Honestly, is this how adults run friendships now?! Feeling quite stressed. 😬

[BarrenFieldofFucks]

This is so pretty that I don't quite believe it myself.

Long version.

Daughter (10) has a friend at school. Very nice girl, very confident and self assured. Over the years we have always invited said child, Jane for ease, to birthday parties etc. I don't think she has ever turned up (sometimes with no notice) bar maybe once. Fine, we have always downplayed it to DD. This year obviously we didn't have a party per se, a couple of her closest friends came to public park with us for cake and a play.

Dd posted on a chat group that they have on my phone about seeing some of them later (on her birthday morn) and Jane replied saying he assumed she wasn't invited. I saw this, and not wanting DD to get upset on her birthday ( we have had a shitty time of late) I replied and apologised, said it was my mistake and I thought she had been, should have spoken to her mum etc. Jane replied again, disagreeing with a couple of things I said, copying other posts off the group etc. Again, I replied apologising etc. Again, more rebuttals. So I said nicely, that I wasn't going to argue with her, that we would love to see her etc and I had messaged her mum. I then deleted the comments from my WhatsApp so DD wouldn't see them.

Cue messages all day from.mother, about how dare I tell her that, delete messages etc, make her child look bad to others etc etc. It went on for an age. Including remaining me about Jane's party last year (only one DD has been invited to), which DD went to and was very unsettled, had an accident in the night etc, and how she and Jane could have told lots of people but they didn't etc.

Next day j messaged an olive branch, saying we all get protective, I'd meant no harm, let's move on. Fine.

Until today. Apparently dh unfriended her on Facebook the other day, as she had made a few PA comments to me about him amongst other things. No song and dance.

I have had a lot of messages all day about this, about him, how they were nice to DD when she was unsettled, they could have handled it differently etc etc but they didn't. Again, I was polite I think and thought we had sorted it.

I have now had another message saying her husband wants my husband to unlike his business page as he doesn't want him to like it any more because he unfriended his wife.

I mean, wtaf?? I am genuinely jaw on the floor.

im glad she had a good day op

i dont like the commen t about you child at their house needing help and they didnt have to you know-what a criuel thing to say

i also wouldnt invite someone that never turns up its rude

id stay away from them from now on

This is batshit. Surely this can't be real. Not one parent I know would behave like this. How embarrassing emailing the head. This is so unprofessional op. You need to take a step back as pp have said. Seriously.
If you were a teacher at my kids school I'd be very weary now. Even in your responses on here your coming across as very defensive and childish. Your dd made a mistake and that should have been the end of it. It's made worse by the fact Jane has her own phone as you knew you were messaging her directly without her mum knowing/seeing it unless Jane showed her. Total safeguarding issue. Take yourself off that chat. You should not be involved in a group chat with children, especially ones who have their own phones!
Yes Jane's mum has acted appallingly too but in some ways I can understand her, I wouldn't message you or get involved but I'd be pretty shocked and a bit peeved that an adult who should know better was messaging and potentially arguing with my upset child.
As for pp saying tough Jane doesn't turn up or respond in the chat often, remember this is a child. It's like in the past health care professionals used to put DNA (did not attend) on childrens records, it's now changed to was not brought. She is 10, it is not her fault she didn't turn up, stop being so cruel about a child who cannot control most of this.

Call the mother out.

About -Her DD : State she often invited but NEVER turns up or reponds to say she is not coming. I didn't invite her specifically but when I apologised to her -your DD was incredibly rude to me.

Big deal my DD had an accident at yours -basically you are saying that because you didn't ridicule her and spread it around -that we should be grateful!!?? Whereas this is what I would have done for yours and only what any reasonable parent would have done etc. and is good manners etc.

You then made loads of snide comments about my husband and were rude etc -so he naturally thinks that you don't want him as a friend -as that is not how we talk about friends.

As to demanding who me or my DH can like or unlike -that is our call. You don't control us.
I'm sorry that you feel like this -but I think your "threats" and comments are actually incredibly rude and unkind. I apologised direct to your DD -if you don't accept that -that is her right I however, feel you are being incredibly rude to all of us now.
Done.

I've read some but not all of this and it sounds like a bunch of silly kids arguing over nothing much.... and yet it goes on and on and on...

Seriously, don't reply to anymore messages/WhatApp messages/FB messages etc just don't engage or this will just go on and on...

Ps I would do all this to the mother -the daughter is she is 10 should not be messaging you -I as a parent wouldn't be happy with you messaging and then deleting -it looks like you have said something rude or unkind to her.

I think that lockdown and current semi-lockdown have made children more dependent socially on both social media and their parents!

(1) I don't think it was unreasonable of you to respond initially to Jane's message. You did let it escalate, though. I think you should just have said, 'Hi, this is X's mum; this isn't really a party but do come along and have fun!' And ignored any subsequent arguments.

(2) Your dd was unwise and a bit impolite to discuss the meeting with everyone on Whatsapp.Of course, at 10 it's easy to be clumsy about such things. But I think that perhaps you should not have deleted the initial messages from Jane. And that you should tell your dd that Jane contacted you and seemed disappointed at seemingly not getting an invitation, and that her parents then contacted you and seemed worried about it too, and you had to sort it out. And that this is the sort of thing that can happen if you post on social media to everyone about your meet-ups., and that in the future she should be more careful about contacting only the people involved in the meeting. Do not, of course, tell her about the really nasty message that you got from Jane's mother.

(3) However you and your dd may have mishandled the situation, it does NOT justify Jane's mother's incredibly nasy message about your dd having had an 'accident' at the earlier party and how 'they could have told lots of people'. That borders on blackmail. I would just avoid any further contact or discussion with Jane's parents. Your dd and Jane can continue their friendship if they wish, and I hope they do. But Jane's parents have demonstrated that any involvement of them will make things worse. And neither your dh nor Jane's father should really be getting involved.

All these groups sound really confusing. I often think that messaging about anything when feelings are already sore is a big mistake- it's just asking for things to be misinterpreted. It's fine if you didn't invite Jane, you didn't do anything wrong there in my opinion. Where things went wrong was your DD posting pictures/messages about the get together because that's rude.

The best thing to do would have been to tell DD to phone Jane herself and apologise for being thoughtless. It would have taught her to think twice in future and would have also meant that it wasn't all played out in front of her friends. I understand why Jane responded to you how she did- she was embarrassed because your message drew attention to her being left out where other children and adults could read it, even if you were kind that is humiliating for a 10 year old. Alternatively, you could have spoken to Jane's mum privately and explained yourself if you felt you needed to.

Jane's parents have also behaved badly. The business with the unliking etc is really childish. I understand why your DH wanted to unfriend her, but doing it when he did added fuel to the fire.

As a teacher (I was one for years), it's terribly unwise to have parents and especially children from the school on your social media. Obviously you will make friends with some of the parents and talk to them individually if your kids attend the school, but group chats are asking for trouble (I assume this means that the children can also see your private phone number), as is allowing any of them access to your Facebook profile etc. I'm relieved for you that your HT wasn't bothered, but I'm surprised- I worked at a school once where I was already friends with one of the parents as we had known each other since childhood, and the head had a word about being very careful with social media etc before I started.

Send them a message fuck off and leave us alone you bunch of cunts don't contact us again otherwise I will consult with my solicitor. X