This mom doesn’t have much extra money, but she wanted to make her son’s 13th birthday feel special despite it falling right near Christmas.

She planned a thoughtful celebration—batting cages, games, snacks, and even a scavenger hunt with cash prizes. But days before the party, money she had set aside mysteriously disappeared while only her son and his friend were in the room.

When no one would explain what happened, the birthday plans suddenly came to a halt.

AITA-for canceling my son’s bday over $10

Aita- I 34yo female have a son who is turning 13 this weekend. He bday falls close to xmas and I am not wealthy, we just get by, so many years he doesn’t get a full party.

This year felt like a big milestone becoming a teenager so I wanted to make it special. We invited 10 kids and rented out some batting cages for 1.5 hours, I ordered a cake and planned a whole game and food and snacks.

We live in an apartment so I planned a scavenger hunt outside to keep them entertained after the batting cages and wanted the prize to be soem hidden money.

Sounds perfect.

So on Monday I pulled out $20 and got 4 5 dollar bills. Today is Thursday and his last day of school before break they were having a party at school and so I pulled a $5 out of my wallet and handed it to him and saw the other 3 $5s.

I work from home so went to my room to go back to work, while in there I heard his friend come inside for 5 minutes before they left together.

A little after thay I walk out to get more coffee and I notice that both my purse and wallet are open, which is not like me, so I go and look and see if only have 1 $5 in my purse.

Oh boy.

I immediately call my son asking if he took $10 which he denies. I say we’ll if you didnt take it then your friend must of and he says no.

I feel like I should add that i dont think his friend took the money, he has been in my house lots before and nothing has ever gone missing.

My son was with me when I pulled out the money at the store and knew what I had and where it was. My son has also never stolen money but does sneak extra snacks and cookies and lies a lot about little things.

Dead giveaway.

His lying has been an issue for a while now and sadly i have caught his lying so much i dont believe him much. My son’s refuses to say what happened and how the money disappeared, they were the only 2 in the living room and I 100% saw it when I handed him the $5.

When he got home we tried to talk about it but he still says he didn’t do it and neither did his friend. So I told him that I his bday was cancelled as I feel like he is lying and I do not trust people in the apartment if he has no clue what happened to my money.

A part of me feels like I am overreacting over $10 but I feel like if my son did take and I let him still have a party I am setting an example that he can just steal more next time.

So AITA?

Now she’s turning to Reddit to ask whether she protected an important boundary…or punished too harshly over something small.

Most people are actually not on OP’s side.

This person says a consequence yes, but OP is the AH.

This person says this is pretty cruel.

This person says there isn’t even proof.

It wasn’t the missing $10 that killed the party, it was the missing trust.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.