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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to be upset at this children's party?

452 replies

sadaboutthismum · 07/07/2011 19:19

I'm not sure if I am or not .
DD came home tonight and told me, very matter of factly, that a child in her class is having a year 6 leavers party and disco at his house. He was giving out invitations this week in front of the children who have not been invited. Two teachers are going aswell..

There are 37 children in the year group. 32 have been invited. My DD is one of the children that hasn't.

Obviously I won't do anything but I feel sad that an adult has organised a big, special party and excluded 5 children from it.

DD has never fallen out with this child, BTW. I don't know, I have quite a good sense of fair play and to me that means all children in a big party situation are invited. Obviously very different for a small party .

OP posts:
mrsscoob · 08/07/2011 19:21

She hasn't approached the parents Diggs, she spoke to the teacher and quite rightly so seeing as the teachers had been invited too.

I know there have been a lot of talk of birthday parties on this thread but for me this is completely different. It is a leavers party for the children AND the teachers and if they have chosen to leave out a small number of children and to write "cool kids only" on the invites Shock to me that is appalling and I cannot see any justification for this whatsoever.

CrapolaDeVille · 08/07/2011 19:22

OP OMG.... just remembered it's the leavers bash!! Fucking hell. I would be complaining at the school.

pigletmania · 08/07/2011 19:24

No I would never ever confront the parents, that is a no no. Just accept things as they are. I know that because of dd social communication difficulties she might not get invited to parties and just accept that. Any party invite is a bonus. All I want for her is to get her statement for foundation, and to be able to cope and adapt at school and to make progress, and stuff the parties.

pigletmania · 08/07/2011 19:26

DD starting foundation year in September and in the process for a statement.

ZZZenAgain · 08/07/2011 19:27

yes nannyogg what did the other parents at the party in the pizzeria do? Presumably they did nothing

RetroHousewife · 08/07/2011 19:41

if I had been at that pizza place I would have said, " Hello X, come in, budge up everyone, X is here!" all smiles and bustling.
And then I would have made sure no one ever spoke to the mother again.Grin

hargwyne1 · 08/07/2011 19:50

I hope you have spoken to the teachers. As a teacher myself, I would not only decline my invitation to such a mean spirited party, but would also explain to boys parents why I felt unable to attend. This should uncover and 'mistakes' made in the distribution of invititations. Hopefully dd will then receive an invite, which she can accept, or maybe decline, as she chooses.

Purplegirlie · 08/07/2011 20:16

OP, You are absolutely not being unreasonable! I hope the teacher has had stern words with the parents.

We had a similar thing with DD1 when she was at primary school, well it was ongoing really. It was a very cliquey school, where you were judged on whether you were a good parent by how much money you (pretended you) had. Anyway, from Year 1, a group of girls started to pick on DD and weren't nice to her, and gradually this spread to other children too, and because their parents were all cliquey the parents were like it with me. When they were leaving year 3 and about to go to Juniors, one of the girls had a leavers disco and everyone except DD and one other girl in her year (out of 60 children) were invited. My DH phoned this girl's dad as he knew him through work and the dad was mortified and said that the mum had done the guest list and did say DD could go. DH said no, we had plans now,but he just wanted to make him aware of how upset DD was and how unkind it was to do that to an 8 year old.

Then the following year a mum that I was friends with held a big birthday party for her DD, but told me that she hadn't invited my DD because "X, Y and Z don't like her and I wouldn't want there to be any upset at the party". Nice. The school were unsupportive as the parents of the other girls would go in as a group to complain if I'd been in the school about the bullying and the headteacher even said to me that he "had to go with the majority", and we did remove her from the school after that.

OP, I would go with the suggestion of arranging a special night out for your DD and the other left out children.

lisianthus · 08/07/2011 20:17

If my DD had been invited to a bullying party like that there is no way she would be going. This is incredible. And I am beyond words at mini's story.

And what TheCrunchySide said. This sort of thing doesn't happen in the normal adult world. People would think that the party holders were jerks, if s/he handed out invitations that excluded one or two people at work if it was a private party, and not go, and if it was a work party, there are laws to prevent bullying in the workplace, so management would be likely to discipline anyone who tried to pull such a stupid stunt.

