Mom Forces Daughter to Pick Different Restaurant for Birthday

A woman on Reddit says her daughter was fuming after she insisted the teenage girl switch restaurants for her birthday dinner to accommodate her brother's allergy.

The woman and her husband told their daughter to pick out a restaurant to celebrate her 17th birthday at.

"She chose a seafood restaurant that we'd never been to. In looking over the menu I saw that the vast majority of the dishes contained shellfish. There were a few fish entrees, as well as some surf and turf. But there were only a couple of non-seafood dishes," the woman wrote.

However, her 15-year-old son is "deathly allergic to shellfish," and also doesn't like to eat fish.

"There were only a couple of dishes there that he could actually eat. I didn't want to take him there because I knew that he wouldn't really enjoy his meal and I was worried about cross contamination. I told my daughter that this restaurant wouldn't work and that she would have to pick out a different one," she continued.

Her son offered to stay home, but the woman instead told her daughter to pick a different restaurant.

"We can only afford to go out as a family every so often. When we splurge on a restaurant meal, I want BOTH of our children there. I insisted and my daughter chose a different place and we had a nice meal AS A FAMILY. But she is still a little salty that she didn't get to have her first choice of restaurants," the mom concluded.

Users blasted the woman in the comments section for prioritizing her son over her daughter's special day.

"First, if you were going to put parameters on her choice, you should have told her that beforehand. Second, you seem more hung up on the fact that your son wouldn’t like the food than his allergy. Your son’s preferences are irrelevant. This is your daughter’s day. He seems to understand that, but you don’t. Third, if you were really concerned about cross-contamination, you could have called ahead to discuss your concerns and see what precautions the restaurant would be willing to take. If that isn’t satisfying (which would be perfectly understandable), your son offered to stay home," one person wrote.

"The son clearly would've preferred a night alone with pizza and video games, so I highly doubt his sister is going to resent him. She will resent [her mom] for sure, and the son may resent [the mom] too, but if anything, [she] has shown both of her kids she doesn't care about their wants/choices," another commented.

"[The mother] put her wants and desires above her daughter's. On her daughter's birthday," someone else shared.