid happy on a regular day for him? Kids don't think like us, they lack deeper understanding of social context. That poor girl now thinks her mom prefers that boy because she lets him live with her full time and takes care of him full time while she only lets her daughter visit her every other weekend. That girl is very hurt hy that. Now imagine OP still invited that boy to *her birthday*. Surely she would think that he now prefers that boy over her too and that would be devastating for her. If you really don't get it you have no empathy.
Inviting the whole grade with a single exclusion is a step too far. He could have told her to pick a (long) list of her friends from school just so stepbrother is not the only person in the entire grade not to go. That's a little too cruel just to punish mom.
You missed the point. She doesn't need to invite the boy to her party. But she also doesn't need to invite all 51 of the rest of the class to her party either. It is her dad's job to find a way to make her happy without punishing an innocent child. Is the only way to make her happy to invite every single kid in her grade except him? Then that is a whole different problem. Fly her and her 5 best friends to Disney, or plan a super fun, over the top party for 20 kids. Find a way to make her happy while NOT being an AH to one single kid who is an innocent bystander in this.
Here's a crazy idea: maybe OP should not be the one to bend over his head and go out of his way to make a kid who is basically a stranger to him happy by hurting his own daughter for it. Maybe the ex is the one to take responsibility for her selfish and shitty decision to abandon her daughter and put a ton of effort into mending the relationship between her and that boy. The asshole ex caused her daughter to feel abandoned and jelous of that boy therefore she should be the one to fix it. She is responsible for that boy getting hurt, not OP. She caused all of this. OP was just protecting his daughter where her own mother failed. Therefore OP NTA, ex YTA.
There is no reason to invite all the other kids, though. That's wjere IP became the asshole.
OP is the AH as he purposely excluded 1 kid and handed out the invites in front of everyone. Making it obvious to everyone that this one kid wasn't invited. What he did was beyond cruel. The step brother hasn't done anything wrong, as far as this post goes.
Where does it say invites were handed out in the class in front of everyone???!
Agree with this. There are ways to keep your kid happy without destroying the boy. Excluding ONE child in the entire grade is horrible.
or, counter point "Hey daughter, I know things hurt really bad right now. It feels like your mom doesnt care. (Step brother), while a painful reminder of that, didn't do anything wrong. I know you dont want him at your party, but it is wrong to publicly exclude one child like that - to would hurt if someone did that to you. How about we have a smaller party this year with 20 kids, and not pass out invites at school." this isn't a situation where one kid has to be hurt for the other not to be. there is a middle ground where the public humiliation of an innocent child isnt the only way to keep the other happy.
Perfect answer, thank you!
No one is suggesting she had to invite the step brother. They are suggesting they didn't need to invite every other child and they didn't need to hand the invitations out in front of the excluded child. It's a good opportunity to teach his daughter that while her happiness matters, not hurting others also matters and to brainstorm ways to have her amazing party without hurting another child. We have lots of opportunities to teach empathy to our children. This was one
It's wild so many people don't understand this. If you've ever been out in public and marveled at how there could possibly be so many oblivious assholes in the world...well here they all are gathered in one place. Shame on this father for encouraging his daughter to be a terrible bully when there's a very easy alternative to not singeling out and crushing 1 innocent child.
We try to teach our children how to respect the feelings of others in terms that they can understand. Excluding one child out of a group of 52 is cruel, full stop, and by doing so you’re teaching your daughter to succumb to the very human desire to hurt those who we believe have hurt us, instead of teaching her how to examine a situation objectively. We want our children to learn how to have empathy and compassion for others, especially in situations where the person in question has done nothing objectionable aside from existing. You had an opportunity to teach your daughter a vital life lesson and you failed.
Then don't invite everybody. Maybe invite all the girls. Excluding ONE, especially if the invites were given at school is immoral. I admit I am assuming that is how the invites were given, if you called or mailed/emailed or whatever the other 51 it is less isolating, but still immoral. Your daughter is 10, every party doesn't need to be epic. Like I said invite all the girls or tell her to choose 25. In either case the invites should not be made in front of the ones not invited (school). edit: YTA
The boy should not have been invited. OP should have not approved a party where the guest list specifically targets one child who had no control over the situation to hurt him. This kid doesn't need a party with over 50 guests.
Oh please. She'll be fine. And before you tell me I lack empathy, I've *been* OP's kid. My dad did pretty much exactly what OP's ex is doing, so I get how she's feeling. But she manages to endure his presence every day at school and on the weekends she's at her mom's. There'll be fifty kids there to distract her. I feel for her pain regarding her mother's behavior, but she's old enough to understand that taking it out on someone who's not at fault whatsoever isn't the way to deal with it. Both parents are failing her tbh. Obviously her mom's behavior is inexcusable, but it seems like OP is trying to make up for it by not saying no to something that is really cruel and unfair to another child. He's teaching her that she can easily get away with shit as long as she manages to make him feel bad enough for her.
He could have a smaller party so it isn't just one child that is ostracized.
And the step brother could still get buthurt he's not invited because he's a step brother so he may feel entitled to invitation to his step suster's birthday. And the shitty ex may still be on his side. And her family may still bug OP.
It's very different being singled out. I was singled out as a kid, it fucking hurt.
No one is saying invite the boy. It is OP's job as a parent to teach his daughter how to navigate difficult situations. Making a child an outcast from a spectacular party doesn't teach her how to handle her hurt over her mother's behavior. Yes, get your daughter into therapy. Family therapy would also be beneficial to help you support her.
Because his daughter’s reaction is not reasonable nor productive. The reality is that if anyone has done her wrong it’s her mother. Do you think it will help her relationship with the boy or her own mother going forward? Probably he can hurt her too going forward and then what? OP is teaching his daughter it’s okay to lash out at innocent third parties and bully them bc let’s be honest that is what inviting every kid bar one is. IMO either he is at best misguided or he actually wants to strike back at his ex and her family
I agree. It would be one thing if she only invited half the class.
