Mum Who Let Daughter Exclude Classmate With Autism From Her Party Is Confused Why That’s Wrong

Sometimes a story comes along that really makes you question humanity. This my friends is one of them. A mother is wondering why she’s in the wrong by allowing her daughter to exclude one classmate from her party when everyone else was invited.

The post was shared on Reddit where the mum asked AITA (Am I The Asshole) for excluding her daughter’s classmate from a pool party. And the reason? He’s ‘special needs’ so she’s unsure what that would look like at a party.

UN-BE-LIE-VABLE we know! But it gets worse. Here’s what she wrote:

My daughter is in the second grade, her birthday is coming up and we have a pool party planned at our park district for her birthday with her classmates. One student in her class, let’s call him Tyler, is nonverbal autistic. I’ve met him a few times, and he’s a sweet kid, but yeah nonverbal autistic. He is in my daughters class partially but leaves midway through the day to go to a special program or something.

Or something?? How very empathetic of her.

Now I told my daughter she can either invite all the girls, or the entire class. I am not letting her invite specific people and single anyone out. She ended up choosing the whole class, but my daughter, as respectfully as a second grader could be, asked me if it was okay if Tyler did not receive an invite. She said he’s barely in her class and doesn’t really know anyone, and it might be tough for him to be at a pool party.

But don’t worry folks, she got a second opinion on this bright idea of hers.

I talked to my husband about this and we ended up deciding that she does not have to invite him. She has to give out her invitations through mail however, because I do not want him seeing her giving invitations out. Anyways, I was talking about this at my work with a couple other nurses and a few of them thought I was being horrible by telling her she didn’t need to include the child with special needs. I said that I do not have any experience handling special needs children, and I didn’t know if he would need special assistance or even need his mom or a caretaker there the whole time. A coworker told me I made a huge mistake by “teaching my daughter that it’s okay to exclude those who are different”. Idk if I’d read that much into it.

Did she say nurses? Is she a nurse herself and is acting this way? Crazy!

Needless to say people had OPINIONS about this and were very firm in telling the mother, YES she was the a**hole.

You invite everyone except the kid with autism? Yeah, no. Your daughter is at an age where kids are developing empathy and learning how to interact with people, and IMO this is absolutely the wrong message to give her. You told her she’s not allowed to exclude specific people, but you’re bending that rule to allow her to exclude the one “different” kid in her class. It isn’t just about your daughter. It’s about the message that it sends to all of the other kids who ARE invited, and the message it sends to Tyler. And even if Tyler doesn’t find out or isn’t able to understand the social implications of being excluded, how much might it mean to Tyler’s parents- one person wrote.

I think it’s incredibly mean to invite a whole class except one kid, special needs or not. But I also don’t think you should force your child to invite someone who they don’t want to. I think she should have just invited a small number of friends and that’s it- added another.

And one stated: YA. You haven’t even spoken to Tyler’s parents to find out if he wants to come. He may only be there briefly if it is something he struggles with, but at least he isn’t being isolated from his whole class. Don’t teach your daughter and the rest of the class that excluding someone different is okay, this is how both conscious and unconscious bias toward differently abled persons starts!

And that folks, may just be the craziest story you read today. There’s been no update on the original post but surely the mother has realised the error in her decision! Surely.

Images: Pixabay