“This Has Caused Drama I Was Not Expecting”: Mom Misses Daughter’s School Performance Because Of Baby, Doesn’t Get Why She’s A Jerk

"The theater loves silence." In the Age of Enlightenment, when the theater was almost the main entertainment for many people, there were even special gestures familiar to all theater-goers, to whom an experienced actor, without interrupting the monologue, could demand silence from the noisy hall.

However, today these gestures are forgotten, the theater has firmly given way to other entertainment, and the audience often allows themselves to confuse the theater with the stadium, forgetting that the theater loves silence. Once the user u/Thick-Studio-4277 forgot this herself, almost derailing the performance of her own daughter... However, let's talk about everything in order.

So, the Original Poster (OP) has two children, a 12 Y.O. girl, "Penelope", and a 10 Y.O. boy, "Jonny", with her first husband "Will". A few years ago, the woman remarried, and recently gave birth to a daughter, "Lyla". In the author's own words, her kids from her first marriage mostly live with their dad, because his house is closer to their school, and they come to their mom's place for the weekend.

The OP's eldest daughter is involved in her school's theater program, and for almost the entire period of pregnancy, the woman was upset that she could not attend her daughter's shows. And so, when little Lyla was already a few months old, another performance was announced - and of course, the OP was looking forward to seeing her daughter on the stage.

And here the woman made the main mistake - she took the baby with her. She, of course, could leave her little daughter with her spouse "Chris", but according to him, he also wanted to watch the show. When the OP and her family arrived at the theater, she already suspected something was wrong when she saw the way her ex looked at her. But the show began, and after some time Lyla woke up...

The parents of the other kids incinerated the OP with their eyes, and she began desperately to lull the baby - and, fortunately, she succeeded. However, during the intermission, Will tried to suggest that Chris take the baby and take her home, but the spouses were adamant. It all ended with the fact that in the second act, Lyla woke up again and nearly ruined the show with her screams. In the end, on the stage were not professional actors who could hardly be embarrassed, but teenagers...

As a result, the OP had to go out to the lobby, she missed Penelope's solo, and then, when Lyla fell asleep again, the usher wouldn't let them back into the hall. And the eldest daughter took offence at her mom for ruining the show, not wanting to talk to her at all. In a conversation with her ex, the author tried to justify herself by saying something like "this is just a middle school play, and life does not end there," but thereby only ruined everything even more. In general, the only one in this situation who sided with the OP was Chris. And also, probably, little Lyla, but since she can't speak yet, we're not sure about that...

“I can tell right away that the mother made two big mistakes here at once, and I don’t even know which one is more critical,” says Irina Matveeva, a psychologist and certified NLP specialist, whom Bored Panda asked to comment on this situation. "Firstly, in her desire to see her eldest daughter perform, she only made it worse by taking the baby with her and not listening to the advice of relatives. Secondly, she actually devalued the importance of this performance for her own child."

“Yes, it would be better to either leave the baby with the father or a sitter. If for some reason this did not work out, it would be better to skip this performance and come to support the daughter later. Here the woman showed that the very fact of support for her is almost more important than her daughter's performance. As the great theater director Stanislavsky once said, 'Love art in yourself, not yourself in art!' The mom in this case did exactly the opposite..."

"As for the second mistake, yes, for an adult, a performance in middle school may not seem like such a big event, but for a 12-year-old girl, I think it was incredibly important. The only thing that pleases me here is that these words were not said to the girl herself, but to her father. But in any case, what happened should be a serious lesson for the author of the post for the future," Irina believes.

The vast majority of people in the comments also heavily criticized the original poster's behavior, claiming that both she and her husband were extremely selfish. In the end, according to the commenters, if the most important thing was to support Penelope, then it was her mother who was the only person who really matters. And, of course, folks in the comments were outraged by the OP's phrase about the "unimportance" of the show. "At 12, a solo performance is likely one of the biggest moments of her life so far, and you ruined it," one of the commenters wrote. And what would you, dear readers, have done if you were the original poster?