“Am I A Jerk For Banishing My Teenage Daughter’s Friend From Our House Because She Made Fun Of My Weight?”

When you think of your teenage years, what do you remember the most, dear Pandas? Is it hanging out with your friends and thinking how great life was? Is it how much freedom and fun you had every single day? Or do you think about how socially awkward you were? Those small moments when you do something incredibly embarrassing have a tendency to stick with you for years and years to come and you can remember them randomly, say in bed, in the shower, or in the meeting room right before your annual work review.

Almost everyone’s told a joke that didn’t land or made a quip that went over everyone’s head. It happens to the best of us. And don’t worry, if it hasn’t happened yet—it most certainly will. However, how many of you have been literally banished from someone else’s home for a spot of humor gone wrong?

Redditor u/Effective-Weekend-97 turned to the AITA online community to get their opinion on a sensitive matter. She asked them if she was wrong to forbid her daughter’s friend from ever coming over to their house again after she’d made a joke about her weight at dinner. The mom is insisting on an apology from the teenager. Scroll down for the full story.

Bored Panda reached out to u/Effective-Weekend-97 and we'll update the article once we hear back from her. We also got in touch with comedy writer and single mom Ariane Sherine, who kindly shared what topics to avoid at the dinner table and what to do if you accidentally tell an offensive joke. Moreover, the comedy expert revealed how to approach the situation if your children's friends cross social boundaries. You'll find our full interview below.

Comedy writer Ariane told Bored Panda what topics of conversation you should definitely want to avoid while having dinner over at someone else's house. "Anything to do with weight, size, or eating too much food should definitely be avoided. Religion and politics are also best avoided," she said.

"Maybe stick to puns and Dad jokes if you want to joke around people you don't know! Dad jokes may elicit a groan but they won't offend," Ariane noted that it's best to err on the side of safety.

Meanwhile, if you happen to mess up and you've offended someone (whether intentionally or by accident), the best approach is to say 'sorry.' If you were the target of the joke, try and move past it.

"Just apologize straight away if you told the joke. If you're the butt of it, try to gloss over it (though it's easier said than done!)," comedy expert Ariane told us.

Bored Panda also wanted to get Ariane's take on how parents can enforce social boundaries with their kids' friends. She said that this reminded her of an incident a few years back.

"I'm plus size and my daughter and her friend were sitting on a tyre swing which is very heavy. They called to me to push them on the swing. I sighed, because it takes a lot of work to push 70kg," she told Bored Panda.

"Then my daughter's friend, who was about eight years old, yelled: 'Come on, dear sweet slightly overweight Ariane—you'll burn some calories!' So after that I said: 'Nope, if you're going to be rude, push your own swing!'" Ariane shared what happened.

"So they just sat on the swing and I kept sitting on the bench. I needed to show my daughter's friend—in a polite way—that being rude wasn't the way to get what she wanted."

Generally speaking, there are certain sensitive topics that you should try and avoid during dinner. Those usually include politics, religion, and anything that would get people all fired up and rushing to defend their firmly-held beliefs. Enjoy your casserole, you can talk about whatever you want in private with your friends. However, that tends to work only in theory.

In practice, however, people can and do talk about touchy topics all the friggin time. And barely anyone does it in a refined and calm manner. Instead of an Ivy League debate club, you get interruptions, anger, and a dozen renditions of “oh, come on now, you can’t be serious!”

So, yeah, conversations can get messy. And you really can’t expect all of your jokes to land. You might have misjudged your audience a bit and gone for a quip that you thought would land, but it totally bombed. Or you’re feeling extremely nervous and your mouth (now, fully disengaged from your brain) says something utterly rude and stupid without you meaning to. And that’s on top of the fact that someone might interpret your comedy in a way that you hadn’t intended. We also shouldn’t forget the very simple fact that, hey, kids say dumb things sometimes.

Most redditors thought that the author of the AITA post went a bit too far and shouldn’t have banished her teen daughter’s friend. Remember, it was one joke. And it was the friend’s way of complimenting the OP’s husband’s cooking. Obviously, it was awkward, but let’s be honest: we’ve pretty much all heard worse jokes that had less repercussions, haven’t we?

Internet users urged the author of the post to move past the incident, instead of waiting for an apology from a 14-year-old. Others shared advice on how the mom could have handled the situation then and there, at the dinner table, which could have set the record straight, led to an apology, and helped everyone get along again. Some redditors were less subtle and said that the OP should be the bigger person (absolutely no pun intended) and set aside her ego, rather than hold a grudge against a teenager.

Someone’s weight is certainly a sensitive topic. And nobody wants to be blacklisted forever over a comment they made that was offensive (or perceived to be that way). The antidote to most situations like this is open and honest communication, followed by setting boundaries. That can include sitting down with the person and having a quick chat about how their words made you feel. Then, you can ask them not to do that again. Naturally, this works best ‘in the moment’ rather than a few months after the fact.

Another solution, going forward, is to simply… let go. Forget that the incident happened. Accept that you’d be happier forgetting your grudge. We’ve already written on Bored Panda just how destructive holding on to anger can be. Your body and mind both suffer, as a result. You’re more prone to falling seriously ill. Letting go is a far more difficult but an infinitely more mature thing to do.