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.

Because I know a lot of people in that age group. The vast majority would put looking out for their naive young sister ahead of their own night, just on the one occasion she was there. The OP clearly thought he would too. The fact he didn't suggest he's irresponsible. The fact this isn't what OP expected of him suggests he's changed. Not hard is it..? And just out of interest, what makes you so sure he's not?

I think I'd have ripped ds a new one tbh. Obviously the drug use in his circle has become very normalised for him and gf (which would concern me in itself) but he shouldn't be expecting a sheltered 19 year old to know how to deal with that.

I also think it's unfair for him to have left gf friend looking after dd when it was his responsibility. He should have made sure she was with either him or his gf.

I was going out in a big city at 18 and I never ever would have left one of my friends alone, we always did things in a group and as we got older if a younger sibling went out I'd have made sure to look out for them. I think your ds has dropped the ball here and he's very lucky nothing happened to dd.

It'll be a good learning experience for dd about what she is comfortable with and how to manage those situations. But your ds knew the dynamic of the group and what his sister is like and should have been a better support to her.

And I'm really shocked at the pps suggesting that it's fine for someone to touch ops dd and be sleazy just because she was in a club. We absolutely should not be encouraging that because we know it escalates and women have the right to move in ANY social setting without men thinking they have a right to access their body in any way. Context is irrelevant.

She also knew where the brothers girlfriend was but didn't want to go in the smoking area.

But mostly nothing happens. Even around drunk, cocaine taking sleazes. It's why people still go to clubs.
And in these days of consent, mobiles, cabs, Ubers etc it's much easier to be safer than when I was young.

What a ridiculous take on female independence

Ffs, no one has said its OK for a man to touch the daughter and be sleazy. Literally one person said that's what men do.

Again, parent your child to know that this is not ok and that sadly men do this.

Sending them out completely naive then blaming someone else for not babysitting them is frankly ridiculous and awful parenting

Scotland, but okay 😂 I don’t know anyone who says loo, sorry if you find ‘bathroom’ uncouth, problematic or whatever to make you mention that… 🙄

I’ve read the thread perfectly fine, the number of people commenting along similar lines to me would suggest that my understanding of the situation is similar to others?

Just to check - are you aware your opinions aren’t fact? And that you don’t own the English language?

One final thing, perhaps if she’d gone to the smoking area where she knew Girlfriend was, this all could have been avoided?

I may be wrong but you don’t seem to have read the thread very carefully, as you’ve omitted that quite significant piece of information.

I also think it's unfair for him to have left gf friend looking after dd when it was his responsibility. He should have made sure she was with either him or his gf.

The sister was going to the loo so he couldn't stay with her. The gf offered to accompany her after going to the smoking area but the sister refused. What do you suggest they should have done? All of this was the result of the sister's own decisions counteracting the brother and girlfriend's efforts to look after her.

You can't help people who don't want to help themselves and you can't look after people who run off alone and leave the club alone without telling anyone.

All these 'I was going to London clubs when I was fifteen' responses are completely beside the point. So what? Maybe you'd climbed Everest when you were sixteen. Maybe you'd driven across the US at eighteen. Maybe you'd shagged the West Ham squad by the time you were twenty. But that doesn't mean that everyone should be ready for any of that at the ages you did it.

OP, your son invited his little sister on a night out. However used to the environment she may be, he ought to stay around her. That's just polite when you bring someone into your group. And in this case, he must have known that she was inexperienced in that situation, so he ought to have been looking after her a bit more attentively.

Yes, I'd give him a rocket. And I'm sure he'll say, 'but she's eighteen. She should grow up a bit'. To which the reply is, 'and she's your sister. Maybe you should grow up a bit.'

You ‘knowing a lot of people in that age group’ is absolutely not evidence of the fact that all people in that age group are immature and easily led/crowd followers. Such a weird statement to make! He did look out for her. He told her to stay with the group of girls, she didn’t and she chose to leave the nightclub.

Just because he didn’t babysit his 19 year old sister like his mum expected him to does not mean he’s a bad person, or that he’s ’changed’, it literally means he’s a 25 year old bloke who thought his sister would be able to handle a night out.

