Is this rude or not? (petty barbecue etiquette question)

[Anonymous]

This is not a high-stakes, super important issue. This is petty, but we are petty people who are debating this issue now. Weigh in!

Scenario: Larlette has a barbecue by her pool, inviting friends and some people from work. The barbecue includes a mix of singles and married people. The invitation specifies that family/children of the invitee are welcome.

Friend A shows up with her 11 year old daughter, then proceeds to spend several hours in the pool playing with her child and a few other kids who showed up with their parents. The other parents were occasionally walking over to keep an eye on the kids, taking turns to have one person always remaining to look over the pool. Friend A just stayed in the pool with her daughter the entire time.

The other adults sat together, eating, enjoying some drinks, and talking. Friend A never once sat with the adults, and only spoke to the host and other adults to say hello and then to announce she was leaving after she and her daughter finally left the pool in the evening.

Was Friend A rude, or was it OK for her to avoid the host and adults at the barbecue and spend the whole time in the pool with her 11 year old?

Friend A is newish to the group and this was the first time she's been invited to a barbecue or get-together. Some of the ladies are saying we shouldn't bother inviting her again, but others think this was OK.

[Anonymous]

Not sure about rude but definitely weird.

[Anonymous]

It's odd for sure but I wouldn't exile her from future gatherings because of it. There may be a reason she felt the need to entertain her kid in the pool for so long.

[Anonymous]

“My new friends invited me to a barbecue at their house with a pool. There was no lifeguard and lots of kids in the pool. The parents were only watching the kids sporadically, so I felt for safety I had to spend the entire bbq watching everyone else’s kids since rhe other parents just kept walking away to focus on their conversations and food. Do you think my new friends like me or are just using me for free babysitting? Also who has a pool party where the adults don’t get in the pool??”

[Anonymous]

She seemed to be avoiding the adults using her kid as an excuse. The only time I did this is when I didn’t want to be at the party and used watching my kids as a reason to not mingle. Harder to pull off with just one 11 yr old though. She was sending a message for sure.

[Anonymous]

Give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she was nervous about joining an established group. Maybe she didn't get any pool time with her daughter all summer. Maybe she thought the other adults weren't doing enough supervising so felt compelled to babysit.

If you shun her for this, she'll have been right to avoid all of you!

[Anonymous]

Did anyone invite her to hang out outside of the pool? Maybe she felt awkward and was doing the equivalent of staring at her phone?

Or maybe she is nervous with her DD around pools. Invite her to something without water and see what happens the second time before judging.

[Anonymous]

Friend A being in the pool made the pool safer for all the kids so I would be happy about her doing that. She sounds a little socially awkward, but I would be OK with that as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“My new friends invited me to a barbecue at their house with a pool. There was no lifeguard and lots of kids in the pool. The parents were only watching the kids sporadically, so I felt for safety I had to spend the entire bbq watching everyone else’s kids since rhe other parents just kept walking away to focus on their conversations and food. Do you think my new friends like me or are just using me for free babysitting? Also who has a pool party where the adults don’t get in the pool??”

Nobody asked her to be responsible. That was her choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“My new friends invited me to a barbecue at their house with a pool. There was no lifeguard and lots of kids in the pool. The parents were only watching the kids sporadically, so I felt for safety I had to spend the entire bbq watching everyone else’s kids since rhe other parents just kept walking away to focus on their conversations and food. Do you think my new friends like me or are just using me for free babysitting? Also who has a pool party where the adults don’t get in the pool??”

OP here. As I said, there was ALWAYS one adult watching the kids in the pool. Parents took turns in shifts to do this. They weren't sporadically watching the kids: there was always someone standing there watching.

[Anonymous]

I thinks it’s a bit rude yes but if she doesn’t know many people she may have felt awkward and anxious about mingling so stayed where are felt comfortable.
My kid is 12 and I haven’t played with her in the water for like 6 years lol. She wouldn’t want me to.

[Anonymous]

They actually talked about her after and considered not inviting her again??

Wtf. I think guest A either correctly sensed this is not the type of group she wants to spend time with; or as suggested, wanted to keep a close eye on the swimmers.

In any event, as the mom of a kid on the spectrum, it never ceases to amaze me how a cornerstone of many supposedly typical people’s social lives is judging, excluding, and jumping to conclusions. So much for all y’all’s greater empathy.

[Anonymous]

If she’s a nice person I would still include her. Yes it’s sort of rude but it’s also rude of someone in the group to call her out and say not to invite her anymore. Have some grace.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't have let my 11 year old be in a pool where adults were "occasionally walking over to look, taking turns so that (hopefully) one adult was always watching". So, in this situation, my choices would be to stay by the pool the whole time. Getting in would have made that slightly less awkward since apparently you'd think I was rude rather than judgmental.

Were adults drinking?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“My new friends invited me to a barbecue at their house with a pool. There was no lifeguard and lots of kids in the pool. The parents were only watching the kids sporadically, so I felt for safety I had to spend the entire bbq watching everyone else’s kids since rhe other parents just kept walking away to focus on their conversations and food. Do you think my new friends like me or are just using me for free babysitting? Also who has a pool party where the adults don’t get in the pool??”

OP here. As I said, there was ALWAYS one adult watching the kids in the pool. Parents took turns in shifts to do this. They weren't sporadically watching the kids: there was always someone standing there watching.

OP again. In addition to my last comment re: someone always being stationed at the pool to watch, there were not "lots of kids" in the pool. Most of us didn't bring kids. Other than Friend A, only two other people brought kids. And the other kids eventually left the pool to play soccer on the lawn or read a book, or to sit by their mom and eat barbecue with the bigger group. Only Friend A and her kid remained in the pool, alone, for hours after the other kids left. They didn't even eat anything.