When deciding who to invite to your kid's birthday party, most people would probably agree that you should be as inclusive as possible — especially to kids who might otherwise have a hard time fitting in. But don't tell that to one Reddit mom, who recently told her second grader that she didn't have to invite a nonverbal autistic boy to her child's birthday party because she worried the party would be "tough" for him. Now, she's wondering if maybe she got the whole thing wrong …
The whole thing went down while the mom was trying to plan her daughter's birthday pool party.
In her anonymous Reddit post, the mom first explained that there's one child in her daughter's class, a boy named Tyler, who is nonverbal and autistic.
"He’s a sweet kid," she wrote, adding that although he's in the same class with her daughter, he "leaves midway through the day to go to a special program."
Things got hairy when they started discussing the guest list.
The mother didn't want her daughter to invite specific people and single anyone out in the process, she explained in her anonymous Reddit post. So, she gave her daughter two options: Invite only the girls from her class or invite the entire class.
In the end, her daughter chose to invite the entire class. Well, sort of.
"My daughter, as respectfully as a second grader could be, asked me if it was okay if Tyler did not receive an invite," she explained.
The little girl told her mom that because Tyler often missed class and doesn't really know anyone, she worried that the party might be hard on him.
She and her husband discussed it, and decided that their daughter didn't have to invite Tyler if she didn't want to.
Still, to avoid any hurt feelings, she told her daughter not to hand the invitations out at school, because she didn't want Tyler seeing them being handed out.
After making the call, the mom was discussing the situation with some of her coworkers and she realized they were not impressed with her decision.
"A few of them thought I was being horrible by telling her she didn’t need to include the child with special needs," she wrote. "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."
But one of her coworkers thought she made a huge mistake. Essentially, the person said, she was teaching her daughter "that it’s okay to exclude those who are different."
"I don't know if I’d read that much into it," the mom shared.
Most people agreed with the friend -- this mom was being unnecessarily cruel.
"You are definitely teaching your daughter that it's okay to exclude people who are different," one commenter wrote. "It's not your choice if he can handle the party or not. He should absolutely receive an invite and his parents/caregivers can decide if he's capable of attending."
"Original Poster, you're not his parent or his caregiver," another said. "It's not your place to assume that a pool party would be tough for him. Too many children with different needs spend their childhoods being left out. Did you verify that all the other children in his class know how to swim or like swimming before you invited them?? Also, if you have to mail invitations because you're afraid of how it will make another child feel … you already know Your the [expletive]."
One mom was straight-up furious.
"As the mum of a non verbal autistic child we probably wouldn’t go (or if we did it would be for a short period and I would be there with him) but would have been thrilled to be included," she wrote. "You just taught your child a terrible lesson."
However, there were a few who thought the mom was totally within her rights to not invite Tyler.
"I know very little about autism, but at a pool party it would be very hard to keep track of the entire class, not sure of this child's swimming abilities," one commenter wrote. "I suppose if their parents were there monitoring him, I would feel uncomfortable having to take care of a child with a disability. You made the right call mailing them instead of having her hand them out, but kids talk so he may find out anyway. For safety reasons i would say NAH, but it sucks to single out anyone."
Another person also told her she wasn't in the wrong, saying, "it's your daughter's party and she should be able to invite whomever she want."
"It should be about her," a third person chimed in. "She should be able to pick who comes to be honest. I can hardly imagine being forced to have my birthday with the special kid from my class when I was in school…. that would not have gone well."
Unfortunately for this mom, we're going to have to agree that if she's going to invite the whole class -- she needs to invite the whole class.
And yes, that means not intentionally leaving out a child.
Kids with special needs often get excluded from social events, which is sad and difficult for them socially. Not only would this be a good lesson for her daughter to be more inclusive, but it would also probably be good for Tyler to get the chance to spend time with his classmates — especially because he often leaves school for his special program.
Chalk it up to teaching your daughter kindness, Mama. We're sure it will mean a lot to Tyler and his parents.
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