What makes YOU so sure he’s the way you’re implying? You know as much about this son as I do 😂

I'm just waiting to be accused of being American for using the word Mom....

That’s exactly what happened. She went back but he wasn’t there!

🙄 some people have terrible reading comprehension skills

🙄🙄🙄 No, I read it and understood.

It was on the daughter to find her brother. She didn't, she left. Of course people don't stay in the same spot in a club. She needed help and should have looked for her brother, not just left, when she had no clue how to look after herself.

Well then he abandoned her. She was counting on him to be one place, and he left it, without communicating it to her – he could’ve sent her text message.

She new the GF was in the smoking area, she knew the model friend was in the toilet.

Her brother left her going to the toilet with one of his friends. He didn't need to stay stock still and wait for her to come back, she would have been able to find him again if she'd stayed with the model friend

Not The Americans!!! I mean, I’m sure American parents are allowed opinions… Very odd comment from that poster, almost as though they didn’t really have much to say but wanted to try and be snide. I personally wouldn’t try and use
the use of the word ‘bathroom’ to do that, as it makes you look ridiculous, but that’s just me.

‘Mostly’ but it does happen it’s happened to me and my friend had left me to it. I was very very drunk which was stupid but there are predators everywhere…and it doesn’t matter about the age we live in things are much worse as people know the punishment is not robust

Or you could also teach your daughter how to deal with getting separated on a night out and how to get home?

Or do you seriously expect him to stand outside the toilet and wait for her? Especially after she refused to go into the smoking area where the girlfriend and friends were? Instead she chose to run outside crying and unable to get home?

Everyone putting the blame on the brother can't seem to comprehend that this woman, at the age of 19, didn't know what to do in a scenario where she gets separated from a group of people, didn't know how to get a taxi, didn't know how to Google to find that information out and instead could only get into a crying panic over it.

I've said it till I'm blue in the face, you allowed your child into that situation without preparing them for it and expected a sibling to take over your helicopter parent role.

Poor signal means text messaging is fairly useless in most clubs.

More accurately though, he was expecting her to stick with the friend he'd found to accompany her to the loo, and was therefore able to get the group drinks rather than standing in one place all night, which you seem to have expected him to do.

But he was there he just wasn’t in exactly the same place and why would he be?!

Exactly. Keeping an eye on a younger sister, doesn't mean supervising her like she's a toddler that had to be in sight at all times.

Please read more carefully. I didn't say knowing a lot of people in that age group served as evidence they are immature now, did I? I said the opposite. I know a lot of people in thst age group who would have looked after their sister. The fact that this one didn't suggests he is more immature and irresponsible than most in his age group. In my experience anyway. Though I acknowledge perhaps I know more mature 25 year olds, so might have a higher bar.
The OP thought she could trust him. He behaved differently from her expectations suggesting he has changed from what OP expected of him.
What makes me sure he's irresponsible? The behaviour the OP has described of course, what else?

But she knew where the girlfriend and model friend were?

She chose to run out of the toilet crying because the model friend was doing drugs and refused to go into the smoking area where the girlfriend was.

I'm in England. Born and Bred.

I say bathroom. I've never said loo in my life.

I always think it's funny when one small region of the UK says a word, and then they think the entire country says it.

You were not there. You don't know the whole truth. Regardless, you can’t put your son and girlfriend as babysitters for an adult.. As for drugs. The social world is a lot different to what you remember. People sniffing coke and taking pills is what they do these days. You’ll probably find they don’t drink, which is an evil, more common and destructive. Just ask your son what happened. He will think about it. So should your daughter. Not her lifestyle. Lesson learnt x

Lies, you must be An American!

I am pleased your daughter is ok.

But since she sounds a bit naive and not very confident or competent you need to have the talk that most of us have with much younger teens. The

What To Do To Get Out Of Tricky Situations Talk.

that involves mobile phones, useful apps like Uber, watching out for your drink, who to ask for help, carrying a bit of cash in case mobile banking doesn’t work

if she is on a gap year I expect she is going to University next year, so needs to have the social skills and self help skills under her belt by then so she isn’t having to rely on other people to mind her.