To not expect to owe her £110 for ice cream?

[ForTidyShaker]

I have a receipt from her so it is the true cost.

My daughter is 6 and attended a friend’s birthday party. She was ecstatic to be going. It was at a soft play with someone doing princess make over hair and make up (face paint, all very sweet and harmless). Lovely time.

They had food. And then they were suppose to have cake. I’ve actually seen it in Waitrose, it’s a lovely cake but didn’t cost hundreds.

Anyway, the parents stayed. My son, had respite with his carer for the morning and I was meeting the carer in the car park for hand over after the party.

The party was running a bit late, and there was no sign of his carer. I rang and no answer. He’s had him a while so I wasn’t overly worried.

I went for a quick trip to the loo and was literally only 2 minutes max - I came back into the party room and DS was there with his carer looking for me - And he let go of his hand. DS ran straight for the cake and dug his hands in, eating it.

The other mums were giggling, birthday girl crying. My own DD crying. I was mortified and intervened straight away. But the damage was done.

I apologised over and over whilst handing a very upset, confused and overstimulated child. And told DD we have to go. Before leaving, I gave DS to his carer and ran over, telling the birthday girl’s mum I’d cover the cost. She did a weak smile and then said see you soon

DD was beside herself and had a really awful time of it. I paid the price, believe me.

Anyway, the birthday girl’s mum messaged me today with a bill for £109.59!

’Please see attached the receipt for the replacement desserts. Some children had more expensive things so it was quite costly. Sorry. Hope you are okay Anna’

AIBU not to pay almost £110?! The cake was a standard celebration cake I’ve seen before in the shops 😞 Would you just pay?

Thankfully, DD knows her from an activity and not school so no awkward school run trips.

”rescue her DDs party” oh for goodness sake. I despair for the next generation of children

The OP did make adequate provision for her son - one to one care. There was a mix up in the car park and the carer went looking for her. That was all. She also explained that she couldn’t rectify it at the time because the carer was off shift and she had her two children to deal with. So perfectly reasonable to say send me the bill.

And this is nothing to do with good manners. It’s about a child with significant enough needs to require one to one care. A split second led to the incident and OP did her best in difficult circumstances. It would actually have been a good lesson for inclusion to explain to the children that DS has special needs and that he didn’t mean to ruin the cake. OP has nothing to apologise for - certainly not the actions of her son. The explanation of his special needs , along with the offer to reimburse was enough. He’s a disabled child, not an embarrassment. Vile post.

Dread to think what values any child whose parents go so such lengths to make their parties perfect are being raised with. No wonder so many young people have such little resilience. It’s doing them no favours.

I agree with what you’ve done- sucked it up.

I wouldn’t have expected someone to pay for all the desserts though, it was a generous offer and she’s accepted.

Me too. But at no point has OP advised exactly how ruined the cake was. MN needing this info has been playing on my mind!

So the guests would just watch her eat it ?
I think getting them a desert is a fair enough but probably didn’t need to go for very expensive ones.

Totally this

Loving the cries of "be kind" but not to the child who had their birthday cake ruined. By a child who wasn't invited, wasn't even actually meant to be there but somehow was and wasn't actually being properly supervised like he should have been

I’m on the mums side, an expensive accident for you, but from her perfective she had sourced a cake that was ruined and couldn’t be served, so she offered other deserts which are more expensive at the soft play.

My thought exactly. Had this been me, my mum would have given me a hug, told me not to worry and we would have a cake at home. And I would have gone back to the soft play and had a good time.

I went to a party when I was very young, where another child fell onto the cake. No one found it hilarious. The birthday girl was absolutely distraught.

It's actually made me feel quite sad.
As if OP and her family don't have enough challenges already.
She might come back to this thread and feel utterly shit. Or maybe she's had to develop a really thick skin and will do the wise thing and either not come back or will hide the thread.

Oh. I hate stuff like this, so awkward. 😬

Also very unfortunate that the children were allowed to choose expensive things….maybe she was feeling cross with you, or maybe it was an honest mistake and she was in panic mode a bit?
I would have at the least ordered for them and got the cheapest thing for everyone.

You say your son has respite, so presumably gets DLA? If so, it states that it is for the additional costs of the disability.
I have a son with Autism, and he has been known to break things, I take the cost of replacement from his DLA as that it what it states it’s for.

As an aside, I wonder what your carer was doing with him inside, as he wasn’t invited and the carer was supposed to be looking after him….carer didn’t meet you where you said- outside….
Carer doesn’t sound great to be honest.
It’s such an unfortunate incident but it only happened because the carer decided to take him somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be taken and then sort of stopped caring….
If you agreed to meet outside, that’s where they should have stayed.

