A fatherly Redditor recently found himself deep in some Full House level drama while doing his part to host his 14-year-old daughter's slumber party.
This man, unfortunately, lacked both the poise and the musical accompaniments of Danny Tanner and the gang. He showed one young guest the door, banishing a "popular girl" with no fanfare or compromise.
The father at hand is a 34-year-old guy who clearly does his best to navigate the sea of pubescent dynamics with a cool head. On the other hand, the guy knows his values and he doesn't appear to waver.
trway21423, as he's known on Reddit for at least this thread, smelled trouble immediately when one of his daughter's guests arrived.
"There was this one girl that she invited who I could tell from her attitude, was a spoiled brat. When she rang the doorbell, she walked in looking down at her phone, didn't greet me or my wife, and handed me her jacket without even looking up."
When the already-problematic young guest continued to use her phone incessantly throughout the party, dad made an attempt to rationalize her behavior.
"I thought she was just embarrassed or shy because maybe she didn't know anyone, but according to my daughter, she is a 'super duper cool girl.'"
Giphy
She sounds really cool.
After some audible scoffs throughout the gift opening portion of the evening, the father-narrator suffered a super duper direct hit.
(Note: dad has made the sudden and unannounced decision to abbreviate the spoiled brat with "SB.")
"The final gift was from me and my wife, we bought her an iPhone 7 by pooling all of our remaining extra money to buy her it."
"The SB scoffed because she had the newest gen iPhone."
When the birthday girl set up the new phone, she and all the guests retreated to her bedroom and closed the door.
Unbeknownst to dad, occurring behind that door were the vicious, subtle, disguised-as-polite abuses that only 14-year-old's are capable of.
"My daughter came down a bit later and she was just sitting on the couch, I asked her what was wrong and she just went back up while saying 'why couldn't you have just bought me the newest iphone??'"
"That was really out of character for her, as she is always grateful for receiving anything."
Our narrator decided it was time he became more involved. He discovered a curve ball. The nastiness occurred over text on none other than the new, apparently disappointing iPhone in question, despite them being in the same bedroom as each other.
This was a Generation Z spat that dad had underestimated.
"D: 'hey its me'"
"SB: 'thanks for inviting me to ur lame slumber party lol, and congrats on the iphone SEVEN haha'"
"D: 'what'"
"SB: 'arent u mad that ur parents and friends got u such lame gifts'"
"SB: 'slumber parties are for little girls lol, but wtvs its cool'"
"D: 'u dont like the party..?'"
"SB: 'I jus wish i could go home looool'"
For dad, that was the last straw. He got a whole lot more direct after this.
"It was around 1AM and the girls were still up talking, I knocked and asked if I could speak with SB."
"I took her downstairs and asked her to call her mom, she asked why and I said 'Because that's what you said right? That you wish you could go home? So go.'"
"She was tearing up a bit, and made the call."
When SB's mother arrived and made appeals, dad held firm.
"I showed her the texts and she apologized profusely and said 'It's just a teenager phase I guess. I'm so sorry, but don't you think she could stay? If not I understand.'"
"I thought about it for a bit, but her staying probably would have made it awkward for everyone, so I told her it was best if they just left."
The daughter's mother, however, claimed that dad overreacted, that he should have merely spoken to her, causing dad to seek Reddit's advice.
The Reddit community was totally across the board regarding whether dad was right, wrong, or if everyone involved just sucked.
Plenty, though, took dad's side.
"An actual hero! That self entitled brat needed someone to hold her accountable for being a bully. In time your daughter will understand this." willowwilde
"You did what your daughter couldn't and that's stand up to a bully."
"It will be years before she realizes that those 'cool people' in high school often time grow up to be terrible people that she would never seek a relationship with outside of that high school setting." i-died-in-vietnam-
"She didn't want to be there so she got to go home. This girl is in no way your daughter's friend. That's her bully. Congrats on getting her out of your house with minimal hysterics." prairiefiresk
"No matter if she brushes it off now as a 14 year old girl (I'm assuming she will act like she doesn't care to play it cool), she will remember this her entire life. I think its a very valuable lesson you taught her." alwayslovedfrogs
About an equal amount of Redditors felt that dad was off base for responding as he did.
"You let a 14-year-old girl bruise your fragile ego and pride about the gift you bought and knee jerk reacted by ominously summoning her from the party at 1am with no explanation other than something came up which very likely made this girl think something terrible happened with her family."
"You did all of this without having a conversation with your daughter about her wishes, and didn't give her a chance to explain to you how completely embarrassing it is to have your angry father kick a cool girl out of your party in the middle of the night for texting rude things" elwoodpdowdsmother
"Your the a**hole for not talking to your daughter first. 14 is an insane age and this girl could make her social life hell because of this." Deep-Tomorrow
"I don't think you did this for your daughter, I think you did this for yourself."
"Granted, the SB definitely behaved badly, but when she showed remorse or when her mother asked if she could stay you had two good opportunities to let her apologize and fix the situation with your daughter." The_Thugmuffin
"You didn't ask your daughter how she wanted to handle it? She needs to learn logical conflict resolution. You showed her that when someone doesn't do what you want them to its best to cut that person off right away." broomzooms
Some felt that everyone involved was acting like a fool.
"bruh she was wrong when she said those things but in my point of view your decision was a bit too harsh. Her mom though was pretty responsible" BrenoMV
"Not gonna judge, but as someone who was not long ago a teen girl maybe don't have her open the presents from you in front of her friends for her future birthday parties. It can make things awkward in a number of different ways besides this." whenallfailsduckhide
Unfortunately, only time will tell if the high school hallways simply ramp up the abuse when his daughter returns after the weekend.
@sama/X
