Forgive me that this is an essay!
I'm a veteran single parent, step parent, and lone GP, after DD had the sense to recognize the pattern. My mother was a single parent when it got you not spoken to. We have always existed.
Unless there's a whole load you haven' mentioned about sour school relationships, the other parents at your school are shits need to give their heads a bloody wobble, if they aren't contacting you today at least to ask if they can do anything, even if it's not much.
Even if I wasn't that keen on you I couldn't have ignored you, if only for the social cohesion of the kids and the event. It says a great deal about them and their priorities about their comfort. Hurtful but hear it early, you'll have bigger things to worry about further down the line.
I'm afraid being the hardworking single mum who does it all has never been a good position in primary school clique cultures. You are in every way a threat in their teeny tiny comfortable worlds and a constant uneasy reminder that this could be them, no matter how much they say 'not my Nigel.'
It took me a long time to understand that, and that trying harder just gets you used more. You put in, they take out, and call it treating you equally
Sorry if that sounds horrible, but it's what I learned. You don't have to be unpleasant about it, but recognizing it, allows you to put yourself where you need to be. Funnily enough it's when I toughed out the lack of decency and became quite politely insular, that a couple of decent but timid souls afraid to be judged by the others, started to quietly bother with me.
How you deal with it in front of them when you see them next, is by acting 'normal' which i can pretty much garuntee will be an oh so busy 'Morning! How are you?' without really waiting for an answer.
We ended up back footed into home educating, and it was only then that we realized just how much background stress (on top of specific issues) school, it's demands, and school parent cliques, especially combined with with full time work, had brought to our lives. (we learned to spot the home ed cliques, and stick with the normal folks) You are one person, and can only portion yourself off so much before bits start to break.
We also discovered a venomous response to in their eyes 'rejecting' the form of education they chose for their children. We'd made no song and dance, just left. When asked where they'd go to instead said we'd be Home ed. Responses where eye opening. I'd gently point out it was working well for theirs, and would be told that was proof that mine should put up with not being able to access it.
It was the realization they really where all in competition with each other, and became clearer later when there was mainly outrage that Dc's had done well in exams and in the running for places their children where expected to have.
There is so much unspoken agreement about how things should be done, and a single Mother breaks most of them by existence unless she partners up fast.
You are allowed to loose the plot at the wrong moment in front of everyone.
I and the legion of lone parents before you declare it your absolute right.
It's a crown the majority of us have worn more than once.
'Everyone fed, all in bed, no one dead.' Anything else is a bonus.
No one is going to take care of you, so you need to take care of yourself. It's hard when you've always put yourself last, but it helps no one.
Right now that means whatever pampering and self care you can grab. Longer term it means organizing your life around your circumstances, and learning that if you don't look after yourself, you can't look after your children, so give yourself permission to say no, to say it won't work for me, to say pick which event, and be realistic about the toll being a LP takes.
You say they have nothing really... They have freedom for a non violent life to be built for them . They're too young to appreciate it yet, but they will. .It's a very big gift as is unconditional love.
On top of that, somehow you have brought them hosing security! I'm in awe.
We fled with the car door that he'd ripped off the hinges to make sure I could go nowhere, roped into place badly, a polythene window and a big lie about why the car smelt the way it did and why thy had to sit on black sacks.
I choose to take my step DC's too after they pleaded not to be left. I couldn't afford them. We had to have a lot of conversations about what we could and couldn't have in life. I encouraged them to understand finances, and it helped a lot and made them entrepreneurial while realy young. It's how you frame it.
Up and down the country are families like mine who feature homemade paper stencils and homemade bunting, paper chains, stirring puddings, drawing wonky Santa's on steamed up windows, making crackers, iou notes, charades and every game they and I could think up, an empty place in case someone needed it,collecting pine cones, homemade wreaths - basically if we wanted it, we had to be able to make it.
Not only do all of them think it was all so much better than it was, they still rate those activities higher than many others they can now buy in.
Christmas is literally what you make it.
We also have Ds literal millionaire at 18 friend, who comes round to stir the Christmas pudding with us, get plastered on our dodgy home made alcohol, and get tucked up on our settee with a hot water bottle and a blanket.
He's been doing it since his late teens when it happened spontaneously and he drunkenly burst into tears because he'd never had a hot water bottle and no one had ever tucked him in before.This is a young man who has everything.
Except he doesn't. The simplest things in life can be the hardest to get and the most damaging not to have.
The older ones have their own children now, and are recreating their childhood activities all be it without having to repurpose everything.
In this house you must make presents, or offer services or skills as a voucher, max material cost £5, exceptions to the rule are if it's vintage spotted in a charity shop and a maximum of £10. or for the whole family.
Look after yourself, the proof of it all comes years later. you've already done so much.