This time, it was a cake, what if next time he lets his hand go and he runs under a bus??

Super awkward, but I would pay it as I explained and try to out the whole thing behind you.
It’s not easy being a mum of kids with additional needs and it wasn’t even your fault it doesn’t sound like.
Don’t overthink it, get yourself a cuppa and some nice chocolate and don’t be too hard on yourself 💕

How about teach your children that shit happens! That child will inevitably learn that when accidents happen everyone should bend over backwards to make you happy!

It would make me utterly mortified as an adult to learn that when I was a child some poor mother was forced to give up over a days wages so I got some birthday dessert.

If I were hosting, there is no way I would expect you to cover the cost of anything.

I would have made light of what had happened, asked you if you’d like some cake for your son to have (just to check it was ok for allergies/medical reasons etc), said there was no need to worry, brightly and briskly carried on with the party, got the crying children to stop crying and go play while sorting everything out.

Slightly amazed at the complete lack of caring in these replies. Surely we should be teaching our children that some people are different and that’s ok and that we should give them a break? We have families at our school with siblings with SN who are included with all of our parties/play dates/park visits and all the kids include him as much as they can.

I’ve had siblings be dropped off without the parents checking it was ok then eating all the ice cream and sprinkles then insisting on getting a party bag. I somehow managed not to send the parents an invoice.

Also, what were all the adults doing? How many were standing around watching a child approach a cake? Was it not obvious what would happen next?!

In your opinion. Maybe mine is slightly different? I would never consider a disabled child an embarrassment, but would do what I could to minimise embarrassing situations for both my and all of my children. Arranging a handover a a soft play centre is just silly.

Which will have had a massively marked up menu price list, as all these types of places have.

Unless they're charging £12 for an ice cream cone with a flake, the 'massively marked up menu prices' are irrelevant.

If the party mum was too distracted to put a stop to the over-ordering, the other parents should have.

I would have ordered for my own child in this situation, and they would have been told firmly that the quadruple gum-ball knickerbocker glory the size of a house with added sparklers was not an option just because they'd missed out on a small bit of cake.

Well her daughter's birthday cake was ruined so I guess she did want she had to to try and remedy. Sorry I would have happily paid. People suggesting you should only pay the price of the supermarket cake are obnoxious.

Completely Ruining? Was the cake the whole party? Or just a small bit? Maybe 10 mins max?

Appalled by this whole thread

You said you would cover the cost, unfortunately, that is what you morally need to do. If you had said sorry, I’ll pay for the destroyed cake then that’s a different matter. It is a lot of money but was obviously the only solution at the time. Sorry this happened with your son, it must have been really tough on you and DD..and also birthday girl and her family too (birthday cake/blowing out candles it a big deal as a child).

Another piece of vitriol !! Yes, let’s pile it on and add things that OP couldn’t possibly have fixed at the time - make her feel worse that seemingly everyone here thinks she should be embarrassed by the actions of her disabled son.

The incident provided a ready made opportunity to teach the kids there about inclusion. Instead of seeking to blame OP for the actions of her disabled son, and banging on about the party being ‘ruined’ you could maybe recognise the learning opportunity for the children - that DS has different needs and didn’t mean to ruin the cake. They would hopefully have then gone away with at least a little understanding of what empathy and compassion mean, and a lot more idea of what inclusion means than many posters here.

The girls are only 6 I’m sure they didn’t think let’s have the most expensive pudding. Paying is the only option which the OP has done and said she would cover the cost. It’s a pretty simple solution to an unfortunate event.

The party mum was probably and understandably more concerned with making sure her daughter was ok than policing orders. Don’t think it was fair to include party mum’s name in the post.

I think the crux of the matter here is not the cost of the birthday cake, but the fact that the hostess then proceeded to let the children order whatever they wanted and presented OP with the bill.

What a sad little life your kids must have had if they & their happiness weren’t even the priority ON THEIR BIRTHDAY.

And for a 6 year old, this doesn’t look or feel like an accident. It looks like a random child destroying something that is HERS, and her being expected to just be okay with that… nope🙃 her mum has done absolutely the right thing in making sure her daughter on her birthday was happy.

But none here knows if this was intentional on mum's part or just happened by accident following onto the initial accident.

She may have been too busy making sure her daughter was fine. Other mums. should have also stepped in to assist the situation- there I agree. I wouldn't be a bystander here, I might even offer to pay for my child's dessert but again it should not be expected all kids' parents paid.