Nightmare Parents Write Letter About Baby's Nightmare Birthday Party

There are lots of things to put into a baby’s memory book: Their first smile, their first step, their first time throwing up all over your back. And now, thanks to the magic of the internet, one baby will have something extra special to remind them how wonderful their parents were: A batshit birthday invite that reads like a court order.

Considering the tone and list of demands in this friendly email, there’s nothing that could be more chilling that the promise that a “formal invite” will be arriving. While I can’t imagine what that would look like, some commenters on Reddit are suggesting that the formal notice of mandatory attendance and gift presentation will likely need to be notarized and sent back with several signatures, as all government documents require.

It’s possible that this note was a joke created by a stressed out parent or a fake email created to get some of those delicious internet points, but it doesn’t trigger my bullshit meter as much as some of the other things you might have seen this week. First of all, because the note is only addressed to certain members of the family, and second of all because while the note is clearly out there, it’s also completely within the realm of possibility that the writer thought they were making some reasonable requests that people should have no problem granting. I’ve looked up the demanded items and they’re pretty cheap: A play tunnel is $15 and a water table only runs between $40 and $70. The parents’ thought process could have been “it’s only four things and they’re not that expensive! Come on, you guys! I’m being helpful here, asking for this dumbass Cheerios book when I’d rather have some cold hard cash for fucking baby formula even though that would be improper to ask for outright.”

The problem, of course, is not the actual request but the way in which the authors of the note demand to be compensated for the invite to their child’s party. Rather than being helpful, this note screeches of ‘parent entitlement’ and a lack of understanding of how to function socially with other human beings. Of course, it could come from the stress of raising a child, but the way this note was written suggests that the people who need to know right away whether you can buy their one-year-old a board book or not so they can rush out and purchase one as soon as possible have likely been kind of grating long before their kid came on the scene.