A mom who didn’t have prizes for all of the kids at her daughter’s birthday party is being blamed for making a child cry. In a post on Reddit, the mom explained that she recently hosted a birthday party for her 7-year-old daughter. She invited 10 girls around the same age.
While the mom did purchase party favors for every child in attendance, she only had prizes for the kids who actually won the party games they played.
One girl was upset that she didn’t win any games at the party.
At the birthday party, the kids played eight different games, including Bingo and pin the broom. For each game, the mom bought one prize for the winner. As they were playing the games, the mom noticed that one child “was having a hard time every time she lost,” in the sense that she cried after each game.
To deal with this, the mom tried to comfort the girl. “I comforted her, all the girls did and my daughter even gave her a little toy of hers to keep. Overall, it was a fun party,” she explained.
The next day, the mom spoke to the child’s mom.
Because the girl “had a couple of meltdowns” at the party, the mom decided to check in with her mom afterward. She asked the girl’s mom if her daughter had a good time at the party. In response, the girl’s mom questioned her about the prizes at the party, wanting to know whether there were prizes for every kid.
“I said no, just 8, for every win,” the mom explained. “But of course there were party favors at the end of the party. The mom was a little upset but nothing too bad and I thought that was that.”
However, things later escalated.
That same week, the mom had to cancel a playdate with the girl who had a tough time at the birthday party. She was surprised by the reaction the girl’s mom had.
“She texted me that I have made her kid upset/cry twice this week,” she shared. Yikes!
Given that she’s good friends with the girl’s mom, she spoke to her directly about the issue and “told her that I’m not responsible for her child’s reaction or feelings.”
The girl’s mom perceives it differently.
From her perspective, it actually is the mom’s fault because she made the choice to only purchase eight prizes. “She disagrees, it was MY choices -of not having a prize for every kid- that made her upset and that was not okay,” the mom explained. “I think she wants an apology from me but I’m over here just thinking in what world is it okay to blame your child’s feelings on someone else?!”
The other mom actually took it a step further and accused the birthday girl’s mom of teaching the girl a lesson about winning/losing when it wasn’t her place to do so.
“She also said that it was suppose to be a fun time for her but now she got a lesson on winning/losing from me and it wasn’t my job because I’m not her parent,” the mom wrote, adding that the interaction left her speechless.
Reactions were mixed.
Some Redditors said the mom who had an issue with the number of the prizes at the party is teaching her kid to be entitled. However, others called the party planner’s decision “weird” — because why have just eight prizes?
“This is where entitlement starts…you didn’t make the kid cry,” one person argued. “This is a lack of teaching good sportsmanship and understanding that sometimes things don’t go your way.”
Several parents recommended the “Pass the Parcel” episode of Bluey for this exact reason. “Their age range, and even younger, is the perfect age to learn that you’re not always going to get the prize or win,” someone else said. “This child has been raised with participation prizes and will be ill equipped to deal with losing when it comes to actual competitions/games when she gets up older.”
While most people could agree that the birthday girl’s mom didn’t exactly do anything wrong, some did question why she had eight games and eight prizes.
“Not everyone is going to get a prize, but the number of prizes offered was unfortunate,” a third person wrote. “It means almost all kids won a prize, and only a few did not. It probably would have been easier to accept if there were only a couple prizes offered. The child was young so it’s understandable that she got upset. The mom should know better though!”
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