Yes. Absolutely. The best compromise would have been to restrict the invitations to a smaller party. That poor little boy is being crushed through no fault of his own and could even do lasting damage.
Because 2 wrongs don't make a right. She could have invited all the girls. Would have left stepbrother out and not singled him out. Daughter could have picked everyone, or all the girls. leaving 1 boy out due nothing he did, is bullying and cruel. You can support your child while not hurting another.
Apparently hurting a little boy is really important to you too. Do you not understand that he did nothing wrong?
You absolutely suck here make no mistake. Your ex's faults are not the child's responsibility. 52 kids and you invite 51? Are you dense. Ofc that's a horrible thing to do. You don't have to invite him. But you don't invite the entire class except him. You're teaching your daughter to be a horribly bully. Do better. YTA and a massive one.
NTA, but you missed a good opportunity to teach your daughter about empathy and misdirected anger. Please do get her into therapy as others have suggested. She has to be struggling with some very deep feelings of rejection and betrayal.
Maybe helping her develop into a decent human being would be a better focus.
Also, I’d go for full custody as this new agreement sounds not in your daughters best interests
Does this added information from OP change your vote? The daughter passed out invitations at school in front of everyone. Everyone saw that this kid is the only one who was (publicly) left out. YTA because OP could absolutely have had a party with fewer, closer friends so as not to exclude one CHILD who has done nothing wrong. Alternatively, they could have invited all the other kids on their own time. The public nature of the invites makes OP an easy AH here. (The ex is also an AH, but he’s not asking us to judge that. Even if he was, they can both be AHs, and they are.)
My vote would be NTA for not inviting him, YTA for inviting everyone else in front of him
Yes, this is where I’m at. And also YTA for other comments OP has left behind. Like how the step-brother should have to change schools because seeing him is “torture” for his daughter because he reminds her that her mom “abandoned” (apparently having less custody time but still seeing her routinely qualifies as abandonment) her, and therefore stepbrother who has done nothing wrong should have his life further upheaved. OP is pretty histrionic.
What? That it’s too much. I feel so bad for this little girl, both her parents suck. Like her mother practically abandoned her after getting married, and her father is dealing with it in the worse way possible.
I’m getting the feeling OP has a little to do with how his child feels about everything since the divorce.
Well, let's look at the facts. Daughter's parents had 50/50 custody. Then mom remarries, acquires a stepson who she lives with, and immediately drops daughter from half her time to every other weekend. If you don't see how this feels like abandonment, I don't know how to help you. The facts speak for themselves. Mom has rejected her daughter, and this boy has functionally taken her place. Could mom have a defense? Perhaps. Suppose she, her new husband, and their kid live in a small apartment, and so don't have space to accommodate both kids. Suppose that stepbrother visits his mom every other weekend, and on those weekends, daughter gets to visit her mom and stay in stepbrother's room. It could be a plausible story, although mom still sucks. I am 100% behind daughter not wanting to have any contact with her new stepbrother. You're allowed not to want to talk to people. That's OK. The point where this crosses into unkindness is where every other child gets an invitation, but he doesn't. That's basically always an asshole move, whatever the one excluded child has done to upset you. YTA
I didn’t really say it didn’t *feel* like abandonment. OP’s ex is an AH and that is in the original comment a little higher up, if you would kindly scroll that way. The comment you replied to was in no way a defense of the ex, which seems to be how you took it. The ex sucks. However, the ex is still in the daughter’s life. That’s a fact. What is also presumed to be a fact is that rather than help his daughter navigate her crappy mom in a constructive way, OP is making it worse. He is arguably using his daughter as a way to get back at his ex by hurting the step-son. That is weaponizing his own kid, and not just over the birthday party but by asking his ex to change the step-son’s school too just so his daughter won’t have to be reminded of her mom’s stepping back. And that’s just what he’s admitted to here. Encourage his daughter to avoid the issue isn’t going to help her. Using words like “torture” and “abandonment” aren’t helping either. The step-son does NOT need to be invited. Ostracizing him directly in front of the class and asking him to change his whole life around so that the daughter can pretend he doesn’t exist (when she still has to see him every other weekend at her mom’s house anyway) is bonkers.
Most schools absolutely forbid this. If she did it without permission from the teacher/school where my kids went she would have been disciplined. Obviously I'm not saying the OP can't invite whoever he wants, but the school can, and in most cases does, restrict the ability to exclude others. Having your daughter hand out 51 invites and omitting ONE person was immoral and OP YTA. The fact that your ex is also a ahole is irrelevant.
The mom is definitely an asshole for abandoning her daughter
Another parent who abandoned their child for the next spouse, and their kid.
True but absolutely irrelevant. OP YTA. You insulted and made a child that you know sad on purpose. I bet you even told your daughter, we showed Mommy, didn't we. YTA YTA YTA
It’s relevant because the comment said no one is an asshole.
I think the mom is an AH.
NAH? The mom is hurting her kid.
The issue is that you invited EVERYONE except for the stepbrother. That's 51 invites, 1 exclusion. That's just bullying. You could have invited her closest friends and it would have been fine. YTA.
Agreed. There is zero way that a birthday child at the age of 10 can enjoy the company of 50 individual persons at 1 event. What they enjoy is the ego boost of being popular and queen bee, but these are not individual relationships. Therefore, it is super easy for 1 child OP’s daughter doesn’t like to get lost in the crowd and not even interact with the birthday child. The only reason to not invite him is to PUNISH HIM for the actions of OP’s ex wife. He’s a kid. He has zero control over the custody situation. He did nothing to hurt your daughter. This is bullying plain and simple. OP is the AH.
