Angry with son for abandoning daughter on night out

[maxtheblackcat]

I need some perspective before I say anything as I’m so angry right now I could be very unfair.
I have lived a very sheltered life, I know this and try to be mindful that it can make me naive. My son who is 25 lives in London, his girlfriend works in the fashion and entertainment industry and has some friends who are actors/musicians/models. Not your household names but none the less famous and have some influence. We are down visiting son in London, my daughter who’s 19 came with us. My daughter is on a gap year, she isn’t the most confident and doesn’t really do the whole drinking/club scene. Even if she did our nearest clubs are small so a very different feel.
Some of sons girlfriends friends were planning a night out, they had a reservation at a lovely expensive restaurant and then were on the guest list for a seemingly high end/exclusive club. My daughter ended up invited, she was hesitant but decided to go as she felt it was an opportunity she didn’t want to miss, and I get it if I was 19 if want to hang out with musicians and actors and models too! She was nervous but my son and his girlfriend promised they’d keep an eye on her.
We don’t hear anything most of the night until about half past midnight when my daughter calls me in tears, she says she stepped out as she felt really uncomfortable, that she’d gone to the bathroom and the girl who had got them on the guest list was sniffing coke, older guys were being provocative, she didn’t know where son or his girlfriend were. I told her to call him and get him to either put her in a cab back to the hotel or take her home, she was panicking and not used to London at all and nervous of being in a cab alone late at night.
Typically he didn’t answer, she tried the girlfriend too no answer, we tried them both. We then told her to go back in and find him but the security guard wouldn’t let her unless the girl who she was a guest off (so girlfriends friend) came out and verified who she was and let her in. I’m not sure if this is standard practice but obviously, my DD doesn’t know this girl at all and had no way of contacting this girl and the security guard wasn’t helpful at all. My daughter was panicking and a group of girls walking by noticed and helped her get a cab back to the hotel. Luckily she’s here with us now and while shaken up she’s okay. We have always taught our kids to never be around people doing drugs and had a “fly with the crows, shot with the crows” mantra. My daughter said this is the first time she’d ever actually seen anyone doing lines of cocaine and the men were being so sleazy.
We still haven’t heard from my son which makes me think he hasn’t even noticed that she isn’t there!!

AIBU to be absolutely disgusted with him and beyond angry? He knew that his sister was new to all of this and promised to look out for her! My husband thinks it’s unfair to ask him to babysit his adult sister and she just shouldn’t have gone if she wasn’t going to be able to handle it. He thinks it was naive of me to think models, actors and musicians wouldn’t be doing drugs.

My MIL was married with 2 kids at 19.

Interestingly casually attitudes to coke and drugs on this thread. Coke is phenomenally addictive and incredibly harmful, often mixed up with other chemicals.

It also involves a trail of violence, death, exploitation, gang war fare etc. from source to consumption.
But as long as we're safe in blighty, who gives a fuck about that, right?

Ridiculous! He can't go in the toilet with her!

So, if she decided to have a dance he should dance next to her? !!
She ran off without telling him

In my culture an older brother would totally look after his sister, if she is as she is described. Not all 19 year olds are the same! It comes down to family values….

When I ran a study abroad for American students here in the Uk, we had a talk with them about clubs, what they were like, and about using alcohol responsibly, as the drinking age in the USA is 21. We also had a police officer give them a talk—basically telling them not to be stupid. When we had meals at my place to celebrate student birthdays, I made sure to fill them up with food, as I knew they would be out drinking. After that, they had to make their independent judgments. But they were prepared for what to expect. It sounds like OP’s daughter was not.

The OP’s daughter sounds fairly sheltered…I can understand why if she saw someone doing drugs, it would be shocking. The first time I saw one of my friends high at that age, it disturbed me quite a bit. And, she may not have been out by herself trying to get a taxi before in London, so it was a bit of a trial by fire. Now she knows what it is about. People mature at different times and in different ways. Big brother could have taken a little more care, but maybe because he didn’t, it was a means of OP growing up more.

What other ppl choose to do is their business if they want to do drugs thats know them I'm not here to be judgemental. If my friends who I go to festivals with want to take drugs that's their choice, they are adults who are aware of what they are doing. You go to any club and there will someone taking it. You know why the girls queue is long its because they go into the toilets together to take them.

If you don't want to be around drugs you basically never go to any music event.

