A man has taken to social media to seek validation after sharing how he made his 11-year-old son invite his school bully to his birthday party because he ‘hasn’t done anything wrong’
A dad has been slammed for forcing his son to invite his school bully to his birthday party because he makes him laugh. He explained how his 11-year-old son, Aaron, had returned home upset and complaining about another child in his class picking on him.
However, the dad claims the other child, called Ben, is nothing to worry about and is only behaving like a normal school-aged boy. Taking to Reddit, the 41-year-old said: “My son Aaron had his birthday party recently, along with his twin sister. While sending out invites to everyone, Aaron told me that he doesn’t want to invite Ben from his class because he’s a ‘bully’. He said he’d rather him not come at all.
“I want to clarify that by ‘bully’ it’s nothing really physical. He apparently just makes fun of Aaron, tease him with girls’ names, and once he even sent a girl in his class a letter by making it in Aaron’s name. I know Ben’s parents as we work together, and I also know the child.
“He’s just mischievous and hasn’t really touched Aaron physically. He just makes fun of him, etc.” Justifying the invite, the dad told his son to “be the bigger man”, saying it’s unkind to exclude someone just because they’re “mischievous”.
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“I told him it’s not a good thing to prevent him from arriving when others would be, but he strongly refused. He said I am trying to ruin his day. I told him that while it’s his birthday and he should have fun, it’s also important to not punish someone else just because they are mischievous. I explained that he had to be the better man, especially since Ben hasn’t really done anything except from making fun of him, teasing him, and sending girls letters as people in that age-group do.
“He got upset and asked Sarah (his twin sister) to back him up, and she was on his side. I didn’t back down, however, and made him accept that Benjamin would be coming.” The party went just fine, Ben brought gifts, etc. Aaron wasn’t happy he was there, but he managed to hold in his disappointment until everyone left.
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When the party came to an end, Aaron started shouting at his father for putting him through such a hurtful situation, saying “he’d never talk to him again”. Confused, the man added:”I just didn’t want to allow my son to throw a tantrum like that, again, Ben hasn’t really done anything bad or bullied him in other ways.”
In response, one user said: “Guaranteed, the dad was the bully back in the day.” Another user added: “Giving real ’emotional abuse isn’t real abuse’ vibes here and like. bad attitude to have when parenting. since he seems to think his son having emotions is throwing a tantrum too.”
A third user said: “Eight grade was when I had my worst ever experience with bullying. And it was “nothing really physical” either, so the teacher didn’t do anything about it. Yeah, it was nothing really physical…until that one day where it almost did become physical, and I ended up having to transfer to a different school. And either way? Verbal harassment is just as bad as physical bullying, so screw you.”
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