You can’t choose your kids’ friends for them.

And sometimes, when they make the wrong choices, this can feel like a really painful truth.

And if you try to push a friendship onto your kid?

A friendship that they’re not into?

Well that can have some pretty uncomfortable consequences, as the mom in this story found out.

Read on to find out exactly what went down.

AITA for embarrassing my aunt at a baby shower instead of showing tact and declining an invitation request more respectfully?

My mom and “Jenny” have been best friends since they were little.

We aren’t actually related but I still call her “Aunt Jenny.”

Jenny’s daughter “Ellie” is 16 (the same age as me), and Jenny is sadly the kind of mom who thinks Ellie is never wrong.

Here are some examples from over the years:

Ellie stole a hair ribbon from another girl?

The other girl was lying because she was jealous of Ellie.

The teacher gave Ellie an F because she didn’t do the work?

The teacher is also jealous of Ellie.

(Also yes I know there are bad teachers out there, I have had a few myself. But every single one and all the time? Really?)

Ellie’s sister “Annie” hasn’t talked to Ellie since moving out?

Nothing happened and Jenny has no idea why Annie is refusing contact.

(Jenny is so in denial about this one especially. Something obviously happened that Jenny doesn’t want to admit to.)

Mom notices this too, but she usually just changes the subject away from Ellie but never says anything about it directly to Jenny because she doesn’t want it to hurt their friendship.

Jenny usually does take the hint and changes the subject.

Let’s see where this story goes next.

Recently, Mom took me to a baby shower where Jenny happened to be.

They obviously talked and my mom mentioned that me and my friends have a camping trip planned soon.

Jenny was openly hinting that she wanted me to invite Ellie too.

Mom picked up on it and basically tried inviting Ellie along.

So before she finished her sentence I loudly said, “Oh hell no!”

Jenny clearly wasn’t happy, and Mom told me that my trip was cancelled.

By the time we got home, she had luckily changed her mind about canceling the trip but was still mad at me.

I said that her and Jenny have been friends forever, but I didn’t choose to be Ellie’s friend, and didn’t want her coming along.

Uh-oh. Read on to find out what this girl’s mom said to that.

Mom said she knows I don’t have a great opinion of Ellie and that she knows Ellie has plenty of issues, but I should have declined respectfully instead of embarrassing Jenny.

She said that I should have said something like, “sorry, I would prefer nobody else come since we don’t have room or supplies for another person,” or, “my friends aren’t comfortable with someone they know well coming along.”

I realize I could have been more respectful, but I was also trying to put a stop to that immediately.

Also, we got some looks – I admit I was pretty loud – but everyone outside of Jenny and Mom seemed to move on almost immediately.

So I think she’s turning the “embarrassment” into a bigger deal than it actually was.

AITA?

Yes, the daughter’s outburst would have been pretty embarrassing for her mom here.

But when mother and daughter agree that the other girl is a piece of work?

There was no need to try to push Ellie on her like this.

Let’s check out what Reddit thought of this.

This person agreed that it was the mom’s fault, while empathising with teenage awkwardness.

While this person pointed out that situations like this are all part of learning social skills.

Some people thought that the only problem here was with the aunt’s behavior.

While others put the blame firmly on the mom.

Sure, the girl was tactless, but she’s only 16.

Maybe Jenny needs to learn that not everyone worships her daughter like she does.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.