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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to feel excluded and pissed off (especially on behalf of my DCs)

48 replies

WilhelminaFewFriends · 01/01/2011 14:56

We have next-door neighbours with DCs similar ages to ours, they play frequently together and get on really well. We seem to be pretty friendly with the parents.
However on several occasions they have done something which I and the DCs find really hurtful. And I'm not sure I'm over-reacting.
Today was a classic example, the kids next door came and called on mine, spending hours at our house. I even called next door and offered to provide them with lunch, an offer which was gladly accepted.
Then about an hour or so later, the children were summoned back home to participate in the party which the parents had been preparing. Other children of mutual friends were attending but not us.
My DCs have just spent the last hour wistfully staring over the garden fence at their friends enjoying themselves without them.
This is not the first time this has happened, the neighbours had several BBQs throughout the summer, to which we were not invited. And on many of these occasions we had their kids at our house whilst they, unbeknown to us, made preparations for thier festivities.
I'm fed up of trying to soften the blow with my own DCs when I feel they have been unceremoniously dumped. I don't want to be best mates with the neighbours, but, if it were me, I'd have automatically extended an invitation to the people who'd been entertaining my kids, or at least the kids.
So AIBU and WWYD?

OP posts:

pigletmania · 01/01/2011 16:06

Just have the kids over for a couple of hours, no meals, they to go to their homes for that! Like others have said, is it reciprocated, do your kids go round theirs. If not, I would tactfully suggest to the parents that the kids play at their house too.

dwpanxt · 01/01/2011 16:08

I agree with cat64 entirely

Original poster

WilhelminaFewFriends · 01/01/2011 16:09

cat64 and sleepingsowell - I grudgingly agree with you. It just feels like a kick in the face when you offer some kindness to people and it's not returned.
I'm not being nice to them in order to garner inclusion in their little circle but the exclusion is hurtful, especially to the DCs. It's not the way I was raised.
And to add insult to injury, their social circle consists mainly of people that we introduced to them when they they first arrived, by means of invitiation to some of our get togethers.
It feels like a "thanks for the mates, now f*ck off", although I do accept I'm probably getting it all out of proportion.
And we're such nice and friendly people too....

OP posts:

schroeder · 01/01/2011 16:15

My perspective on this is I have seen several sets of neighbours get very chummy with each other and their children over the years. They start having sleepovers and popping around all the time-it's lovely. Until there is a god awful fight and they then can't bear to be around each other at all and there's a lot of fall out for the dcs too.

Anyway for that reason and also for a bit of privacy, I keep my neighbours at arms length. Our dcs play together quite a lot especially in good weather and next doors boy comes over to play for an hour or so sometimes, and visa versa. I speak to the neighbours when I see them and would help them out if asked and I'm sure they would too.

I suppose what I'm saying is that they might just be being careful.

pigletmania · 01/01/2011 16:15

I can understand your hurt wilhelmina, thats why you have to stop this now! Stop being hospitable, and a bit of a doormat to them. By all means have their dcs round for a short while at YOUR convenience, then they go home for their meals end of. Dont have them round as often though, and suggest to your neighbours that it would be nice to take it in turns for dcs to play at each others houses but in a tactful way.

SparklyJules · 01/01/2011 16:22

Maybe your "mutual" friends didn't want to invite you?

Have you spoken to these mutual friends about this specific occasion?

Just a thought.

Original poster

WilhelminaFewFriends · 01/01/2011 16:23

I think there is a bit of a misunderstanding here. I don't see having the neighbours children around, or even feeding them, as an inconvenience. They enjoy each others company and it's no skin off my nose to feed a couple more.
It's just the sheer one-sidedness of it all.
Probably boils down to a difference in expectations as one poster already stated.
It's just not in my moral set-up to accept the hospitality of others without reciprocating. And, if I didn't want to reciprocate and become embroiled in the social exchange, I would politley refuse .."thanks but...".

It's very hard not to get wound up when your Dcs ask fo an explanation of this contradicting behaviour and you can't come up with a rational explanation yourself.

It makes me irrationally cross and I keep asking myself what my negative contribution to this is.

OP posts:

TheMonster · 01/01/2011 16:24

I would be very pissed off if I were you. Sounds to me like they used you to babysit while they prepared a party.

Original poster

WilhelminaFewFriends · 01/01/2011 16:25

SparklyJules our mutual friends are as befuddled as we are.