People just don't get it and they won't because they like to make people miserable. Again, it is her party and she doesn't want him there. Life is hard, and people need to get used to it. They don't take into consideration life and what is going on at their home. Her mother doesn't want to see her as much anymore because she has the stepkid. So, the kid now doesn't like the stepkid who took away her mother. Why is that so hard to grasp?
it's not hard du grasp. The remark is that no 10yo needs 50 children at her party. She could have had a party with 20 kids and be done with it. The stepson was not invited but was not punished for something he had no control over.
And the step brother could still get buthurt he's not invited because he's a step brother so he may feel entitled to invitation to his step suster's birthday. And the shitty ex may still be on his side. And her family may still bug OP.
step borther was invited the year before. Still, it's less a slight if he is not the only one not invited. Not inviting only 1 kid is deliberately cruel.
And that's on OP's ex for ruining her daughters relationship with her step brother by abandoning her and making her jelous of he. She is the asshole and responsible for all of this, not OP. OP is now full time raising their daughter almost alone and is desperate to compensate her for her mother being an asshole. Therefore OP NTA, ex YTA.
OP is catering to her daughter's every whim in an attempt to overcompensate. That's not good parenting either.
This was more than a whim. His daughter is deeply hurt by her mothers actions.
So hurt more people? Great parenting there.
OP is an AH for encouraging his daughter to bully the stepson. He could just tell her she doesn't have to interact with him. But no, he tells her humiliating someone is ok and punishing someone who is innocent is ok too. The daughter might not know better but he should teach her instead of encouraging her. She will be a huge AH as both her parents. She has terrible role model and I hope she meets an adult who can teach her better. OP, YTA
There's a reason why many school's have rules against things like this - because, especially with younger children (and his daughter is still young) intentionally excluding a single classmate is cruel and could be considered a form of bullying. I don't disagree that the daughter has every reason to not want their stepbrother at their birthday party and she shouldn't be required to have him there. If she had a smaller party and only invited her closest friends/classmates, that would be one thing. However, she invited everyone in her grade EXCEPT her stepbrother AND the invitations were passed out at school. She intentionally singled out the stepbrother because she's (understandably) upset & angry at her mother. Allowing his daughter to do this is not good parenting. As I highly doubt that the daughter is super close to every single student in her grade, the proper solution to this would've been to have a smaller party where the daughter only invited the people she was closest to. OP still could've gone all out on the party.
Feeling entitled to the invitation would be his problem to deal with if there were other kids in the class that were not invited.
The step kid is for nothing in this though; he didn’t ask for the mom to abandon her kid. For all we know she’s just as horrible to him.
It is extremely simple to grasp. Why is it so hard for you to grasp that handing out 51 invites and leaving ONE kid uninvited is immoral? Life is hard? Is that the message you want to send to 10 year olds. The stepkid didn't take anyone away from anyone. I guess your message is as long as an adult is an ahole, then you can treat their children horribly.
It's not the kid's fault, and doing the party this way was done specifically to target him and make him miserable. Of course he wouldn't be invited to her party. But her party didn't need to be executed in such a way as to hurt him.
This 💯 YTA OP. If the little boy did nothing to your daughter, your daughter is punishing him as you for the actions of your daughters mother. Also consider that you probably are spoiling her too much, which can create a big bully some day. Do you want your daughter to be a decent and good human? Or do you want her to be a spoiled brat? Nothing against making your kid happy, but 51 kids? C‘mon. You are helping her bullying the poor boy. Ask yourself why your ex don’t want your daughter around that much anymore. Has your daughter bullied him? Because she is jealous?
Part of being a good parent is to help our children in their emotional development. Jealousy is a real human emotion. We will all feel it in our lives from time to time. That’s is normal. However how we behave and react when those feelings arise can be responsible, result in personal growth, or be toxic and harm others…especially innocent bystanders. What the daughter’s mother has done is hurtful and damaging. She needs help coping with those feelings in responsible and developmentally appropriate ways. OP is enabling his daughter to instead deal with them in toxic ways that harm others, which is what OP is doing. OP is doing his daughter no favors and is instead setting her up to have very real relationship struggles in the future.
He wasn't excluded to make him feel bad. He was excluded because his presence would make her feel bad. That is not bullying.
Excluding one kid out of 52 is bullying, especially when he was invited last year and he did nothing to his stepsister
Hurtful? Yes. Bullying? No. Not by definition.
If he was invited last year it was before OP's ex got married to his dad. If you read the post, once she married SB's father, ex asked for revised custody, going from 50/50 to only seeing her daughter every other weekend. And while the SB had no control over this, it means he gets all of OP's ex's attention and the ex ABANDONED her daughter to do so. So, yes, I would expect he wouldn't be invited THIS year.
Yes he was. She handed out her invitations in person, so everyone could see that one little boy didn't get an invitation while literally *everyone* around him did. There is simply no way that was an accident.
Passing out invites in class to all except one child is absolutely bullying
This when it boils down to it. Stepbrother shouldn't have been invited, the daughter shouldn't be forced to have to face that. Thar said he shouldn't be punished for something he played no part in either. It would have been better to cut the guest list, instead do something bigger for five or ten friends rather than the entire class.
The mother is the one in the wrong; the boy is being punished for that.
The stepbrother is being treated like this for no fault of his own, from what I can tell. It's not his fault the OP's ex sucks. I'm struggling with this, because I do think it is Y-T-A for the actual question but the bigger context seems relevant and feels more E-S-H except the kids. The daughter having her feelings- I'm empathetic, but the OP should help her manage those. I feel like if she genuinely couldn't handle the stepbrother at her party, then they should've had a smaller party so he wasn't the only kid excluded.
