A heartbreaking clip has gone viral after a young girl's birthday party turned into a moment of sorrow when none of the friends she invited showed up.
In the TikTok video, posted by her mom Samantha Young, 9-year-old Aubrey is being comforted by her "Mimi" (Young's mother) as she processes the disappointment.
Young, based out of Cibolo, Texas, told Newsweek that the family had organized something small to celebrate her daughter's ninth birthday. Aubrey, excitedly, had handed out a total of 20 invitations to her third-grade classmates, and nine RSVPs came in.
"From there, we did plan accordingly as far as pizza, cake, and party activities are concerned. Of course, my daughter was incredibly excited feeling like she was going to have all of her friends there to support and celebrate her," Young, 28, told Newsweek.
But the day, October 19, took a heart wrenching turn as they waited for guests who simply never arrived. "Nothing really prepares you for the moment you throw your child a birthday party and no one shows up; I just simply wasn't ready to watch her endure this. Do better, parents," Young wrote on the video.
"As a mother, it's not ever something I considered in the realm of possibility that Aubrey, or any of my kids, would have to face this feeling of rejection," Young, a mom of four, said.
"To have to sit through something like this and put on a brave face for her was incredibly hard because, despite her trying to act like everything was okay, I know it hurt her heart, which... just absolutely broke me," she told Newsweek.
Young's clip, posted the day after the party, has garnered over 2.5 million views and almost 11,000 comments from other social media users who were determined to turn Aubrey's day around.
Many of whom asked whether they could buy her a gift. "Maybe through an Amazon list. Let's make her happy, let's make her remember this one," user @ivylur27 commented.
Another dad resonated with Young's heartbreak after he shared that the same thing happened to his son. "Definitely do better parents," he urged.
Even in the face of disappointment, Aubrey tried to put on a brave face and spent the rest of the day playing with her siblings Avery, Tatum and Tegan, Young informed Newsweek.
The saddest part came when Aubrey thanked her dad for going to the effort to throw her a birthday party regardless. "It's like, despite the failure of her friends and their parents, she is still so grateful and feels so blessed to have her immediate family and her grandmother at her party and that alone makes me very proud of her," Young said.
For Young, the experience was a reminder of both the unpredictability of parenthood and the resilience of her daughter. "It's our job as parents to stay strong and be as supportive as we can in moments like this, but I just simply wasn't ready," she said.
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