One woman has turned to the internet to ask whether purposely leaving out just one girl from her daughter’s class when she hands out party invitations would make her an assehole. According to the mum, her soon-to-be nine-year old daughter was recently bullied by the other girl when she was eating her lunch at school, which prompted the decision not to invite her.

My oldest daughter is turning nine soon and has been planning a Taylor Swift themed party. She’s been working out the details for at least six months, and it’s going to be the stuff Pinterest boards are made of! This will be her first birthday party where all of the guests will be kids, and she is mega excited! (In the past it has been mostly family, neighbors, and close family friends.)
Back in October, we decided that we would invite all thirteen girls in her class so that nobody would feel left out. It turns out, though, that one of the girls in her class is a total mean kid. She says rude things, lied about whether or not she has already been “student of the week” TWICE, bragged about lying to the principal to get out of trouble, and other instances of general asshattery. I’ve overheard my daughter and her friends commiserating about her meanness a few times over FaceTime, so it’s definitely not just something that my kid is making up.
Yesterday this kid crossed a whole entire line. At lunch, she told my daughter that the lunch she packed was “gross,” (it was a pizza lunchable, so I mean, she’s not wrong, but still… RUDE!). Then she poured my daughter’s pudding all over it and tried to get her to eat it! My daughter spent the whole day hungry because some kid decided she had a right to ruin her lunch. There’s no way on this side of Atlanta that I was about to let this one slide, so I alerted her teacher. Both the mean kid and my daughter need to get the message that no part of this situation was okay.

My daughter deserves to have the dream birthday party that she has been working so hard on and saving up for. That dream no longer includes the presence of Meanie McGee. She just doesn’t trust that she won’t do something to ruin their fun. I try to give kids a lot of slack, but if you’re going to borderline bully my kid, I feel like I’m no longer obliged to invite you into my home, feed you, and send you away with a goodie bag even if it means you’d be the only girl left out. It might be a hard pill to swallow, but you can’t spend all day every day disregarding other people’s feelings and then expect other people to consider yours. Invitations go out in a few weeks, and I’m inclined to let the little lunch ruiner feel the consequences of her actions. Pretty sure her mom will think I’m the asshole. AITA?

People in the comments section were divided however on what the best course of action should be in this situation, with many people supporting the decision to exclude the ‘mean girl.’

NTA. This is a natural consequence for being a bully. It is so much more unfair for your daughter (and her classmates) to have to be exposed to the class bully on her birthday than it is for the mean girl to not be invited to her victim’s birthday party. Hopefully her parents use it as a teachable moment. This would be a good time to teach “we don’t talk about parties when someone who isn’t/wasn’t invited is present”, though. (ichheissekate)

v

Agreed. I think inviting the mean girl would send a very negative message to OP’s child – that message being “people can treat you badly and you just have to tolerate it.” Sometimes kids, little girls especially, are taught that they have to put their own comfort to the side for the sake of kindness and inclusion. Kindness and inclusion are great, but they need to flow both ways. (PandaEnthusiast89)

Personally I’d risk coming off as the AH if that was my kid. Kids have to learn that actions have consequences. (boymom04)

By inviting the mean kid to the party, she will learn that she gets to be nasty to people with little to no consequences. Perhaps missing a cool party will be a teachable moment which shows her that being mean makes people not want her around. (PandaEnthusiast89)

However not everyone agreed that this was the best course of action.

Have a mature conversation with the other parent and teacher involved instead of “teaching her a lesson” that no 9 year old will receive as “learning the consequences of their actions” (KayCeeBayBeee)

Others thought that it was fine not to invite the girl as long as the invitations weren’t handed out in front of her.

NTA

However, if you’re not inviting everyone you should not use the school to invite only some kids.

As long as you have a way to directly contact other kids’ parents, you are NTA (ed_lv)

NTA and give out invites outside of school but tell your daughter not to discuss the party in front of the girl on purpose or be all ‘YOURE NOT INVITED’ – tell her to keep it classy so it can’t be turned around on her as though she is the bully.

Of course if another child does that to her, not your problem… (BluebirdAny3077)

One commenter even felt sorry for the bully , wondering if her behaviour was indicative of other issues.

This, otherwise you risk coming off as the A-H.

As a side note, these behaviors do sound like this kid is going through it. Some kids are just jerks, but these things sound.. like they’re going through it. That’s absolutely not for you to solve, though, and she doesn’t need to be invited after her one-on-one issue with your daughter. (BlondeShanghai)

And another thought that the girl should be made aware of the impact she was having and be given the opportunity to apologise before the party.

The classy thing to do imo is to try and get the kids in a room together, talk things out, get an apology from the mean girl.

And if she’s still not invited, fine, but at least she’s been given the context of “your behavior was unacceptable and this is the consequence” and the parents are aware in some way. 

It’s bizarre to me that we’re all talking about how horrible a bully is and you’re advocating for another kid to rub in her face that she’s been excluded. (TheRalphExpress)

What do you think? What would you do in this mum’s position?