Parents force 15-year-old to attend twin sister's birthday party after banning her from celebrating her own birthday due to bad grades: 'My parents told me my absence was noticed by relatives and they were embarrassed'

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Brad Dickson • Managing Editor
Jun 20, 2025 12:00 PM EDT

Accountability and responsibility are crucial, and understanding the concepts of dependability and culpability is essential for maturity and development. When you fail to do the thing that you were supposed to and willfully flout responsibility, you'd probably expect some sort of reprimand or intervention from your parents to remind you and teach you the importance of the responsibility you haven't upheld. With repeated offenses, this reprimand may escalate to punishment in the form of the rescinding of privileges. You know, getting grounded, or being put in time-out, or confiscating your Game Boy and putting it on top of the fridge for a week (which you could reach from a chair when they weren't watching, as long as you carefully put it back before they noticed).

But still, punishments should not be too extreme for a given situation. To consider depriving a teen of their own birthday party, you'd think they'd have to have done something far worse than simply poor or lackluster performance at school. This is an especially difficult situation to navigate, as she has a twin sister who will still be celebrating their shared birthday. Forcing her to attend that party, with her excluded from the celebration, is really rubbing her face in the whole thing and is definitely overstepping.

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  • 01

    "AITA for not showing to my twin sister's birthday because my parents didn't let me have mine?"

    We both turned 15. My parents have not been happy with my performance at school for the last couple of years so they decided that I won't get to have a birthday this year. I admit I haven't done all that well but I've tried as hard as she has, it's not like I'm up on purpose or I'm a trouble kid. I haven't had any real trouble in my life.
    via Big-Leadership8418
  • 02
    Cheezburger Image 10519201536
    via Oleg Ivanov

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  • 03
    Anyway, I just don't find it cool to have to come to a birthday party on my birthday so decided that I'll just not go. No drama, no entitlement, I just won't go and instead spend time with a couple of my friends (who weren't invited, so I didn't take any guests away from her party). I did tell my parents about my plans and they laughed me off and didn't take me seriously.
    via Big-Leadership8418
  • 04
    So the birthday came and I didn't go. I got a gift for my sister and gave it to her before the party so she'd know me not being there is not because of ill feeling towards her. Got home late at night and my parents told me my absence was noticed by relatives and they were embarrassed. I defended myself by explaining my reasoning and also saying that I had told them about it but they said they didn't think I was being serious. They say in a healthy family people come to each other's birthdays and
    via Big-Leadership8418
  • 05
    They also say this night was about my sister and I was not there to support her and if I had problems with parents I should have tried to solve it with them rather than damaging my sister's night. Turned out the answer they gave to relatives for my absence was that it was my choice to do a smaller celebration with my friends. It's not technically a lie, but they left out the part which they told me they wouldn't let me have a party which started this whole thing. And I'm grounded for two weeks.
    via Big-Leadership8418
  • 06
    OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the a hole: 1. I'm not showing to my sister party, which could have caused her a bad time 2)1 could have done things better
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  • 07
    Cheezburger Image 10519201792
    via Oleg Ivanov

    The image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 08
    showerbulb. 2h ago NTA So your parents refused to celebrate your birthday but expected you to go to your twin's party? Were they expecting the party guests to only celebrate your sisters birthday and not yours even though it's exactly the same day? They're hypocrites if they expect you to support your sister when they won't even support you. I wonder if your parents are p ed that the "punishment" of refusing a party for you backfired on them cause it turned out you made other plans instead?
    via Big-Leadership8418
  • 09
    FairyFartDaydreams • 2h ago NTA your parents are trying to control your grades through punishment which is dumb. What they should be doing is getting you a tutor or actually parenting you and sitting your a down every night and supervising you while you do HW and study
    via Big-Leadership8418
  • 10
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    The image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 11
    KSknitter 2h ago • In a healthy family, you don't get your birthday taken away for not doing well in school, so... not seeing how your family can claim you have a healthy family... NTA
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  • 12
    lafsngigs67 Wait! What!? You're a twin so if you stayed and celebrated you'd technically be celebrating your birthday as well which your punishment was to not celebrate it. Soooooo which was it mom and dad? Can't be p ed you technically followed their rules and didn't go to the party. So as I see it they were trying to rub it in harder that you struggle with grades by only acknowledging one twin. That poor parenting with a dash of ab ive undertones.
    via Big-Leadership8418
  • 13
    No_Cook_98 NTA. Your parents need to learn to be more rational and logical. Not doing well in school isn't a criterion for barring your daughter from celebrating her birthday. Plus grounding you is even worse. I don't even honestly care about the relatives at this point.
    via Big-Leadership8418

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childcare teens family drama aita kids sibling rivalry teenagers siblings moms family feud parenting dad family twins sister reddit thread parent Reddit raising kids Parenting Fail parents children Parenting FAILS
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