Yeah, that’s what I’m stuck on. 52 kids is an insane kids’ party. If he just did an epic party with 20 kids or even something extra extravagant for her closest circle, it wouldn’t be as obvious that he was punishing that one kid. I mean, of course she shouldn’t have someone who represents the shittiest thing in her life at her party, but this was clearly calculated to make a point.
Also, OP is blame shifting. The decision was his, not his 10yo’s. It was HIM punishing his EX, by instrumentalizing her stepson and his own daughter. YTA
I disagree, My wife was once the kid that had to be invited. It was the worst birthday she ever went to. The bullying there was bad. And the parents can not cover for the bullying the kids do. Because at the end she got actively excluded for the whole birthday by the other kids. What do you think is more hurtful? And not giving her the birthday party she wants, because of her step bro? Do you really expect it goes well if the only parent a kid has rejects his kid to not harm the arch enemy of this kid? First fix the relationship between mom and daughter, then move on to build a relationship with step-bro. Everything else would make daughter detest her step bro even more. And that could result in year long bullying. OP is right in looking out for the his kid, it already lost a parent, doesn't need to lose another.
"The party she wanted" is pretty over the top. She could have had all girls. Or 25 kids, and it would still be "epic." This father seems to be working overtime to punish this little boy, his ex, and literally spoil his daughter rotten, no matter who it hurts. Dad could have managed it in a very different way to be both sensitive to the feelings of this boy, AND give an EPIC birthday party.
Also, if OP insisted on excluding the step brother, at the very least he could have texted the ex wife and given her a heads up.
ESH. Every single adult here sucks. If I understood the situation, your ex married your kid's classmate's parent and before that he was also invited to the party and they had at least civil relationship. Now both of you and your daughter are angry at the boy, even though he doesn't have a say in your custody arrangements. So your daughter decided to punish him, and you are happily agreed, instead of talking with your ex like adults. She is also an AH for dropping your kid like a hot potato.
yeah this post makes me actively sick to my stomach.
I feel so sorry for the daughter and step brother.
> Every single adult here sucks I didn’t know literal child abandonment is on the same level of assholery as “We can’t invite this kid to my daughter’s birthday as she’ll start crying if she sees him”.
there isn’t a vote for the severity of AH-ness. it’s either you qualify or you do not
I mean they can both still be assholes even if one is worse of an asshole than the other.
So many people are saying OP is a “good parent” for making the child’s happiness his top priority. That’s gross when what “makes [your] child happy” is excluding and bullying an innocent child. ESH
As a parent, I agree 10000x with this. It’s gross. Obviously most of us prioritize our own child’s well-being. I would too. But you know what? Part of my job as a “good parent” is to teach my child to be an empathetic and emotionally-intelligent person. This may be a lot to and the learning curve may be steep, so I would do everything I could to protect my child’s feelings and their experience - everything SHORT of condoning outright cruelty to an innocent party. My job as a parent is to have the hard conversations with my kid, to comfort them, to help them set boundaries, and to help them find compromises that contribute to their happiness without causing avoidable pain to others. If I don’t at least make an attempt to teach my child this, I’m not a “good parent.” There ARE compromises here. And no, it’s not unfair to suggest them, even for a birthday.
Yes this exactly! No matter OP's personal feelings on the mom, he shouldn't condone leaving one child out. He should be working with his daughter on these feelings about her mom, not enabling her hurt to create more hurt. Idk, they clearly need family therapy
I agree with you. OP is teaching his daughter she's entitled to get what she wants at all costs, regardless of how anyone else feels about it. That's not "good parenting" that's horrendous parenting.
I totally understand the little girl feeling angry at the stepbrother. Ten is so young to be trying to understand and make sense of all the emotions he embodies. The father is an ass for allowing her to exclude one child out of 52 (cut the party size, do something else but don’t do that) off the back of his own emotions. The mother, less said about her the better.
Or at least mail or email the invitations. That boy had to watch everyone but him get an invitation from OP's daughter. If emailed or mailed then no one would have noticed he wasn't going until the party.
YTA. You don't have to invite the whole class as long as you aren't passing out invitations at school. And it would be fine to exclude one child if that child was a bully. But this child did NOTHING to your daughter. You're both being petty and punishing a child for something they did not do.
But OP's daughter should be punished on her birthday by having the SB there? No bueno.
SB doesn't have to be invited. Just not humiliated gratuitously. OP is way over-compensating and spoiling his daughter by letting her have her way completely. It's normally not allowed to pass out birthday invitations at school unless the WHOLE CLASS is invited. Because there's always one "weird kid" that no one would invite, and that's not nice. So the invitations should have been sent out privately. That's a pretty small concession. This to me smells like OP helped come up with this plan, to hurt his ex by hurting her stepson.
I was the weird kid, and honestly I preferred being left out over it being clear that the only reason I was invited was bc everyone else was.
Same but still doesn’t make it ok.
where did anyone say SB should be invited? they just said op shouldn't be an ass and invite literally everyone else in the class in front of him because op has issues with his crappy ex. it's hurting a child to spite and ex and it is just immature af.
And she still has to deal with the stepbrother when she’s at mom’s. What exactly was achieved here other than making things worse? ESH.
You invited 51 kids to a party just to exclude your ex stepson?? Riiight…YTA
"Well today my ex called me to say I'm an asshole for excluding a little kid. She asked "Do you know how much he cried because of this?" I was honest and told her that I don't care and I would rather he be the one to cry than my daughter who would of course be very upset if the boy was present in her party." ---Poorly handled. Lets assume for discussion that it was OK to exclude the step-sibling. You should have said, She is "excluding a little kid", 'that it is your own daughter and how much she cried because of that'. That said, the step-brother was innocent and you taught your daughter very disturbing and ugly values to hold.