OP posts:

pigletmania · 01/01/2011 16:34

Well Wilhelmina its obviously annoying you as you are posting here. I know that you enjoy having their dcs round and feeding them, but you are annoyed that things are not being reciprocated, so stop doing this, if you were happy with the way things are than continue but your are not. Have them round by all means but they go home for meals, it will probably send the message to the parents that you are not a walkover. To some posters who have sided with the neighbours, why then do these neighbours accept the hospitality of the op and are happy to go round to their get togethers, if they are not close to them and do not want to be . Its plain rude of them tbh, if i did not want to be close to the neighbours, noway would i accept invites from them or hospitality.

pigletmania · 01/01/2011 16:35

If you accept invites from people it is gracious and good etiquette to reciprocate.

CalamityKate · 01/01/2011 16:36

Couldn't your mutual friends ask them, in a roundabout way?

"Aren't X,Y and the kids here?" (looking round in a surprised way) "No? Oh, how come?"

pigletmania · 01/01/2011 16:40

Get them a Debrettes etiquette book for Christmas op

PeachesandStrawberry · 01/01/2011 16:43

I agree with CalamityKate.

Also have a party, invite your mutual friends and their DC's and leave that family out. See how they like it.

I'd probably have it out with them and let them know in no uncertain terms that I would NOT be having the kids round for any more than an hour and I would send them home for lunch. If the kids asked why they couldn't stay I would tell them to ask their parents.

AlistairSim · 01/01/2011 17:04

Have your mutual friends never mentioned it?
They surely must think it's a bit weird you being next door but not invited?

CalamityKate · 01/01/2011 17:06

I find it a bit suss that your mutual friends are "befuddled", TBH. Surely it would be natural, in the circumstances, for them to mention your absence at parties etc, particularly if it was you who introduced them all in the first place?

sleepingsowell · 01/01/2011 17:56

I remember as a child playing in the houses of numerous neighbours, and being invited to tea/lunch or whatever.
There would have been NO reason for this to then become a thing where my parents then went round for parties. The kids playing together was a completely seperate thing. And that's good sometimes too - when kid A and kid B have a dreadful falling out at least they have the privacy and space to do so without a feeling of "oh god mum and B's mum will be all over this when they meet up"...
However I don't think you're unreasonable to feel as you do, based on your expectation that your hospitality to the children is by extension hospitality to the whole family. I'm just saying maybe you could change the way you think about it, then it might not annoy you?
I also think you have to let it go re your mutual friends becoming their friends; it doesn't matter if they seem to be saying "thanks for the mates" and then excluding you; they CAN'T exclude you, you're not friends!
The people that I would think you're more entitled to be annoyed with are your friends, who feel it's ok to go next door for a party without questioning whether you will be coming, etc. I don't think your friends are showing much loyalty there.

working9while5 · 01/01/2011 17:56

I wouldn't be bothered at not being invited myself, but surely they knew that your kids were looking on wistfully and at the very least they should have made some excuse or sent round some cake or something.

I think it's rude and mean. No more offering lunch! Arms length, definitely.

Original poster

WilhelminaFewFriends · 01/01/2011 18:06

thanks everyone for the input.
The extent of discussion with the mutual friends is along the lines of:
"i didn't see you at X's party"
"that's because I wasn't invited"
"oh"
(sudden subject change to avoid awkward discussion)

Frankly my annoyance with the sitution embarasses and ashames me, I'm not comfortable with the fact it's got under my skin so much. Therefore, I don't want to whinge at the mutual friends in case it gets back to my neighbours. I don't want them to know how much it bothers me.
That's why I moan on Mumsnet!!!
I probably have to re-examine my own feelings annd thoughts and try and work out why it is pissing me off to such an extent.

OP posts:

TheLittleRaccoon · 01/01/2011 18:11

Oh I'd moan at the mutual friends to ENSURE it got back to the neighbours LOL!

"No, I wasn't invited. We never are. I tend to be the babysitter while they get ready for the party. I feed and tend their kids so that they can blow balloons up in peace haha!"

StuffingGoldBrass · 01/01/2011 18:19

This is going to sound a bit daft but - are you sure you weren't invited? I am just wondering if neighbours told their DC to say 'Wilhelmina and family, do come to our party' and the DC forgot to pass on the message or something.

FakePlasticTrees · 01/01/2011 18:22

Oh, definately tell mutual friends all about looking after their kids while they get ready etc.

ivykaty44 · 01/01/2011 18:31

op yes it would to me fell like ok well now you have sorted us out with friends from your do's now you can go crawl in a hole.

We bring are dc up to include and not leave people out, these people next door would be hurt and offended if you had a party with all the same friends and left out their dc and themselves - indeed I would put a gamble on them knowcking the door to either come to the party or say soemthning about it.

tehn thing is these people are selfish plain and simple, they probalby don't even see what is happening but if it where to happen to them they wouldn't like it one tiny bit

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