It's never easy dealing with bullies.
But one Reddit parent found themself in a particularly sticky situation when they didn't invite their daughter's bully to her birthday party - only to be accused of bullying themselves.
User someserioustoast took to the social media platform's popular 'AITA' (am I the a**hole) forum to ask - 'AITA for not inviting my child's bully to her birthday party?'
The Redditor began by explaining that her daughter's sixth birthday was coming up, and they were throwing her a surprise birthday party.
"I gave all of her classmates’ invitations except this one girl who has been bullying my daughter since school started," they continued, explaining that her child had been the victim of relentless bullying from this child.
"My daughter is Korean in a mostly white school, and this girl has apparently made it her life’s mission to bully my child every day about it. She calls her mean names, makes fun of her eyes, the food she brings for lunch, and even has gotten physical," they wrote, adding: "So I decided not to invite her. I didn’t want anyone to ruin her birthday party, and I wasn’t taking any chances."
However, not everyone thought that excluding the bully was the correct course of action for the parent to take. Not long after handing out the invites at a class event, their daughter's teacher confronted the parent about the situation.
"He said it was really inappropriate of me to not invite the one girl, and just because my child can’t take a little teasing doesn’t give me the right to not invite someone," they recalled, adding: "I told him unless he was going to make that girl’s bad actions suddenly stop, then she will not be allowed anywhere near my child’s birthday."
While the parent conceded that they felt bad, they were adamant that their child should come first. However, the teacher had put enough doubt in their mind that they were prompted to ask Reddit whether they were in the wrong for excluding the child.
Luckily for the parent, fellow users were overwhelmingly supportive of their decision. Many called out the teacher for getting involved - particularly given the racist dimension of the bullying.
"NTA, and the teacher is the AH for telling you "you don't have the right to determine the guest list of your kid's party". I mean. What," one person wrote.
"There is something seriously wrong with teachers or schools demanding to have a say in who parents invite and who not," added another.
"That teacher is ridiculous. Don't feel guilty about not inviting her and tell her teacher that it's not his place to decide who gets to go to someone else's birthday party," wrote a third.
"We don’t want kids to understand there can be a social consequence to behaving like a racist little AH to a classmate. That would be so terribly unfair," a fourth added sarcastically.
That said, some Redditors took issue with the way that the parent had handed out invites during a class event.
"Many schools actually have parents around that age sign forms saying if they are going to hand out invitations or snacks at school events or during class, they are required to include everyone," one wrote, adding: "Exclusion is considered a form of bullying."
"Questionable for handing out the invites at school. It’s more work, but calling the parents of invited kids directly would probably have been better," another added.
.jpg_xA8wMQ?tr=h-184)
