AIBU to think the relative handled the drunk teenager appropriately?

[Random321]

16 year old supposed to be at a friend's house ends up drinking and calls a relative (not a parent) after midnight to come get her.

She's collected, tipsy but not dangerous, small cut which is cleaned up, given water & toast and give a bed for the night and is supervised for the night to make sure she's ok.

Should the relative have rang parents and brought her to home or did they do the right thing in making sure she's alright and looked after her and brought her home in the morning instead.

I am none of the people in this story but just interested in people's opinions.

This was a child. She’s the responsibility of her parents. Of course they should have been told. In a kind and loving way with the offer to keep her with them, but it was still for them to risk assess and do what they thought was right. And of course your niece should be encouraged to reach out to an adult for help and it’s great she did that, but the uncle seriously overstepped here.

I agree with you

I would have done what your brother did @Random321 but I would have called the parents at 2am and told them of the plan. They are probably upset about finding out after the fact.

Your niece rang a responsible and trusted adult. The immediate priority was getting her safe. She did that with the help of the uncle. She wasn’t massively hurt or at risk, and it was clearly beneficial to wait til morning.

Her parents and everyone else wading in will disincentivise her from asking for help in future.

If you needed to trace them you'd call their phone.

I agree with this if it had been earlier, but you’re going to give someone a serious fright ringing them at 2am.

I might perhaps have texted, but I don’t think I’d ring at that hour unless the 16 year old was ill or distressed.

I think a lot depends on the family situation of course but a text would be a good middle ground. At least there’s not a surprise. I know 16 is an in between age and you don’t always know exactly where they are - my daughter is 13 so am guessing things will feel very different in a few years!

Honestly the parents need to take a look at themselves and consider why their daughter didn't ring them? Going "nuclear" about this will result in their daughter not ringing anybody I'm future and being left in a potentially dangerous situation.

So I’d be silently fuming that I was expecting my child to be in place X but was actually in place Y and my brother knew about it.

It would be different if my 16yo said she was at a sleepover but then was somewhere else (like a partner’s house) because been there done that it’s part of growing up. But if my own adult sibling knew then I would expect them to tell me out of respect.

In this situation though, I would not have expected child to be brought back to me, just to know where she is and that she’s safe.

Because there’s more to raising children than keeping them safe. That’s the bare minimum thing - parents pay people to do this at various stages eh babysitters and nannies etc. That’s the role your brother/SIL fulfilled. But as a parent I would have wanted to see the state of my DD at that moment for myself. I would have wanted to pick her up, assess how drunk she was, speak to whichever adult was in charge etc so I could work out how to correctly talk to DD the following day. This was sly/underhand on the part of the niece - but fine, teenagers are sometimes. But it was indeed “fucking clueless” on the part of your brother/SIL. This is what friends do for each other, they were treating her like their equal or a friend, like they would have at uni. But per my first line: there’s so much more to parenting than this. This is what posters mean by parental responsibility. PARENTal levels and types and varieties of responsibility.

Your niece did the right thing. Your sister should be relieved that she had someone she felt she could ring. Your sister should consider why your niece felt she couldn't ring her. Was your sister an angel at the same age?

Thanks everyone. My sister and her husband are good parents and they do have a good relationship my niece.

My niece is a good kid. She's at that experimental age but has good grades, respect for her parents and generally doesn't get in trouble.

Of course, she knew her parents wouldn't be happy - she was underage drinking and lied about where she was. If she rang either of her parents, I've no doubt they would have gone to get her too.

My niece just took the easiest option - my brother's house is only 10 minutes away so I understand it. I haven't been talking to her but I suspect she thought he might not have told her parents. In fairness to him, he told her she had to do it.

I still think my sister is wrong but it won't be a long term issue. She'll calm down later in the week.

A responsible adult should be able to make a judgment call about a child, especially a relative, and a parent should be able to trust that they got it right. There was nothing sister could have done better than brother did.

Whilst I do agree that texting the parent to let them know would have been the right thing to do after taking care of teen and putting them to bed, but the parents’ response indicates precisely why the teenager opted to contact the relative and not the parents. I’d want that teen to know that I would be there if it ever happened again and that if there is anything else going on that they could reach out.

You really are clueless and absolutely determined to believe you are right. In fact, you are not. It’s very clear that you are not a parent yourself.

I'm a parent. I can't see any reason why I should have been woken up at 2 a. m to be told my 16 year old was perfectly safe at my brother and sister in law's house.

It's the "I don't have kids" that gave it away, isn't it?

I am a parent. I am entirely not outraged at the idea the other parties involved in this didn't wake me at 2 in the morning to tell me something which could wait until a more reasonable time.

Same!
I can understand the parents being worried and that they were entitled to know everything as and when it happened. But the uncle etc did nothing wrong. Presumably nothing bad has happened as a result of this - the DD is fine?

There was nothing sister could have done better than brother did.

That is so spectacularly not the point.

I actually think if that's the phrase people keep using that would infuriate me even more. Unless there's some sort of drip feed about abuse or neglect, the parent > the aunt and uncle.

I think the most important thing to focus on here is that the 16 year old felt safe to call family for help and for the parent to consider why the child didn't feel safe calling them for help. I have a firm rule with my kids - if they need me, they call me, judgement free. My parents had this rule with me - if I ended up somewhere I didn't want to be, by being stupid or any other reason, I could call them. And I did a few times - a few parties that went wrong, once when a friend got dangerously drunk at a club, once when my friend got drunk and couldn't (shouldn't) drive me home... my dad came to get me and I got home safe. And now my daughter is getting old enough for this to be relevant, I remind her of this all the time.

Me three.

To add as a child, my DF unfortunately had the experience of a knock at the door from the police at 1am with the news his brother had died in an RTA. I would think very, very carefully about calling someone in the middle of the night, when it wasn’t necessary.

Maybe I view this differently because I live in a part of the uk where you can be married at 16, leave school and work. 16 - 18 is therefore a bit of a grey area in terms of adult or child but for me it is therefore a good period to build independence and judgement.
I would have been happy that my 16 yr old had had the sense to get herself out of the situation and the sense to call the nearest relative. I would have been very grateful to aunt and uncle for looking after her overnight. At 2 am I would have been asleep and not appreciated being woken. If the parents had been contacted they would either have done nothing till the morning so no point in waking them or would have gone to get their daughter keeping more people awake for longer. I would have expected a text or WhatsApp message I would see when I woke and would then act.
The way the aunt and uncle have been treated sends a message to the niece that she should not do this again, if she is then reluctant to call her parents again she may stay in a risky situation or do something like sleep out or try to walk home.

100% agree. I'm in Scotland too.

Perfect response .. to give parents heads up. The problem is that if for any reason it goes south this is difficult to resolve if parents are not informed - could have imbibed mor gangrenous drugs unbeknown to relative. I know I am very very vigilant when my son has been out and been involved in anything as I have personal experience of how quickly and ridiculously things can sour.

But I don't know the relationship between any of the parties but in any situation I would alert the actual person who has parental responsibility and who can actually authorise intervention in an emergency. And my sister would go ballistic if I didn't inform her if the situation and I have great relationship with both her and neice. Keep everyone safe including yourself.

Depends. If the relative way an aunt or grandparent just clean the kid up, get them asleep then take them found for a bollocking from parents the next day. There’s no point panicking everyone when the kid is drunk. It can all be addressed in the morning. And it’s best the kid knows they can call for help.