She Told Her Son’s Friend It Was Bad And Manipulative That He Only Wanted To Sleepover At Their House To Get Pizza
This woman’s 7-year-old son has been making new friends throughout the school year.
Occasionally, he invites about three or four classmates over to sleep over at their house on the weekends. When her son has friends over for sleepovers, she orders two large pizzas and soda for the boys to have.
A couple of weeks ago, on a Wednesday morning, she received a text message from one of the boys’ mothers, asking if her son, T, could sleep over that night.
Since T and his family lived in the same neighborhood as they did, she didn’t think this would be a problem, so she said that he was more than welcome.
She figured that T’s family had something happening at home and needed him to be out of the house for the night.
That afternoon, she picked up T and her son from school, and when they got back to her house, the boys raced upstairs to play video games together.
While they were playing, she started making dinner. She cooked a box dinner and included some sides with the meal. When the food was ready, she called T and her son to come downstairs and eat.
“I hand T his plate. He doesn’t say thank you or look at me. He walks to the table and sits down. I’m thinking, ‘Okay, rude,’ but whatever,” she said.
“T doesn’t touch his food. I asked him if everything was okay. He asks, ‘Were we gonna have pizza tonight?’ I say, ‘Sorry, pizza is for the weekend when everybody comes over.'”
malkovkosta – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
T didn’t say anything else, and after dinner, he walked with her son back up to his room to hang out. While they were upstairs, she started doing the dishes.
A few minutes later, her son came downstairs and told her that T wanted to go home. She asked her son why, and he only shrugged his shoulders.
She walked up the stairs to talk to T, and she asked him if it was true that he wanted to leave. He told her that it was, and she asked him to explain why he wanted to go home after he’d wanted to sleep over on a school night.
T only shrugged, not making eye contact, and he kept watching YouTube videos. Finally, she asked him if the reason he wanted to sleep over was that he assumed they would be eating pizza. Once again, T shrugged his shoulders and refused to look at her.
“I said, ‘T, look at me and answer now. Did you only come here because you thought you were going to eat pizza?’ He finally nodded but still didn’t look at me,” she explained.
“I told him, ‘I’m sorry, we’re not having pizza tonight, but you can still have fun with my son.’ He said, ‘No thanks. I really want to go home.'”
To get to the bottom of the matter, she asked T about a hypothetical scenario: If she would no longer order pizza for her son and his friends when they slept over at her house, would he still come over to hang out with her son? T pondered this for a moment before shaking his head.
She expressed to him that it wasn’t acceptable to exploit people for his own gain, and if he was pretending to be her son’s friend in order to eat the pizza she ordered, then she wouldn’t let him come over to her house anymore. T didn’t argue with this and just shrugged again and said, “‘Okay.'”
Then, she called T’s mother to ask her to pick him up after she informed her of the situation. T’s mother understood but also sounded a little annoyed, but she picked up her son less than an hour later.
“The next morning, I get a text from her saying I had no right to yell at her son like that, and I’m being petty over pizza,” she shared.
“I asked her what she was talking about, and I certainly did not yell at him. I explained to T that it was not okay to act like he wanted to be friends with someone in order to get things he wanted, and it’s manipulative and bad.”
T’s mother asked her if this was truly how she thought life worked, sarcastically congratulating her on assuming it was possible for a 7-year-old boy to understand the concept of manipulating people, calling her “‘such a good mommy'” (which she also meant sarcastically).
She didn’t text back because it was clear that T obviously didn’t have a positive influence at home, so she didn’t want to waste more energy.
However, she has been spending the last few days reflecting and wondering if maybe it would have been best if she hadn’t confronted T at all.
What would you have done if you were in her shoes?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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