I am annoyed at my husband. We have a very rocky relationship so this is nothing new. However, I feel he embarrassed the entire family by his actions and would like to appeal to the masses for opinions.
Our daughter is on spring break. A new friend and her family invited our daughter over for a sleep over and a trip to an amusement park the following day. We have had play dates with the child in the past but have only met the parents a few times. We inquired as to the cost of the ticket and was told that they had some comps from a relative that is employed at the park and they were willing to give our daughter one of them. Very kind and generous.
I work, my husband does not at the moment. Since I micro manage everything, I made a list of things he should pack for her and I also leave $50.00 in an envelope to give to the mother for our daughter’s meals at the park (they were going to be there for lunch and dinner) and for any snacks or treats she would like to purchase or share with the other child at the mother’s discretion.
Simple. Or so I thought.
When I arrived home from work last night (after a 12 hour day so I will admit I was a bit testy), I inquired about how it went dropping our daughter off etc. He said he stayed for a good half an hour chatting, our daughter was comfortable and the parents were pleasant. I asked if they had any problem accepting the money. (I thought they might but he was asked to insist if they did.)
He replied that they didn’t ask for money so he didn’t offer it.
It was then my head exploded.
My opinion is he made us all look bad by not offering to pay for our child’s expense even though they had a free ticket for admission. He said that when she was invited, it is automatically assumed they intend to treat the entire time the children are together.
I felt so humiliated that he didn’t offer that I made a detour trip to their house in order to drop off an envelope with the money before they left this morning. She smiled and said that it wasn’t necessary but I did insist she at least buy both the children a souvenir if she didn’t want to spend the money on food. I left feeling better.
My husband said that I was wrong to show up and put her on the spot like that. (I did not call first but knew when they intended to leave and came at that time. Oh and I also brought her toothbrush which husband forgot to pack).
Isn’t it the parent’s responsibility to pay for the child’s expenses when having a play date that includes an outing or does an invitation mean the other parents plan to pay for everything?
I agree with you. It was totally the polite thing to do. In a role reversal situation I would probably not have accepted the money but would be quite miffed if it wasn’t offered at all.
I’m not sure it would have been absolutely wrong not to offer money for expenses. It definitely was appropriate for you to do so, and I’m sure it was appreciated.
BUT - either way, your husband was a jerk for telling you that he would deliver the money, and then failing to do so basically because he didn’t feel like it.
Yep. They shouldn’t ask for the money, and if they can afford it, they shouldn’t accept it, but you should offer it nonetheless.
ETA: Because I agree with *both *of you, actually. I think that he’s right - they invited they pay. AND I think that you’re right - the ticket was offered explicitly, and the ride, and beyond that you’re responsible for your daughter’s needs if they haven’t been discusses beforehand. So that’s why you offer, and they decline. Or, if she’s old enough to manage cash, you send the money with the kid, and she takes out her wallet at the first food stop and they tell her to put it away.
I agree with you. There might be some exceptions. One example - if they were very well off and knew your family was having financial problems and couldn’t afford such an outing at this time, but wanted to treat your daughter anyway. Then you could reciprocate with an event within your budget. Or if your families had a history of treating each other’s kids. It works out even either way, after all.
At least, hopefully, you know your husband would not be hitting up other parents for money if you were taking their kids on an outing.
Maybe it’s a mindset your husband carried over from dating?
Still, the one thing I might have done differently is given the money to your daughter as spending money, making sure she knew it was to cover her own meals. Depends on your daughter’s age and responsibility level, though.
Treating someone to a movie is one thing, but two meals at an amusement park would be more than 10 or 20 bucks. Yeah, treating is more or less the assumption, but for something like this money should definitely be offered, with no expectation either way.
I agree with hubby that if they invite your child along, they treat. My parents always treated my friends, and my friends parents always treated me. Maybe my parents had a great relationship with my friends parents, after all, we all went to the same church.
But, I agree with you that it would be polite to offer, and that since he agreed to offer, he should have.
You are right. But I can understand why he thought he did the right thing, so now that it’s all over with, don’t be too hard on him. (Just don’t let him do it again!!)
It would have been polite to offer, but sometimes the expectation is that when you have their daughter over, you’ll cover any associated meals etc. Some people don’t like handing the same $50 back and forth each time.
I understood the arrangement as your daughter’s friend’s parents offered free admission to the park, but said nothing about paying all expenses all day long. You’re new friends with these people, so there’s no precedent to go on, and they didn’t explicitly say they’d pay for everything, so it’s pretty presumptuous to assume they would. And even if they did intend to pay for everything, I wouldn’t be comfortable with that. So IMO, not only is your husband wrong to assume they’d pay for everything, he’s wrong for being content to let them pay for everything.
I’m sorry you and your husband are having a rocky relationship.
However, posting on a message board to validate your own opinion of the situation won’t improve the situation.
Are you going to show your husband this poll and expect him to change his opinion on the matter? If so, I think he would be offended and react negatively, no matter the results of the poll.
I suggest you simply discuss with him that you yourself feel it would be appropriate to not offer the money, and to honor your request in the future to proffer the money, even if he himself doesn’t agree – as it’s something you’d like him to do for you. trying to force him to change his opinion will never end positively.
I think he probably should have offered, and he shouldn’t have told you he was going to offer and then not done it, but I don’t think not offering is head-explodingly rude. After all, you wouldn’t offer to compensate your child’s friends for the dinner and breakfast she ate at their home. And realistically, when you’re offering to take young children on something like this, you’re pretty much offering to pay their way throughout the day, since presumably they don’t have funds of their own. We used to take our friends on vacation with us in the summer, and their parents would send along spending money for souvenirs or clothes shopping or whatever, but not for food.
On the other hand, you should definitely have made sure that your daughter had money available to her to buy her own meals in case their intent was not to pay for everyone – or even, depending on how many people were going along to offer to treat everyone to their lunch as a thank you for having invited her.
Not a parent myself but thinking back it was always assume that if were were invited along for the day then the host mom would feed both kids together. (And it didn’t have to be royal treatment – maybe a sub for lunch and dinner at home). For gift shops and ice creams, we might get some pocket money but as kids we never treated each other, that was done by parents.
But I agree that the larger issue seems to be that you expected him to do one thing and then he went and did another.
