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.

@RedToothBrush"I struggle to understand what the brother could realistically have done more. Save leaving the club and searching for his sister and therefore ending his own night and that of his gf who he was also with. It sounds like she was determined to leave regardless of how much looking after her tried to do."

I don't think it would have meant ending his own night and his GF's night out.

His GF was invited and with friends. So if they were stuck outside she could have named the person who put her on the guest list and got back in. Hardly a stretch. The DD couldn't answer that when asked as she didn't know them.
Also. It's easy if you are inside a venue to talk to the doorman from the inside and ask if he's seen her.
It's often impossible to get readmitted once you are outside.
She made a mistake leaving, but I don't think she was determined to leave, the OP said she wanted to rejoin them, but they'd moved, she couldn't find the people she came with after texting and looking for them to no avail, she thought they had left her there or were outside smoking or something. As to getting home, she saw a group of girls and took their advice on which taxi to get and she got home OK.

Yes, agree

I would also have been scared by the situation as an 19 year old.

But it seems totally wet to run out and phone your mummy because you have no idea what to do

Well, yes, I can’t disagree with that. It’s an oversight on their part and I get the impression that they are also quite naive. The only person who seems to have a bit of street sense about them is the older brother, so the onus really was on him on that particular night out. (Especially as he’d promised to look after her.)

It sounds like this particular type of night out was too much, too soon for your daughter. I think you are being unfair to your son and his girlfriend. What would you have them do? Follow your daughter around all night just in case she decided to bolt out of the door?

There is ‘keeping an eye’ on someone and then there is not letting an adult out of your sight. If your daughter left the venue voluntarily then she is responsible for this. It is not for her brother, or anyone else, to anticipate she would simply just leave.

I would be very worried that your daughter lacks the sense to stop, think and make a reasoned decision, rather than running away. She was arguably safer in the club than she might have been outside of it.

If I was your son I would be a bit pissed off with you and your daughter.

She was told the girlfriend would be in the smoking area and she was in the toilet with the model friend.

She left the toilet in tears because the model friend was doing drugs and refused to go into the smoking area to the girlfriend

At what point do we expect a 19 year old girl to start to become responsible for themselves and to know basic ways to look after themselves?

Don't think it will matter how many times this is said, for some the dd is a little cowering timorous creature, and her DB and his Gf and friends equivalent of the baddies in the Taken film!

I’m with your DH on this one. She is an adult. Surely she knows that people do drugs and there are plenty of sleazy men in nightclubs? Even if she has never been to one.

I don’t really see why she was crying and why you’re so angry. She went out, saw someone doing a line of coke (but wasn’t pressured to do any herself), received some unwanted attention from some men (but wasn’t sexually assaulted), some nice girls popped her into a cab, she came home. Sounds like a pretty tame night.

Why have you quoted me?

If she didn't know anyone else there, is a bit young for her age, and it's very unfamiliar territory for her, I would have expected her brother and his girlfriend to hang around with her, share a table, stand around in the same group. Obviously they would go and dance together, get drinks, etc but I would expect them to circle back round to her frequently to check she was OK, particularly if there were dodgy older men around, that the gf might well have been aware of. It can be quite intimidating and scary being alone in a crowd of strangers.

If they just walked in with her and then abandoned her I would be pretty furious too.

And movies, and tv dramas. Maybe even pub toilets on a busy night...

I’m a bit on the fence. Your son promised to keep an eye on her but in fairness she left the place in her own accord.
Why didn’t she go and find your son or ask someone if they knew where he was and tell him she wanted to leave. He may have made sure that she got a taxi home?
He may not have answered his phone because he couldn’t hear it. My husband never hears his!

Regardless of age, family or not it’s rude and selfish to go on a night out and fuck off leaving them with people they don’t know in a situation you know they wont be comfortable with.

My best friend is 34 there’s no way i’d do a french exit leaving her with mates of mates she didn’t know all doing drugs! (Which she wouldn’t like)

You do however need to make sure she’s more robust to handle these situations. People do get selfish when alchol etc is involved that is life. She needs to be confident to sort herself out, and get home alone via taxi / bus if need be. Wherever in the country and world she is.

But OP said that her husband also called her naive for not expecting to see drugs and smoking and alcohol on a night out?

