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.

What’s your point here? Today isn’t pre mobile days. Assuming the daughter had a mobile, which she did to call her mum, she could have also googled ‘how to get a taxi in London’. The fact you were able to think on your feet and navigate without technology is a good thing.

If you've never watched or experienced people doing class As it's a bit disconcerting at the least. Especially if you're a bit sheltered.

I'm not in the least sheltered, and I'm now old. But it's something I've never seen

I do 'nervous to absolute perfection'. Because I am nervous I plan accordingly. Being nervous isn't an excuse.

The issue here is the daughter panicked and didn't know how to cope.

That's different to being nervous. And a panicked response makes it much more difficult for the son to actually look after his sister. Especially if she disappears at a moment he thinks she's doing something else and has no reason to believe there is a problem.

I would put money on the daughter being 'on a gap year' but not having a job or plans to travel nor even a course intended for next year.

I'd be interested to hear whether the OP comes back and says anything about this.

I agree.
She may be a "young" adult but never the less both her and her brother are adults. It's up to them to navigate this.
Getting told off by your parents is not appropriate in something as minor as going out for a night to a club. There's risks to absolutely everything but part of being a successful adult is navigating them. She'll learn from this, no harm done. Demonising her brother is a retrograde step IMO.

A womans safety is primarily her own responsibility. I'm responsible for getting myself from A to B or doing XY or Z.

My Dad would tell me what to do if separated from friends on a night out, if we went on family days out, he would tell me what to do if we got separated.

Why isn't it the parents fault for not preparing the daughter better so she would know what to do?

Why would you send your child out completely unprepared?

I would expect a 19yo to be able to go to the toilet with a member of our group.

That's not delegating. No 19yo needs their brother to walk them to the toilet, she's not a toddler. She wasn't left alone she ran off.

Well yeah…. I’m 45 and got my first mobile at 19 so when I was having evenings out in London at 17 and 18 if you lost your mates for whatever reason you had to hunt them down and just hope you’d find them otherwise you were heading home alone. Plus there was no night tube or ubers/cab apps to pick you up outside the club, you could be walking around for ages until you found one. It’s a lot easier to at least try to stay safe these days.

On a separate point, coke has been rife in cities for decades. Not just in clubs, but pubs and bars too. I’ve even seen a bride snort it just before her ceremony. It’s not something I want to do and never have but I do think people are very naive when it comes to drug use, particularly coke. You may think people around you aren’t doing it, but some will very likely be.

The brother said he would look after her but he didn’t so you have every right to be upset with him.
Yes daughter is an adult but only young and in her own, not like she even had a friend with her! If there are no taxi outside the club then obviously it can be extremely daunting. Ooor girl, hope she is ok.

I would say this suggests otherwise. Even if she wasn’t sure with brother, she knew exactly where girlfriend was. Because she had refused to go with her. She panicked and ran out, rather than taking a breath. Which is fine, we’ve all done it. But let’s not pretend the ‘she didn’t know where they were’ is accurate, she did but she panicked. It’s a life lesson for her.

“They said they sent her to bathroom with the friend as they trust her, yes she uses cocaine occasionally but she’s a good person. My son went to get drinks for everyone and the girlfriend was going to the smoking area and had offered to take my daughter to the bathroom after but she said she didn’t want to go the smoking area. After that they didn’t see friend again or daughter so assumed they were together doing there own thing and as much as they agreed to watch after her, they also weren’t going to stalk her.”

im on the fence... i find it hard to believe that a 19 year old has not encountered drugs and men?

i also feel that, although brother said he would keep an eye on her, that doesn't mean he has to chaperone her all night. she's 19 and if she's not savy enough to be out then she shouldn't be out!

lesson learned.. next time daughter needs to invite a friend along. yes its annoying that brother hasn't kept an eye on her, but maybe he saw her getting along with people and stepped back to allow her to spread her wings?

Your both being disingenuous about this.

No one has said its a life skill at 18. What's really happened here is that both parents have failed to prepare the daughter in anyway shape or form.

All they've managed to do is scare the girl to death to the point she ran out of a toilet crying because someone did drugs, ran out of the club crying and didn't know how to get a taxi and was too scared to get an uber because you get assaulted and attacked on them.

Why would you EXPECT it? Being in a night club IS NOT A LIFE SKILL.

Ha, I expect there is more coke done in the toilets of my locla suburban Wetherspoons on match day these days than in a fancy Soho club.

I am not keen and do not partake but it is easily ignorable. Although I have in the past had short words with people for holding up the toilet queue by using the cubicle as their personal drug taking arena.

I think the issue with this thread is that people are 'arguing' different points.

Some people are focusing on the girls' inexperience, upbringing and first time club experience.

That's very specific.

Another's are commenting on the girls lack of capacity when finding herself separated from her group and lack of basic life skills.

What London black cabs are like; what London clubs are like; whether models, actors and musicians do drugs or not and what it is like to see that irl for the first time is irrelevant really. Yes, they are the specifics here but this could have happened anywhere where the daughter was in an unfamiliar environment (which, I assume, is why a pp made a reference to a night out with colleagues).

The bottom line is that the daughter should have known basic stuff like don't leave the venue alone. She knew where both her brother and his gf were and could have gone back to either of them but chose not to. She had the option ro go to the loo with the gf and chose not to.

It was the daughter's choices that lead to the outcome. And even if she shouldn't have been expected to anticipate all of those (eg like not being allowed back in the club) she should have known how to book an Uber.

It's not even towns and suburban areas.

If there's fuck all else to do, then drugs are often it now.

No but going to the toilet independently is.

yeah that implies that it is a life skill that parents ought to have taught her. But it is not

AND she didn’t go alone, she went with her brother who promised that he will look after her, so parents did their job alright – she was going with somebody who is experienced and would look after her. Only he didn’t.

You are assuming that we were all brought up in London but I lived in a village so it was all new to me too but my parents did their best to install a bit of resilience and independence. I did make mistakes but didn’t have my parents hovering in the background to pick up the pieces and I learnt from them.

Because it’s going to the bathroom…

It's not always about growing up faster but it's about resilience and how to cope. They failed to prepare their daughter and instead prefer her to be fully cared for by someone else the same way they do and that's not real life.

You can be frightened of things, especially if it's something you've never seen or done but while life experience doesn't always cater for that, your parents should really be teaching you how to cope with simple tasks and basic common sense.

All the OPs daughter has been taught is to fear everything as there will be serious consequences if you don't.

Not in the night club! where – apparently – every sane person should expect lines of coke and groping men on the way there and back.

From my very rich party experience in London, I find doing lines of coke in the nightclub toilet in the open is quite unusual by the way.

and even though it is quite normalised in the UK, IT IS a Class A drug.

I’d be livid. He promised to take care of her and he should have done exactly that.

I taught my son from a very young age what to do if he gets lost on a day out with me.

I taught my son what to do if he gets lost on a school trip.

He's 16, nearly 17 and knows what to do if he gets separated from us or friends on a night out.

He knows how to call a taxi, how to use a train.and has the Uber app and train line app on his phone.

Why wouldn't you teach your child this?

It does sound like she's led a sheltered life, and maybe she could/should have been encouraged to learn how to adult! I was partying in a similar vein at the age of 19, and would have been able to handle myself, but everyone is different.

HOWEVER - presumably your son knows that she's not very streetwise and should definitely have looked out for her.

1. I think that your son did a reasonable amount given that she is an adult
2. Whatever the right and wrongs of this incident, she has a lot of growing up to do