Have I received 'friendly advice' or basic stirring - and have I been rude?

[baffledbureaucrat]

DS started school in September. The school is in the next village and most of his classmates went to the village nursery school: DS is one of the few that didn't. Many of his classmates have had large birthday parties where all of their nursery school friends plus a few others have attended - there have been quite a few where DS has not been invited, but he doesn't seem remotely bothered by this.

We're now getting to DS's birthday, and he wants a small party where he can invite his local friends, some family friends and a couple of people from school. Invitations were given out outside of school time and I assumed that would be it.

Now one of the other mothers (whose DS was invited) has told me that 'another parent had confided that she was very upset that her child hadn't been invited to DS's party'. Not sure what I'm supposed to do about this - we can't afford a whole class party anyway, DS doesn't want one, and he hasn't (I hope) been going on about it at school. He is perfectly OK with not being invited to other parties, and understood that he could only invite a few friends rather than the whole class.

Have I been rude, or was the other mother stirring a bit?

I think you should go ahead with your plans.
When anyone in the past repeated stuff to me that clearly was not meant for my ears, I always wondered about the motivation of the Messenger.
What has happened now, is, that you are wondering.
Unfortunately, you were not privy to their conversation about you and you will never know exactly what was said.
I think you should not deviate from your plans but treat the tale teller from now on, with caution.

Keep to your plans, she was stirring. The mother of this child had no reason to question why her child wasnt invited and even if she had mentioned it to your friend theres no need to have told you.