There's a difference between seeing something new and being shocked and failing to parent to the point where someone taking drugs and not knowing how to get a taxi leaves you sobbing and hysterical. Not to mention the daughter ran out of the club crying rather than staying in one place at the club where she would have found her brother eventually.

Maybe some toddler reigns if you've any plans for today would help?
Heaven forbid you go and look in a shop window when you're on the King's Road and she doesn't want to go with you!

Good thing they didn’t do this then, eh?

If they just walked in with her and then abandoned her I would be pretty furious too.

Good job they didn't do that then.

Nothing like it

Wow, that’s some storytelling to twist what actually happened. Brava!

But she was told where the girlfriend was on the club and the daughter refused to go into the smoking area

Why is it ok that she ignored where two people were and instead chose to run out of the club crying?

Regardless of age, family or not it’s rude and selfish to go on a night out and fuck off leaving them with people they don’t know in a situation you know they wont be comfortable with

Good job they didn't do that either then!

Brother couldn't go into the toilet with her! GF offered to take her after having a smoke, she wouldn't wait. So GF's friend took her, but daughter got freaked out and ran out of the club

Re not getting back in, do they not do that stamp on the hand thingy anymore?
I am a teen clubber of the 90s though so may be pas la mode these days!

@BustingBaoBun Its just how it was. My parents did give advice, and of course the Ripper being on the loose magnified everything. Mum wanted to wrap me in cotton wool but I was having none of it, she was an anxious person at times, and I was sensible enough to set my own standards, know right from wrong, and learn without doing anything stupid. I grew up strong and independent, but tempered with decent limits, a fair amount of common sense and reasonable boundaries. Managed to have no major frights or bad experiences.
I do get a bit puzzled about how pseudo dramatic things are for a lot of folks nowadays, but there’s so much trash on social media and in the papers, trivia in a lot of instances blown hugely out of proportion. Can’t be an easy world to navigate for some, but reading about the truly horrific stuff in other parts of the World puts things into perspective.

Having a point to meet back up at is sensible, not an unrealistic ‘level of support’. Do you leave your mates for hours on end and disappear when they’ve gone to the loo? It’s the decent thing to do as you have all gone out together.

She was sent to the loo with someone known for doing coke - “she’s a model, she does coke sometimes on a night out it’s a tale as old as time” so not the best choice. Perhaps she was chaperoned as she would struggle to get back into the area they had been admitted to before (which it sounds from further posts from OP) or perhaps it was just a classic case of people going to the loo in pairs / not on their own as often seems to naturally happen on a night out. Some are choosing to infer she needed a minder all night: as her first time out in London on clubbing she needed an extra eye which isn’t unreasonable but also the issue still remains that you go out as a group and you don’t leave a member behind (especially not the least street savvy and youngest one..)

Yes she sounds naïve to going out in London or clubbing in general, however we all were once. One would imagine that her brother would have been best positioned to understand this, hence, I imagine, having her go to the loo with someone as opposed to no-one.

What I will note is that it took OP nearly 4 hours to get back in contact with her son - that’s not being a good friend, let alone a good sibling. I’d also suggest not talking over the situation whilst the son was still drunk (and perhaps even high..?) and wait for the morning to do it sober.

Looks like a lesson learnt all around but it’s good that OP’s daughter is safe

I love how the girls outside realised she was upset and helped her get a cab. That's sisterhood! Hopefully your dd has learnt from this and can reflect that she needs to build up her life skills if she wants to do this kind of thing. I wouldn't be blaming your son.

Yes, you're right. The thread is about the OP's concern for her daughter, but I don't think my point is redundant. IMHO the daughter is safer overall because she's not happy in circles where there's addictive behaviour. She's risk-averse. Yes she could do with more confidence but maybe that will come. London at night can be frightening if you're not used to it. There is a difference in being out at a club full of strangers, where drugs are about, than say at the theatre or cinema with friends, or in a pub. It is relevant because the daughter panicked because of the environment and she saw someone doing coke in the loos. If she was in a library she probably wouldn't have had the same reaction. The son could have given his sister the heads-up and say "this may not be your thing so maybe we do something else"?

It can be but has the added advantage of paying in advance so no cash needed and you can share the ride with someone else.so.they can track the journey whilst you're on it.