Would you say anything?

[Germgirl]

Long story. I'll try to condense. My stepdaughter will be 8 soon. She wants a Build a Bear party for her & 5 friends. Ok. That's fine. Daddy will pay for everything because mummy is bloody useless (another story). So we made some invitations & DSD went off to school with them.
Then DH got an anguished text from ExW saying 'why hasn't X been invited to the party? It's all kicked off!'
X has bullied & kicked DSD & DSD has told us she doesn't want her at her party.
It appears that while handing out the invites, X asked where hers was & rather than DSD standing up for herself & saying no, DSD took an invitation from another friend & gave it to X!
X's mum has moaned at ExW on Facebook (ExW lives her whole life via FB) that X wasn't originally invited & ExW has blamed DH and also had a go at DSD for not inviting X
So now, one of DSDs actual friends isn't invited and X is!
So what would you do, if anything?
I want to say to DSD when I see her this WE, 'why did you let X bully you into inviting her? and don't you think it was mean to take away the invitation from your other friend?' And if I go to the party I rather think I might want to have a word with X, but would that be counterproductive?

This is a tricky one. Your DSD is only young, I would have been scared of an overbearing child at that age. I wouldn't tell her off, I would commiserate about the tricky situation. It must have been really confusing and upsetting for her not knowing what the right thing was to do.

Ask her truthfully if she wants X at the party. It is harsh to retract an invite but your DSD's wishes come first and X will have an invite named for someone else so hasn't actually been invited at all.

If she does want X/you don't feel you can uninvite her, is it financially possible to reinvite the original friend? Can the party continue with you keeping a very close eye on X?

Either you or your DH will have to deal with DSD's mum. It's not fair on DSD to deal with her issues too.

Good luck and I hope the party goes well.

Sorry, that bit about you dealing with DSD'S mum sounded patronising. I didn't mean it to

Oh Jimmy, it didn't sound patronizing at all thank you for replying.
DSDs mum is a bit of. a lost cause. DH has tried to talk to her but just gets tirades of abuse & blame. We just do damage limitation when DSD is here & make her time with us lovely.
We can afford for both girls to go & DH is going to text the girl who had her invitation taken away's mum today to invite her. I just know that DSD has been bullied into having this child there & it upsets & annoys me. It annoys me more that ExW had ago at DSD rather than backing her up!
I will try to broach the subject sensitively with DSD & I have no qualms about uninviting the little bully!
We shall see what the weekend brings

I hope it all goes well. I taught year 3 for years and it's a tough time for girl friendships. If you do uninvite X it might be worth warning the teacher about the situation just in case there are any repercussions.

You sound like a lovely stepmum. Your DSD will probably breathe a sigh of relief when you ask the original girl again.

DH has texted the original girls mum today so hopefully she can go.
I said to DH that we should ask DSD what she really wants & go from there, uninviting the bully if that's what she wants. I don't think he's keen because ExW will go bonkers as the bully's mum will probably have a go at her. I just said that I don't care about the adults & that it's up to DSD. Tbh DSD will probably choose to let the bully come just so she doesn't get any hassle but if she chooses to uninvite I will definitely get DH to contact the teacher & explain.

Do not say that to you DSD. She's 8 and clearly intimidated by her mothers bullying. It's not her fault that her mother is coming, she's admitted to you she doesn't want her to come. As the adults in the situation you should take control and take the blame saying that she can't come. By putting it all on your DSD you are asking a child to stand up to an adult with no back up.

I speak from experience!