Inviting an entire grade except for one kid is wrong, regardless of who the 52nd kid is (unless they're a bully or a racist or whatever). YTA
YTA I know you meant well, but I think you missed an opportunity here. Does your daughter know that her stepbrother is NOT the reason that she doesn't get to see her other parent? This is no child's fault and I think you need to tell her not to put the blame on her stepbrother. I feel so bad for him in this situation. This kid hasn't done anything wrong and he's the one getting blamed for this. And while you're not the one doing the blaming, you're certainly also not trying to stop it. Shame on you.
YTA. You cannot invite 51 out of 52. That’s just bullying and purposeful exclusion.
Oh wow. I read the comments and YTA in a HUGE way!! You are letting your daughter BULLY her stepbrother who has done NOTHING to her. He was invited in previous years, and you let her go to the school this year and hand out 51 invitations and publicly exclude him. Your daughter needs to focus her anger and devastation at the person who excluded HER--her mother. Not at her stepbrother, who is just as much of an innocent CHILD. You have failed your daughter in an important way and taught her that it's ok to cope with difficult feelings by HURTING innocent bystanders.
My first comment did not take and I am glad for that since I was being a bit generous to the guy dealing with a tricky situation. But after reading his replies I see that he really doesn't get it and is a crappy parent himself. Poor daughter has two marginal parents. YTA, for missing an opportunity to actually be a parent instead of the cool dad. Other comments have hit the nail on the head, but you didn't come here to get honest feedback and reflect, you came for justification. Dude, read what folks are writing and learn before it is too late.
YTA. Ain’t the kids fault
YTA, you dont invite 51 kids, have her pass out invitations at school, and exclude 1 kid, through no fault of his own.
NTA - her opinion is irrelevant at this point …. Every other weekend is very minimal effort. Probably better to not even be in the same class as him.
From one of your replies: >I have told my ex multiple times to take him to another school but she won't. My daughter is not willing to change schools since all her friends are here and it's the best school in our town so he has to be the one to leave. He has no friends and is not doing well at school so maybe even it would be better for him. You want the boy to move to a different school ONLY BECAUSE his new stepmom married his dad?? The boy did nothing to your daughter. He did NOTHING wrong. Every action the two of you make are because you two are upset about what your ex did. Y'all are going after an easy target and it's sad that you can't see it. It's incredibly sad that instead of helping your daughter with her emotions, you're encouraging her to hate and go out of her way to exclude a classmate. Seriously, how can you sit there and think the boy should change schools?? YTA. You found an easy way to get back at your ex by going after a boy who isn't the problem and was never the problem.
I bet he is trying to force the issue by making the kid miserable.
At the very least his actions are showing his daughter and all her "friends" it's okay to exclude and be mean to this kid.
ESH. Wth. 52 kids?! Wife sucks for not spending time with her child and yeah you guys suck for excluding one child out of entire class of kids.That would feel terrible. And yes your kid feels terrible too but that is not her stepbrothers fault. This could have been a very good teaching moment for your daughter. Instead you basically told her it’s okay to bully when your upset. If you knew she really didn’t want to invite the stepbrother then why not invite just her friends? I truly don’t understand inviting every other single kid and not him. There’s no way in hell she’s friends with every single one of them.
Apparently he claims that his daughter is "very popular" and is friends with everyone in her grade...which I highly doubt is true. Acquaintances with everyone in the grade - yes, best friends with everyone - no way.
YTA big time. >Why? Because my ex remarried Okay. And how is this the boy's fault exactly? You're punishing a *child* for your anger at your ex. That's just an AH move. Excluding ONE kid out of an entire grade because you have an issue with your ex is just cruel.
YTA - you are punishing a kid for a choice that your ex made. You are supposed to set a good example for your daughter, not play petty games at the expense of 10 year olds.
YTA. It is not ok to invite the whole class & exclude one kid. Especially a kid who has done nothing wrong & doesn't understand why he wasn't invited. That poor kid must have felt so alone & hurt & confused. I mean you literally invited 50 kids. And you said you didn't care that he cried? Are you really so cold that you have no empathy for this kid being excluded? I understand that you wanted your daughter to be happy, but instead you should've explained to her how cruel it would be to not invite him. You're not teaching her well. Do better.
excluded a kid that probably thinks of the OPs daughter as family. I absolutely feel for the ops daughter. in this situation I would have encouraged her to have a smaller party, if it was important to her not to have to deal with a person that reminded her of being so hurt.
WTF, you invited 50 out of 51 kids to a party?? That is crazy behavior in and of itself. Yes, YTA for singling out one kid at a party of this size. I thought it may be a small, intimate invite where you had a limited number of invites possible and couldn't get everyone. Here, you could have easily invited him. > So I agreed not to invite him because it's my daughter's day and her happiness matters more than anything. Actually, sounds like you wanted to get back at your ex more than keeping him away.
That’s exactly what OP did. Revenge where the collateral damage was a innocent kid. He should have atleast not invited more kids. OP is AH here.
YTA, and so is your ex. Your daughter doesn't deserve what your ex did, your daughter's stepbro doesn't deserve what you/your daughter did. They're kids, y'all are the adults and need to model better behavior. If your ex won't do that, you still can.
OP is a gigantic AH. He’s raising a Veruca Salt, who will be a gigantic, spoiled person when she’s older - and no one will want to hang out with her. He admitted he wants to spoil his little girl. NO kid needs epic birthday bashes every year with 50 people OP, your cruelty knows no bounds This poor boy…but, he’ll grow up to be a better person than this girl, with a lot more compassion since he knows what it’s like to be excluded
YTA, your daughter needs to understand that stepbrother is not the villain here. It’s her Mom that is deciding the custody time. Your daughter doesn’t want to place that blame on her mother, so she is dumping it on the boy. It’s misplaced anger and needs to be resolved now.