Actually let's add any pubs too since drugs taking isn't just as music events.

And we only have OPs word about the touching what was it really? Someone actually stopping her daughter and pulling her toeards them withe the hand on her wasit or was it a packed club and someone put their hand on her waist as she tried to get through a crowd. Hardly groping, I've put my hand on someone's back but you could say it was their waist trying to make room to get through.

It is inevitable that some touching is going to happens, hand, shoulder, waist, its a packed place. Groping for me would be grabbing my boobs or my private parts. It's impossible to be in a club and never touch someone else.

We don't know he didn't give a shit. I would assume that she ran into someone that she knew and was chatting or possibly talking to a guy. She ran out of the club and panicked. I know this is mumsnet but not every issues women have is a man's fault.

Gosh - I think some of these responses are wild. My friends and I would always look after each other better than OP’s son and girlfriend have done after going out to clubs lots of times. Palming her off on someone she doesn’t know, who they know does coke and being surprised that she freaked out and then not even noticing for 2 hours is really crap IMO.

This ^

She left the club!

Optionsandways: Interestingly casually attitudes to coke and drugs on this thread. Coke is phenomenally addictive and incredibly harmful, often mixed up with other chemicals. I'd be horrified to know my dc was involved in this scene.
......
I get that, Options, I am wary of hard drugs but the fact is the op's daughter and son were not snorting coke. Being aware of, or encountering, casual drug use occasionally does not equate being involved with it. It happens.

I'm elderly-ish and I have encountered casual - and not so casual - drug use a few times since I was young. I know a chap who does coke sometimes socially, when with friends, and is an opera singer! It messes up his voice and sinuses for a while, he's been warned by his ENT surgeon against it, but when he parties he gives into temptation. Not often but he does. I think he is stupid but he's a grown man in his fifties and it's not my business. Alcohol is another problem which can be devastating but the difference is there's nothing illegal about that for an over-18.

Unless a young person is wrapped in cotton wool, they are going to come across people who do drugs and all sorts of other things, it's life. They move on and don't dwell on what others do. No doubt the party/gathering that the op's daughter attended had lots of other things to commend it.

That's extremely young.

Hardly to be used as a bench mark.

And presumably she was therefore at home looking after young babies and kids the vast majority of her time; not having to negotiate London clubs surrounded by coke and sleazy men.

(Oh and tbh I'd question the parenting of anyone who went along with their daughter marrying at 17 (?) and having two children by 19).

What responsibility are you accepting in any of this? Why did you or your husband not go and collect her. She isn’t your son’s child.

I think you’re being a bit OTT if I’m honest. Your son left your daughter on a night out 🤷‍♀️ She’s an adult who got helped into a cab by other adults. No-one died. Chill out.

It sounds like your son was expected to babysit her and she took off without telling him that's not his fault. She sounds a very young 19 that she couldn't manage independently to get a cab there are people on gap years travelling the world at a younger age....

Im surprised at the posts saying he didn't have to look after her, when people go out as a trio of friends do they not look out for each other, particularly when one knows no one else but the other 2 people. Do people really not check if their friend/sibling is ok/not super drunk/not had their drink spiked etc. The fact that the both knew she was nervous, knew no one else and actually promised to watch out for her makes it worse. I get that he didn't want to 'babysit' but then he shouldn't have invited her..... Does he watch out for his girlfriend on a night out?

Presumably, if it were a cultural practice, the daughter would have known not to leave the club too?

Plenty of people do give a fuck about it but It is naive to think they aren’t going to be around in clubs and parties. I don’t know what you can do as an individual to change the culture apart from making an individual decision and educating your children. Governments have consistently failed to stop them entering the country so I’m not sure what I can do about it.

I don’t think anyone here is encouraging taking coke are they? Just saying that it happens.

Same as nobody is normalising men groping women in clubs, just stating that it happens.

You’ve projected your neuroticism onto your daughter, have read the whole thread, agree with everyone who says you and her are being dramatic, I feel you probably enjoy that though.

Secondly, this is what nightlife is like! It’s not a tea dance or lemonade social. It’s drinking, drugs, sex, dancing. You don’t have to participate in all those things, but it’s what has always gone on in back alleys and clubs, deal with it.

It was absolutely NOT a miscommunication. OP said daughter was hesitant, and nervous but they promised they’d keep an eye on her. They failed to do that