SingingSands · 08/07/2011 20:36

Oh wow, some of these stories make me feel so incredibly sad for the children (and parents) involved Sad

pigletmania · 08/07/2011 20:37

I am Shock that grown adults can behave like little school children.

ChristinedePizan · 08/07/2011 20:41

I had a massive go at a friend of mine who invited every girl in her DD's class except one on the basis that her DD hadn't been invited to the other girl's party. When I asked her if there had been 2 or 23 children invited, she didn't know, just that her DD hadn't been invited so she decided it was acceptable to leave out this other little girl on that basis.

People are scarily petty when it comes to kids' parties :( God I'm scared of entering this world

pigletmania · 08/07/2011 20:43

well the grown adults were probably nasty children, who have grown up to be equally nasty adults

Nanny0gg · 08/07/2011 20:55

Christine - what response did you get from your friend?

Maryz · 08/07/2011 20:57

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

WholeLottaRosie · 08/07/2011 21:08

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

manicinsomniac · 08/07/2011 21:33

DOes your daughter get on with the other 4 children who have been left out?

If not then I don't think a special treat for the 5 of them is going to help her, you'd be better off doing something nice just the two of you. If she does get on with them then I think I'd rather do that for her than take her to a party she had been grudgingly invited to.

Really hope it's either a mistake or the little boy witholding the invites not the mum though.

ChristinedePizan · 08/07/2011 21:49

Nanny0gg- she was very defensive but I just told her that I thought it was very mean whatever her justification. She is very protective of her DD for various reasons but I don't think there's any excuse for excluding one girl when you have invited all the rest of them.

randommoment · 08/07/2011 22:08

sadaboutthismum, did you manage to speak to school today? What's their take on it, bearing in mind staff are apparently attending? And have you considered ringing idiot boy's mum and asking her if she wants a hand with this party, 'so sweet of her to organise it, can you bring anything etc?' If that doesn't embarrass her into submission nothing will!

ThisIsJustASagaNow · 08/07/2011 22:27

'If that doesn't embarrass her into submission nothing will'

But why would you want to have anything to do with a party where your dc only there because you've forced the situation? I'd feel excrutiatingly uncomfortable with that and wouldn't put my dc through it.

Yes I'd be hurt, yes I'd feel very angry, yes I'd hate them forever for leaving out my dc so obviously, but no way would I give anyone the satisfaction of knowing it.

TheCrunchyside · 08/07/2011 22:39

Wholelottarosie
Shock at your work situation. I can only guess that nobody pulled them up as kids for this sort of nonsense. Did you not discuss it with your boss? Even if they couldn't/wouldn't do anything at the time they would definitely think twice about promoting/giving responsibility to anyone who could act in such a mean and potentially morale sapping way.

randommoment · 08/07/2011 22:58

Being serious, this is just plain horrid. I was bullied by exclusion from the popular gang, which is probably why I'm a bit hypersensitive to all this. I think the approach to take depends on what's happening next year. Is OP's dd going on to the same school as the majority of these children? If so, is it a nice big school where she can be assigned to a tutor group away from 'cool kid' and his sheep-like friends? My twin girls are now nearing the end of year 7, and their friendship groups have changed a lot, because they've met loads of new people.

OpusProSerenus · 08/07/2011 23:00

Some people are just plain spiteful. When I was a child a neighbour invited my brother to her DS party and told my mum i wasn't invited as it was just for small kids, we then found out all the local kids were invited but me for no apparent reason. My mum went over and told her that excluding one child was awful and she should be ashamed, she then said I could go to the party if I wanted. Mum said "Sorry but she has far better plans for the day" as she felt she didn't want me to go and feel unwelcome, also she wanted this woman to feel ashamed. DB went to the party and Mum and I went out together for a special treat.

This woman made such a big deal of what a good christian she was but was just a hypocrite. Unfortunately these things do leave a lasting impression on you no matter how nice your parents are about it.

scarlettsmummy2 · 08/07/2011 23:15

Whole pratique, this happened to me too when I worked in recruitment (most recruitment consultants are arseholes anyway), but I was totally devastated as I got on perfectly well with the girl in question. I made a complaint to my boss but hr told her there was nothing they could do as it was out with work hours. I left that job a couple of months later thank god! But I do agree that mean children just grow up to be mean adults.

scarlettsmummy2 · 08/07/2011 23:16

Sorry, wholelotarosie, my spell check changed it.