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.

So why wasn't she better prepared by Mom and Dad and told what to do and how to get a taxi?

She was completely inexperienced and had no clue how to deal with a situation yet the OP is desperately trying to place the blame elsewhere

But he wasn’t THERE for her to ask her to put her in the cab home. She was looking for him. He left somewhere and ‘delegated’, and his GF went somewhere too. He should have at least been checking his phone regularly if he did that. GF is less responsible as DD isn’t her sister

Overall he did fuck up because he was a bit careless. He should have done better, especially when he suggested for DD to join them AND said that he’d look after her.

It is always a good idea that a group of young adults out for the evening should try to stay together. At the very least, they should keep an eye on one another.

But it was your DD who broke this code. Your DD left the club without telling her brother. I was be very annoyed with her for doing something so foolish. She sounds completely clueless and lacks basic common sense. However, that may be down to her upbringing.

Also, how about a little accountability for daughter. She knew exactly where brother was (bar) and girlfriend (smoking area) and she chose to LEAVE the venue. This is a good learning moment for her to be honest, if you are uncomfortable then think about what you need. The answer was very simple. Go to her brother or his girlfriend. Not exit the venue.

Prepared her for what? They put their trust in their son. Maybe the parents shouldn’t have had such high expectations of their son that he wouldn’t abandon his inexperienced sister for two hours.

She's old enough to look after herself

I'm on the fence - It sounds like you are infantilising your daughter. It sounds like your daughter panicked and run out the club. People often cannot hear their phones in a club.

So why isn't the OP and the Dad considered to have fucked up, considering they know the daughter doesn't know how to get a taxi, wouldn't know how to use the public transport, has never been to a nightclub and has never been in a city?

Why wouldn't you prepare your child for that?

He was there. Exactly where he said he would be, at the bar. Girlfriend at the smoking area. Unless daughter spent forever in the toilets (which given her reaction to the person she was with taking drugs seems very unlikely) then she just needed to go to the places they SAID they would be. Honest to god, do people expect brother to have taken her to the toilets and waited at the door for her?

She was being groped by strange men without her consent! That's not nothing.

YANBU OP. I think the first reply nailed it. I would be absolutely furious with your son. You shouldn't have left her alone and he should have made sure that he knew she was okay at all times.

She's only 19 and I say that as someone who moved out of home and lived on my own from the age of 19. It is still very young in terms of understanding how those kind of circles behave and how to protect yourself. Her brother had a duty of care to her and he did not fulfil it. I would say the same if it were a big sister with a younger brother.

So you've never been told or told your own child what to do if they get separated for any reason from the group they are with?

Maybe that's something you could try so your child isn't left crying and distressed because they don't know what to do. It's doing the child a massive disservice

She went to the loo. He had to delegate! The gf offered to take the daughter and the daughter refused because for whatever reason she didn't want to go to the smoking area.

And checking your phone regularly isn't any use if there's no/bad signal, which is the case in most clubs I've been to.

Really? Or did you go out with friends and stay together? I wouldn't have been best impressed if my friends abandoned me on a night out at any age let alone aged only 19.

No they don't. They do it to women. They don't do it to men.

No. You’re mistaken. Read all the OP's posts again. The son was there.

Your daughter does seem a little sheltered - there are thousands of 19yo women in nightclubs in London every weekend who can sort their own way home - but at the same time I can see why you're cross; your son wasn't supposed to be looking after those women, he was supposed to be looking after his sister, who he should have anticipated would need some help. Abandoning her was not cool.

You are mot missing out :-), and you are not alone in never having witnessed it. However you might have done had you been in a certain place and time, even in a different room. It is usually done discreetly or with friends who are also snorting.

I've seen it a few times but many years ago. I have heard of it being done more recently, I mentioned earlier someone I know. It doesn't shock me at all but I can honestly say I've never been tempted. Having hay fever is bad enough, or used to be, I haven't had that for quite a while. I know instinctively that coke would produce a similar reaction in me. No thank you.

