A child with additional needs was left at my son's party - I didn't volunteer for this

"I didn’t volunteer for this and I want to watch my child enjoy his big day," the mum said after the parents left the boy to go have some 'relaxing' time.  

An incident at a child’s birthday party has been weighing heavily on a mum ever since it happened. 

She was in the middle of hosting the sixth birthday party, when she realised the parents of one of her son’s friends, who has additional needs, had left him unsupervised at the party. 

“We will call him Elliot,” the mum began a post in an internet forum. “He’s a very sweet boy but needs extra help with a lot of things including using the restroom. I am very, very close with his parents and they have been family friends for years.”

“It was the day of my son’s party and about half of the kids were dropped off and the other half had their parents leave,” she continued. 

While she was running around helping the kids do activities and fetching them food, Elliot came up to her and tugged her shirt saying he needed to go to the toilet and he needed her help. 

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"I didn't volunteer for this"

“Because of his individual needs, it takes around 20 minutes to help him use the bathroom. It’s not a quick thing at all. I said, ‘Oh, sweetheart, I can’t help you so you will need to go to your parents okay?’ He told me that they were gone and to ask for you,” she recalled. 

The mum was left confused as to why a child with additional needs would be left alone at a party. At this moment, her mother-in-law walked up to her and shed some light on the situation... 

“I told them you had a handle on it and they should take a few hours to go and have fun, so they left. I’ll watch the kid, you go do what you need to do,” the MIL said, before handing the OP a bag full of Elliot's bathroom stuff. 

“This is about the time I should mention I did go to school for nursing for a bit but ended up dropping out so I do have some experience but not a lot,” the mum said. 

Despite this context, she still felt she wasn't equipped to deal with Elliot’s needs, nor did she want to miss out on her son’s party for an extended period. 

“I was furious with rage, embarrassment and pity for this child,” she wrote.

“I kept it calm for Elliot but it’s my son’s birthday party and all I can think is: 1.) I didn’t volunteer for this. And I want to watch my child enjoy his big day 2.) I would be furious if I left my child with somebody I knew and trusted, and came back and they were gone for 20 minutes with a stranger watching my kid. And 3.) My mother-in-law did not have the right to say I’d do something that I was not comfortable with.”

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"I told her she'd have to figure it out"

She then pulled her MIL aside and told her she would have to figure it out or call his parents to come back.

“She was beyond shocked and furious. She eventually got a hold of his parents with my husband's help but she has been very short with me since. She told my husband that since I was ‘basically a nurse’ I shouldn’t have a problem doing that for Elliot,” she said. 

“His parents were annoyed but apologetic to me, they had assumed it was my idea.

“I do feel horrible. But I don’t feel comfortable doing that for Elliot.

“So, am I in the wrong?”

"The audacity of the parents and your mother-in-law"

People quickly took to the comment section to reassure the mum.

“Your MIL is the a**hole here and seemed the logical person to help Elliot with his bathroom needs since she invited his parents to leave,” the top comment with 9.3k likes read. 

A second wrote: “NTA, firstly his parents should be there. A normal person when offered something like this would have declined. The audacity of the parents and your mother-in-law. I don't even want to know how the poor boy felt.”

A third agreed, adding: “NTA. Your MIL way overstepped, and I can't believe the parents of a child who needs help in the toilet would just leave him with the host of a party.”

“There’s no such thing as ‘basically a nurse’. You couldn’t apply for a job and say, ‘I don’t have the required degree but it’s okay. I’m basically a nurse’. She shouldn’t have offered your help. If she wanted to give them the time, she should have taken it upon herself,” a fourth pointed out. 

“NTA. I'm embarrassed for you, but please don't feel guilty, it's not your fault that you have a MIL problem,” someone else concluded. “Set up boundaries with enforceable consequences for her now, before this gets out of hand.”

"The kid needed help"

Meanwhile, others argued that the child shouldn't have to suffer because of his parents and the MIL's poor decisions. 

"All I see when I look at this story is a bunch of adults wanting to palm off an innocent child, who will likely be the one to suffer the most from all of this," someone wrote. "Firstly, the boy's parents, knowing the extent of his needs, should have never left him at the party to begin with. Secondly, the MIL should have never encouraged them to do so. I'm not saying it was the party boy's mum's responsibility to do something she didn't want to do, but at the end of the day, adults are adults and kids are kids. This kid needed help."

And someone else concluded: "I feel so bad for this child. It's not his fault his parents left him there, I think either you or your MIL should have helped out from the kindness of your heart, instead of trying to make a point."

Originally published as A child with additional needs was left at my son's party - I didn't volunteer for this