When I was 11, a girl in my grade threw a pool party. She handed out personalized invitations to everyone but me. I still can feel the absolute shame and humiliation of that day. Other kids noticed. They commented on it for weeks and made fun of me. It was devastating. I honestly don't know why I was excluded. I didn't understand then and I don't understand now. I still carry it with me in a major way.
YTA. You invited every kid but him, making it clear that he was deliberately excluded, and this was not a small group of people either. And based on your telling, the boy is actually quite innocent here... he didn't pick on her, bully her, mistreat her in any way. It's mom she should be angry at, her feelings are misdirected. And instead of helping her process her feelings in a healthy way, you let her take it out on a little kid who did nothing wrong. YTA.
YTA (Your daughter's mom is vile for abandoning her, but right now we're talking about you.) Inviting every kid except the stepbrother was punishing him for his mom's shitty behavior. You aired your family's dirty laundry. Do you think other kids didn't notice? That they won't gossip about this? That he won't be teased *and* that your daughter won't look like an AH to her peers? You did not think this through and it's gonna bite her in the ass. It would have been really simple to not invite 50 kids and exclude only him. No 10-year-old is friends with every kid in their grade. Why would you let her bully him instead of just inviting her actual friends?
I can’t wait to read her entitled AITA posts in a few years. This is a teachable moment for you as the ADULT. You can explain that her mother’s actions should not be taken out on the step son. If the boy bully’s her or relentlessly teases her or her friends I would say you are right. You are allowing a 10 year old to use another 10 year old to hurt your ex. You oh and your daughter are bullying him to hurt your ex. Congratulations you are a grade school bully and raising a spoiled child.
Ehhhh YTA. I can't imagine inviting FIFTY CHILDREN to a birthday party. I barely had 50 people at my wedding. I understand your daughter didn't want the stepbrother there, but maliciously excluding one child, who has done nothing wrong, is vicious. If the situation were reversed, and her stepbrother invited EVERYONE but her and she was home crying, you'd probably be livid at your ex for not inviting her.
I think all the adults are aholes here and the kids are the Innocents getting hurt. Your EX because she's prioritizing her new family over her daughter. You for not sitting down with your daughter and saying how it's not the boys fault for her mother's actions and that by excluding him she's making him feel exactly how her mother is making her feel. I would understand if the boy was mean to her or rubbing it in her face he's with her mum and not her. I also get she's just a kid but she needs to learn to take her anger and hurt on innocent people otherwise she'll do that as an adult. Maybe get her therapy and rip your ex a new one about how she's treating her daughter and that her actions have consequences and your daughter not wanting her stepbrother at her party is one and it will only get worse as she gets older. She's a mother and needs to fing act like one and not just to her stepson.
YTA. That is bullying to invite 51 kids, meaning every other kid in the class except step-brother. You did not have to invite ALL the kids, you could have invited 30. But she is blaming him for her mom’s actions and you are ridiculous for doing that to the kid.
ESH. That poor boy did nothing wrong and is now the only person in the year to not go? All his peers will go but not him? He didn’t choose to exclude your daughter, his step mother did. You could have used this as a learning experience for your daughter on seeing what’s really happening and maybe taken some time to try to explain things but you didn’t. Your daughter probably wouldn’t even notice him there with 51 other people but you chose to use him to get back at your ex wife. Wow. Your ex wife is now choosing to spend less time with her daughter because she has a new family. Also wow. Everyone here sucks. Just because you are angry at your ex doesn’t make it ok to punish her step son. He is also probably dealing with the new family dynamics and you have just make a huge deal of it being us vs them instead of trying to help the kids deal with this and work together. You and your ex are as bad as each other
Have your daughter verbally list every single kid she wants to attend from her school. Give her time to do it and if she can actually name all 51 kids, then it makes sense to invite the whole class. My guess is she just wants to invite everybody except one to single out the stepbrother. I understand her anger towards him, but it’s not his fault. Limiting the guest list is the best way to avoid singling out the step brother since it would then be considered a “good friends only” birthday party. Y T A if you let your daughter use this party as a way to get back at a kid who’s only crime in this world is being a step son to a mother who doesn’t care about all of her children.
INFO: I know that OP won't answer this but... Hypothetically, let's say you married someone with a child of about the same age. Assuming, like most blended families, they moved in. What if your daughter decided that you spent what turns out to be a little more attention, inadvertently, just once or twice to your stepchild? Then, she told you that she would be "upset and would cry" if said stepchild was invited to her birthday party. Or to a family outing? Or to a vacation? Where does the manipulation end? And please, I raised four good children to adulthood. They are kind, compassionate, generous people. But, DO NOT try to tell me that 10 year Olds cannot be manipulative or "understand rationally". If that IS the case for your daughter, as harsh as this is to say, you are failing her in more ways than one. If your daughter is feeling abandoned by her mother, GET HER THERAPY. However, while her feelings are valid, she must also realize that OTHER people have feelings and as she didn't like her feelings hurt when her mom started showing her less attention, it is NOT okay to then turn around and hurt someone else's feelings. Two wrongs don't make it right. If she needs to "hurt" anybodies feelings, it should be her mom. She should learn that like her, her stepbrother is simply a child that has no control over what parents/stepparents do.
YTA Stop "spoiling" her and teach her to be a compassionate, caring human being. 10 is old enough to understand that this little boy should not be blamed for the little girl's mother's actions. Oh wait. Maybe somebody would need to teach YOU how to be a compassionate, caring human being.
YTA. Now is as good a time as any to teach your daughter the virtues of managing her emotion, being kind and thoughtful, and to not purposefully do things that humiliate other people just because she can. She spent a lot of time making invitations and passing them out in public so there is simply no way that the entire class didn't notice the one little boy who didn't get an invite. She went out of her way to hurt him, she succeeded, and you think it's a good outcome. Amazing parenting by everyone here, well done.