What other people do is their business.

They were staying together. Her brother couldn't take her to the toilet so another female had to take her. The daughter then left the toilet and club in tears after seeing the girl doing coke

Just because you don’t experience things in your home town doesn’t mean you can’t have the ability to figure stuff out, growing up in a small place doesn’t mean you’re incapable of common sense thinking.

It doesn't happen by osmosis either. It might be common sense to you, but if it is outside of your daily experience I don't think common sense comes into it.

I am an ex Londoner.

Several years ago DD, a friend and her DD (who is also DD's best friend) and I went to London for the weekend. My friend is confident, outgoing and very high up in her job yet when we negotiated the underground and DLR (two changes) she thanked me for taking charge because she didn't have a clue.

I happened to know that we each had to use a separate debit card for the underground and that we had to scan the cards on the way out. Not all strangers to London know this. I often see questions on the travel board on MN from posters asking how to use the underground.

Back in the day it was easy. You just queued up to buy a ticket from the kiosk or a machine.

You make 'sheltered' sound like an insult. Did you mean to?

Why are you making such a huge deal about black cabs?

Why are you making such sweeping statements like 'life accommodating you'? Based on what? Getting a black cab? Not being aware that if one was on the other side of the road they'd do a U-turn for me?

I moved from a tiny village too.
I've given one example around a black cab.

And yes, women are assaulted in cabs. Have you read the Uber stats? So a 19 year old is right to be wary. The fact you were assaulted in a Cotswold village doesn't change that.

I spent years surviving on my own, including driving the length of the UK at 21 (for 12 hours), getting trains across the UK for interviews, crossing London on my own on the tube.
I could go on.

I didn't have parents to advise me as they'd never moved out of their own small village.

I reached my teens at the end of the 60s, and we were doing this even then. We'd also agree a rendezvous point in whatever venue we were at in case we got separated and we'd each have a separate stash of cash in case of lost purses.

No ubers or mobiles then, either: you had to walk to a taxi rank and wait in a queue.

When I was a bit older, and mugging had started to become a thing, it was quite normal to carry 2 purses or wallets, so you could hand over one with a couple of out of date cards and a £5 note in and keep the "real" one with your cash and current cards.

Meh. She had a rubbish night, lesson learnt. Hopefully she can use that experience to toughen up a bit.

I've lived in London for a couple of decades now and been on many many nights out and witnessed some - umm - interesting things in the toilets of pubs and clubs over the years. But I grew up in a small village and used to go to pubs and small clubs in the local towns as a teen in the late 90s, I can certainly tell you drugs were taken and more besides in the toilets. Coke and groping men are not London only thing.

The gf offered to take her to the loo but she didn't want to go with her so she went with another of their friends instead. That's why he wasn't there. She was in the ladies loo and then left the venue without telling him.

And she's not a child. That's a perfectly reasonable scenario. It's not like letting your 5 year old go to the loo with someone they've only just met.

I partied like there is no tomorrow but I think it’s ridiculous people assume that being drunk in night clubs, around groping men and around people doing coke is a life skill that everyone should possess by the age of 18.

If these posters had ‘wild’ upbringing that’s up to them but lets not pretend it is normal. It’s probably the same people who are making Brits famous around Europe for their binge drinking

legal drinking age in the UK is 18, and people shouldn’t be in night clubs before 18, so NORMALLY you wouldn’t expect someone to get really experienced in night club drinking. Unless as I said they are wild and go drinking every weekend.

Of course.... its all focus on the dd now isn't it.
What a shame that a family visit to see DS and how well things are going for him in London is now totally overshadowed with DD and your dramallama at the center of things because of the people she was out with not realising how everything must focus on her and all her needs must be attended to.
Think @RedToothBrush had it with the golden child comment up thread.
Is Dd usually the centre of everything at home?