Is 17 old enough to let a kid decide they don’t want to go to their mother’s birthday party?

Well, however you feel about the subject, it happened in this story from Reddit!

And now the kid’s dad wants to know if he acted like a jerk.

Let’s see what the heck is going on here…

AITA for not making my son go to his mother’s 40th birthday party and calling her a terrible mother?

“I share two sons with my ex (17M & 15M). This situation involves my older son. My ex wanted a daughter, but it was not in the cards for her.

So, when my son started dating a girl 2 1/2 years ago, my ex immediately welcomed her with open arms. They got quite close. My son wanted to date other girls, so he broke up with her about 3-ish months ago.

Oh, no…

The girl did not take it well. But, my ex took it even worse. My ex has been pestering our son about the breakup whenever she can. She has even done this in front of other girls my son is interested in. It has gotten so bad that my son has decided to not go over to my ex’s house anymore.

I have talked to my ex about her behavior. She claims she is simply being a “concerned” parent. We have had a number of arguments about this. Anyways, this past weekend was a surprise birthday party for my ex’s 40th.

I asked my sons if they were going. My younger went, but my older son felt no desire to go. I did not pressure him and told him it was his decision to make.

The party came and went on Friday night. Saturday, my ex called & texted our older son trying to find out why he did not come to the party. He did not respond. She eventually contacted me.

She wanted to know what was going on.

She asked to speak to our son, I told her unless she is intending to apologize, I am not going to have him speak to her. She got pretty mad and said he is the one who owes her an apology. An argument ensued.

I ended up saying something like, “You have spent the last few months treating our son like a criminal over a breakup. When you are ready to stop being a terrible mother and apologize, you can talk to him.”

She started crying and I hung up. My younger son has been with his mom and says things have been tense for him. I do not want that for him.

AITA?”

Here’s what people had to say on Reddit.

This person said he’s NTA.

Another individual agreed.

This Reddit user shared their thoughts.

Another reader weighed in.

And this person spoke up.

You can’t blame the kid for not wanting to be around his mother right now.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.