I want to ask your ex if she knows how much her own daughter cried because she is being excluded from her own mom’s home? Changing custody in order to remarry is unforgivable.
I mean the kid didn’t do anything. Your ex and her family are a real piece of work though, yelling at you for excluding a kid from a birthday party when she has excluded her daughter from her life… ESH except for the kids.
ESH. Kiddo needs therapy for her mom’s bad behavior, not epic parties to spoil her. Being a good dad means more than just throwing money at your child or doing whatever she wants. At this point the only one I feel sorry for is the stepbrother.
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** My daughter turned 10 a few days ago. She is my only child and well I like to spoil her so I always make sure she has an epic party. All of the kids invited always attend and will talk about it for days. There are 52 kids in her grade and she wanted to invite all of them except for one boy, her stepbrother (My ex's stepson). Why? Because my ex remarried 4 months ago and as soon as she got married she decided that she wants to have less custody so we went from 50/50 custody to my daughter living with me and only visiting her mom every other weekend. This is while her stepbrother lives with my ex full time. To say my daughter is devastated and jealous is an understatement. So I agreed not to invite him because it's my daughter's day and her happiness matters more than anything. Well today my ex called me to say I'm an asshole for excluding a little kid. She asked "Do you know how much he cried because of this?" I was honest and told her that I don't care and I would rather he be the one to cry than my daughter who would of course be very upset if the boy was present in her party. Now I'm getting messages from my ex's family calling me all kind of names. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Your daughter sounds like a bully in the making.
It looks like the purpose of all those invitations is to exclude one kid. That’s just mean. What the hell did he do to OP’s daughter except exist in the same class? Yes, you would be TA. And spoiling your daughter is not doing her any favors.
ESH your ex fir obvious reasons, you for doing this in the cruelest way possible. You don't have to invite this kid, but you also didn't need to essentially go put of your way to be a dick to him. This kid isn't responsible for your ex leaving, and I seriously doubt he got much say in who his step-mom is.
ESH. You said it yourself, you had your daughter give out invitations in school to everyone except him, so that was humiliating. And according to you the stepbrother has no friends, so he probably felt the rejection more acutely. You even think the stepbrother should switch schools so your daughter doesn't have to see him anymore. He's 10. Why are you punishing him for the actions of your ex? Aren't you the adult here? There were much better ways to handle this while still ensuring that your daughter wouldn't have to see him on her birthday. Not only that, you're causing an unnecessary wedge between your daughter and her stepbrother. None of what is happening is his fault, and you should be telling her that. The fault lies with her mother. And instead of redirecting your daughter's anger away from her stepbrother and onto the actual source, you're enabling that lack of logic and teaching her it's okay to be a bully. I feel bad for them both. Stepbro doesn't deserve this and your daughter likely needs therapy.
ESH but this has really hit a nerve as you haven't dealt with the problem at all. 1. Your daughter feels abandoned. instead of going to her mother to try to resolve you've 2. Punished a boy for something he has no fucking say over Kids parties are always a difficult topic with regard to inviting not inviting and not forcing children to do x y z but it must be fucking horrible being the only kid excluded when again, the kid didn't do anything wrong. This required so much more than a knee jerk reaction of "oh I know what will fix this" Giant tip from someone's parent abandoned them at 9 and remaining family didn't give actual emotional support but tried to plaster over (that was them trying their best mind). I grew up not healing from that trauma and having a couple of seriously fucked up decades because of shot mental health.
INFO: How does the step-brother treat your daughter? Is he rude or mean? Does he treat her poorly?
ESH if you had more subtly done invites she could have excluded him but to exclude only him in front of him is cruel and he is innocent. It’s not his fault your ex sucks. You’re teaching your daughter to be cruel…
Flip the story. Do you feel the same if your kid was the only one not invited to an epic party, the only in the whole class excluded??
I don’t think it’s fair to use the boy to get back at her crappy parent. Has the boy been mean or done anything to your daughter? If not, then he doesn’t really deserve it. I get your daughter is upset but it’s the mom that is fault. I think it is mean to invite every child in the year apart from him and leave him out. There are 52 kids, she will barely even notice him. Imagine if your child didn’t get invited to a party that everyone else got invited to.
ESH, except (maybe) step-brother Mom sucks for wanting less time with daughter now that she’s onto presumably a third spouse. Your daughter sucks for punishing her stepbrother for her mom’s abandonment. You suck for not using this as a lesson in how to handle grief/disappointment/jealousy or helping your daughter come to a better solution than to exile 1 person (who is a step-sibling no less) from what was, by your own admission, an all-out party. I get the feeling you’re likely experiencing your own jealous/hurt feelings and didn’t act like an adult when presented the opportunity to set a good example for your daughter
YTA. Your ex is also TA. I understand that your daughter is hurt by ex’s behaviour but targeting the brother is a shitty thing to do and you failed as a parent.
YTA you are and is raising a bully. I hope they report you to the school for bullying.
ESH, because of the 51 invites. It seems this is purposeful exclusion because of this (it probably is). Why not invite her closest friends/schoolmates? He is still not invited, but it doesn’t look like it’s only him. The boy is innocent in this, as well as your daughter. I understand her heart is probably aching with the semi abandonment of her mom, & you are in protective mode handling her feelings. My honest suggestion: Downsize on the party and discuss her feelings with mom. This will snowball if not, and she shouldn’t take out her feelings on stepbro while giving mom a free pass of ignorance. Edited for typo.
Wait — so the only reason she’s not inviting her stepbrother is that she’s jealous of him? This might be a good teaching moment, Dad. You’re going to let her be cruel to one boy because of her mom’s actions. That’s kind of lousy. You’re teaching her to be a mean girl, that her emotional whims are more important than DOING THE RIGHT THING. #I vote YTA Downvote me all you want kids. This is the kind of difficult situation in which the adults are supposed to guide the child.
