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[Timothee Cazares]

Social hour makes me think something casual like a happy hour. The most popular place my previous workplace did this was a restaurant with an outdoor patio. That patio typically had multiple different organizations having happy hours with 30-40 people. Sometimes bigger groups took up a larger portion of the patio. I would assume a social hour was going to be more like that than a small sit-down dinner.

Yes, plus ones are welcome, including kids, says to me that your immediate family is welcome. I usually attend these things alone, but I would absolutely think it was fine to bring my husband and 2 children along, with an invitation like that. Given she has four kids, I can see why she also brought the Nanny, and if the MIL also lives with them, it would have been weird to exclude her.

Once you have a nanny who can watch the kids, the kids should stay home. Plural seems more to allow the spouse to attend and bring the child which one of the parents have to care for so the only way they can come is with the child.

Since they were told to that plus ones, including kids, were welcome, that would mean (to me) that it would be okay for Pam to bring her SO and at least two kids. Since there was no limit provided on the number of kids someone could bring, what if she had brought her SO and six kids? Would she have been told that seven people were a little much? How can you tell people that plus ones and kids are welcome, and tell them afterwards that they brought too many people? A restriction on the number of guests should have been provided in the invitation.

Capping the number of guests allowed means the employees are all more or less on even footing, allowing for a range of guests opens up the possibility of an event shifting focus to the person (or people) who bring a lot of guests.

Also I presume there was some kind of RSVP for everyone so that whoever was planning the event could reserve tables. If no one said anything to her when she responded with seven plus-ones, she probably assumed everyone was doing the same and/or it was okay.

Did people have to RSVP for themselves and their guests, or did nobody realize that Pam would be bringing so many guests (and that she would be the only one bringing so many guests) until everybody showed up?

If somebody was coordinating the RSVPs to make the reservation at the restaurant, it would seem like that would have been a good time to circle back to Pam to let her know that everyone else was coming either alone or with just one guest. She probably felt awkward, too, when she arrived with her whole family, only to see that nobody else had done the same.

I read it the same way as you did! Her plus one was her husband, and she brought her kids and their nanny (which makes perfect sense to me, help keep the kids entertained and contained during a work-adjacent event). The only unusual one was the MIL.

when i find myself thinking something liw key racist or sexist,based on harmful stereotypes and a problematic culture,i hsve ti challenge my assumptions.
please challenge yours. you can do better.

From a broader perspective, there are a lot of jobs that most of us understand basically (doctor, firefighter). But most jobs are things that only people in the field really get beyond a basic explanation, this is even more so for kids.

(2) age limits of the guests. When I read this, I assumed you meant adult children who were the guest of their parents, not a kid-friendly in the sense that babies and toddlers would seamlessly fit in.

I think your wording was reasonable and most people, including most of the guest at the event interpreted plus one as one additional guest. It is unlikely that in future events people will interpret your invitation to invite their whole family plus additional staff.

If you feel more comfortable, you could add more clarity to the invitation to say that additional guests may be allowed but to please contact the organizers if you plan on inviting more than two people.

I just pictured a holiday party where everyone from the comments section showed up as different classic AAM stories from previous holiday party posts. Like the dude who played the piano at the woman, the boss whose boob stuck to the frozen pole/railing, etc. That would be a wild party.
(I volunteer to be the attendee to write the email afterward planning to confront everyone by Wednesday.)

I think the letter writer needs to be far more specific if they see it as an adults with a plus one event. I get the impression they found it odd she brought kids, but they specifically said kids on the invite lol

Since she is bringing four kids to an event where she also has to present, bringing additional childcare is not unreasonable, and could even be read as considerate. As for the MIL, who knows if she was in town for the week or had just gone through a breakup or they live in an multi-generational household and it would be weird to leave her at home (same with the nanny, if they are a live-in or an au pair, which when done properly is a hybrid caregiver/host family situation).

But the invitation said children. Why not bring your children if other people are bringing theirs? Everyone enjoys a dinner out, the children get to see mom present a cool award, and get some exposure to other adults and children in a slightly more formal setting.

Based on how the invite was worded I see nothing wrong with what Pam did and I assume the nanny was there to help with the kids or the nanny is considered part of the family. Maybe the mother in law was visiting from out of town..who knows. Pam paid for all her guests and since you did not mention it I assume none of them were disruptive. When and if you do reword the invitation to the next event be sure not to shame Pam.

I also wonder about specifying that kids can be plus ones on the invitation, especially since it sounds like a small event. If you are trying to accommodate someone in particular, you could always reach out to them individually to clarify that their kid can be their plus one instead of including it on the invitation. But in general, it may be easier to leave that off and avoid the family picnic vibe and just not specify age of guests at all. You can always clarify if asked.

Did they want someone to bring a friend as a random plus one? Or were they just thinking that Jen would bring her partner, Bob would want to bring his 22-year-old daughter and Larry would bring his wife and they wanted an inclusive word for all guests? With a group that small the email should just say 1 guest and people can ask you if they have questions.

6: it is plausible Pam usually makes dinner. But even if Pam and her husband attend the work function, that leaves her MIL and their nanny to figure out dinner. Which I am confident they can do, or Pam can Door Dash since she is obviously fine paying for dinner out.

This invitation reads like it is for families. If it is your intention for employees to feel comfortable bringing one and only person from their family, I suggest rewording the invitation going forward.

I understand a frugal company that needs to save money and be careful how they spend it. I understand not wanting to blow a bunch of money on a party. I understand finding cheap/free places and food for a group of 30+ people is difficult. However, this whole thing was just cheap. This was the cheap straw that broke the camels back.

All of that is to say I can understand the misunderstanding, and why Pam thought it was ok. And more than likely, as soon as she walked in, she realized her faux-pas just pretended like nothing was wrong.

I can't remember what the exact question was, but I do remember that it involved adding two three-digit numbers together. Let's just say it was 247 + 389. Which, as any reasonably intelligent seven year old should be able to work out, comes to 636.

I went over my working carefully. Seven plus nine is sixteen. Six in the ones column, carry one, add one to four plus eight gives thirteen. Three in the tens column, carry one again, add one to two plus three gives six. Six hundred and thirty six.

I got hold of a pocket calculator when I got home. Much as it may be hard for some of my younger readers to believe, those were actually a thing when I was seven years old, though of course we weren't allowed to use them in class.

I didn't know how to respond to that. I knew that seven plus nine is not six. But seven plus nine is sixteen. It still has a six at the end, you still write six in the ones column, you just have to carry one over into the tens column, and I had even written a little "1" there, as I had been taught to do, to show that that was what I'd done. But Mrs Lester was a rather stern kind of teacher and I was too shy to answer back to her, so I quietly returned to my seat feeling confused, not sure what to do next, and if truth be told, rather offended.

One of the most important things that every teacher should be instilling into their students is critical thinking. Asking questions, fact-checking, and not swallowing everything you're being told hook, line and sinker are important skills.

Now from time to time I hear people claiming that they're "encouraging critical thinking" when in reality they are doing nothing of the sort. Pseudoscientists and conspiracy theorists are especially bad at this: they will proudly tell you that they are doing so because they are "questioning mainstream narratives." But in reality, all they are doing is swapping out "mainstream narratives" for their own particular brand of pseudoscience or conspiracy theories. If you start applying critical thinking to their own claims, their enthusiasm for the aforementioned critical thinking quickly evaporates.

If your aim in teaching "critical thinking" is simply to get your students to think like you, or to repeat exactly what you are teaching them, then you aren't teaching critical thinking at all; you're spoon feeding them. On the other hand, one way that you can tell that you are getting it right is that your students start challenging you.

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