A Woman Canceled A Girls’ Trip When She Found Out Her Friend’s Kids Were Coming

Nothing in this wide and wild world hits quite like a girls’ trip, does it? These getaways are a balm to the soul and a much-needed refresh from the stress and complications of daily life. But what do you do when a planned girls’ trip veers back into the realm of stress and complication? That’s what Redditor u/mahoganyrose wanted to know in a post on the ever-popular (and endlessly entertaining) “Am I The Assh*le” (AITA) subreddit, asking, “AITA for backing out of a trip with my friend because I didn’t want to be bothered with her kids?”

She explains that she planned a girls’ trip to the beach with one of her best friends. “We both have been stressed out with work, school and life in general,” she continues. u/mahoganyrose booked the hotel and the pair excitedly discussed the trip for weeks. Then the other shoe dropped...

“The night before our trip, she calls me to go over some traveling details and during the conversation she randomly says, ‘Oh I don’t think I told you but my kids are coming. I forgot to tell you.’”

Specifically, three small children, one of whom requires extra attention and care as they are on the autism spectrum. (“Which is totally understandable,” the poster adds.) The poster, who does not have children but says she tries to be empathetic to her friends who do, bristled at the idea of sharing her relaxing reset with three kids.

“The issue is that my friend did not tell me until that night before our trip, as many times that we have talked, that she was bringing her kids.”

u/mahoganyrose goes on to explain that she loves her friends children... she just doesn’t want to center her vacation around them. When she called to let her friend know, framing it as something they could reschedule so the friend could really relax on their getaway, it didn’t go over very well.

“She seemed like she felt a way about it,” u/mahoganyrose writes. “But I felt a way she didn’t even tell me they were coming before then and when she finally did I felt like I couldn’t say no because it was last minute. And to be honest, I wanted to have fun with my friend, but I didn’t sign up to help babysit. Am I wrong for doing that?”

For those of you who aren’t chronically online and deeply familiar with AITA, please allow me to establish something: While it’s not uncommon for posts to be overwhelmingly supported (“Not The Assh*le”/NTA) or called to task (“You’re The Assh*le”/YTA), it’s extremely rare, in my experience, for something to be essentially unanimous.

This post, with more than 200 comments as of press time, was all but unanimous: NTA. (One person said “ESH” or “Everyone Sucks Here.” That comment was downvoted into oblivion.)

“What was she thinking, springing that on you at the last minute?” reads the most upvoted reply. “Of course you’re going to feel some type of way about it. You’re definitely not in the wrong here. It sounds like you approached it in the most tactful way possible, offering her options to reschedule. You sound like a good friend. She will get over it.”

“I don’t think your friend simply ‘forgot’ to mention she’d be bringing her kids in the WEEKS of discussing the trip and planning on the activities you’d be doing,” says another. “She wanted to use you as help with her kids and thought it she could trap you into it by dropping the kids thing the night before.”

Look, we’re a website for and by moms, so we get how hard it is to get away when you have little ones and, paradoxically, how important these “recharge times” can be. I’m sure we’ve all had situations where our childfree friends couldn’t really appreciate the difficulties of trying to do anything when you have kids to take care of and plan for.

However, the solution isn’t gaslighting our friends into accepting situations we know they aren’t going to be comfortable with. So we applaud u/mahoganyrose for handling this situation with grace and understanding without allowing herself to be a doormat.

Definitely NTA.