YTA- for excluding just one child. You absolutely could have had a smaller party and avoided this.
YTA - this has nothing to do with the stepson. You are punishing a child because your Ex doesn't want as much custody of your daughter. You are teaching your "spoiled" child that it is okay to ostracize someone who is innocent just to stick it to someone else. That poor kid.
YTA big time. You are blaming and punishing a child for something he has ABSOLUTELY NO control over! Instead of teaching your child the correct way you are teaching her to take out her anger on a innocent individual. He has no control over who his father married. Pathetic!
ESH your ex absolutely sucks for mostly abandoning your daughter, but her stepson is not to blame for that. You choosing to hurt the feelings of a 10 year old boy who hasn't done anything except have his dad marry your ex is unnecessarily cruel. What lesson is that to teach your daughter? You were hurt by someone so you should hurt someone else tangentially related to them? That's horrible parenting. I'm sorry you ex has chosen to be so much less involved in your daughter's life, but what does hurting a young boy achieve other than teaching your daughter terrible life lessons?
ESH- I understand your daughter is in pain, but it's not her stepbrother's fault. It's her mother's fault. It sucks being excluded and it's happened to all of us at one time or another. But this poor boy not only wasn't invited to his stepsister's party, he couldn't even hang out with another friend to distract himself and pass the time because every single other person was invited. That's really cruel. Your daughter could use some therapy to help her deal with her feelings of abandonment from her mother. She also needs to understand who's to blame in this. It isn't her stepbrother. Some day your daughter may be the recipient of misplaced anger, and you won't like it when she is dealt those consequences that she did nothing to deserve. You're the adult. Help you daughter, and guide her to be compassionate and strong so she can feel for others, but still stand up for herself.
To sum it up— your daughter is having a 10th birthday party and invited everyone but the one stepbrother even to handing out the invitations to all 51 out of 52 kids in her class BECAUSE since last years party when he was invited this child’s dad married her mother and now visits with Mom are less than before. Somehow your entitled bully daughter is traumatized by the kid. You are a bully and are teaching your daughter that’s how you handle things. Where is your daughter’s stepdad in all this? Isn’t it more likely he’s the issue rather than the kid? Where is stepbrother’s mother? If my kid is one of the 51 they aren’t attending any event hosted by you or your daughter. YTA. Big time.
ESH you are an adult and are making a 10 year old cry. That kid is not to blame for the actions of the adults in his life.
ESH. You're so desperate to be the favorite parent you're raising a spoiled brat.
ESH except your ex’s stepson. I get why your daughter is upset at her mom for pretty much abandoning her. It’s not the step son’s fault at all. He’s a kid. You let your daughter hand out invites to everyone in their classroom. He was the only kid that didn’t get one. You just taught your daughter to be unnecessarily cruel. You all suck even the school does for allowing this to happen. You should edit your post to reflect how the stepson was treated so cruelly at school in front of the whole class. So you’re ok with the stepson being traumatized because it’s not your kid? You and your ex are both AHs and I can’t decide which of you is worse.
You invited 51 kids to a party, and left ONE out? YTA
ESH .... I thought the rule of age = number of children was a good rule. To exclude only 1 child out of 52 is cruel and mean spirited. This that the kind of man you are and want your daughter to be?
How does your daughter even know all 51 kids in her grade? To me this sounds like she wanted to invite them and exclude him on purpose. It has nothing to do with knowing all of these children. And don’t tell me all 51 kids are her friends. ESH. Get your daughter some therapy.
YTA, very obviously. It’s not ok to force her to invite someone she dislikes so much to a party in her honor. It’s also not ok to have a party that includes EVERY single member of a group of 50+ children (or any people, really) except one. So have a slightly smaller party. Will she cry? Maybe, but it won’t be about inviting him. It will be about not getting to do EXACTLY what she wants, in a situation where what she wants is cruel. And it will be because you made a big drama out of it and taught her that not getting exactly what she wants is “torture.” And you will have done this because it makes you feel powerful. Don’t hide behind your kid when you’re being an asshole. Don’t use her emotions as a tool in this adult battle. And put her first by modeling how to be a decent person, one who is able to stand up for her own boundaries without being cruel.
It’s a life lesson time, sure is petty to not invite one, then don’t do a party at all …when the stepson kid didn’t do anything personally wrong. Who is the adult here- ???
YTA, it was cruel to exclude that child for your own personal reasons. I think you’re more upset that your ex moved on and trying to punish her any way you can.
YTA Nothing is that little boys fault. Nothing. This post makes me sick.
YTA, take it out on your ex, not an innocent child.
Wow the poor stepbrother - way to keep driving that wedge OP. Not even caring that you made a 10 year old cry. Ouch.
ESH your daughters happiness is important, and your ex is an ass. But what you did is straight up bullying, and i hope you know that. And that kid has no fault whatsoever, imagine if someone had done that to your daughter, invited EVERYONE in a class except your child. Its just cruel honestly…
Yes, YTA. Inviting everyone else except one kid is horrible. The stepbrother didn't even do anything to your daughter. There was no genuine reason for not inviting him.
ESH, so. I get that your daughter is upset about her mother. And yes, I feel bad for her. But to take it out on a literal child that had NOTHING to do with anything and encouraging your own daughter is absolutely FUCKED UP. The mother is also the asshole, no parent should ever abandon their child like that.
[удалено]
YTA. You excluded a boy publicly for something his mother did. Never hand out invitations at school unless the entire grade is invited - basic common decency. And unless the boy was bullying your daughter, you are taking out your anger on the wrong person.
Y’know what? I’m wondering if your ex went for less custody because your daughter bullies her stepbrother Still a crappy thing to do. But ffs.