Birthday invites - rude not to return invite?

[PatrickPolarBear]

Is it necessary to always invite back those who have invited you? DS is turning 4 and I am inviting back everyone who has invited him to their party in the past year. There is one family, however, that DH does not want me to invite as he doesn't like the parents.

So would it be rude not to invite them? We have some mutual friends - in fact mutual friends is the only reason I know them, I'm not friends with the parents at all - so they will know that we are having a party but it's not like a school situation where their DS will be the only kid in a class not invited.

They did invite DS to their 3-year old's party, purely out of politeness I think - but he didn't have a great time. Their son ignored my DS when he tried to hug him and say Happy Birthday and also hit him at one point. Hardly the friendship of a lifetime, is it? Still, it worries me that it's rude to the parents to not return the invitation... could be awkward next time I see them.

[WishIWasWonderwoman]

Ah, party politics!

I think that YANBU to invite them, but nor would you BU to invite them. Do you think they would be likely to go if you did invite them?

[PatrickPolarBear]

That would be the ideal scenario - that I invite them and they say no! In fact i think them inviting DS to their son's party was just politeness but I stupidly decided to be overly nice and accept the invite. And now I am in this mess... ...

[BackforGood]

No.

You invite people you would like to invite to a party(or any social occasion).

That's how it's always worked in RL where I live, anyway. On MN, there are those that disagree with me.

A question I ponder when people say that you should, is, how far back do you have to go? Does the slate get wiped clean each academic year (in which case only September birthdays really get a choice who to invite, and August birthdays have their list dictated to them and have to have bigger parties) or
How does it work if (for 1001 reasons) you decide you are having a smaller 'do' that someone who included your dc because they decided to invite 50 people?
or
If you know you are only having a small 'do' in a few months time, does that mean you have to turn down any invitations you receive between now and then as you are only having family round, or your numbers are limited for other reasons ?

[WishIWasWonderwoman]

if you're not friends with the parents and the DC are not really friends with each other then I see no reason for an invite.

[PatrickPolarBear]

Very sensible BackforGood! I guess the dilemma is my own really in that I know that I am inviting back everyone who invited me except for this family. They won't know that though because it's not a 'entire class at school except for you' situation so I'm probably overthinking it...

[Iliveinalighthousewiththeghost]

Yes I would say it was rude.
Your DH might not like the parents, but is that the fault if the child, plus he liked the parents well enough to let your DS go to their DS"s party

[Ilovemybabygirls]

I would invite them, the last thing you will want or need is bad feeling, which there will be, and possibly the other parents getting revenge for years and years, a mother will never forget if her child is very upset trust me, and altogether it may be a very unpleasant outcome. For the sake of the children it is definitely better to return the invite and hope they don't come.