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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think a whole class except 3 party sends a very pointed message.....

521 replies

starterforeight · 24/07/2014 10:52

I'm trying to get my head round this as it is affecting the way I see someone I know well.

I'd rather not say which part I am currently playing in all of this so as to get a truly non biased opinion.

The children concerned are more than old enough to notice who is and isn't invited to a party and much discussion takes place about who's going, what they're going to wear, what they're going to do.

OP posts:
JustinFletchersLoveBunny · 24/07/2014 22:39

I'm dreading parties now! I'll make a mistake without realising and have a personal vendetta held against me and be completely unaware that some poor person is seething over an imagined insult!

PhaedraIsMyName · 24/07/2014 22:48

Put it this way, as an adult, would you invite 20 out of a workplace team of 23 to a social occasion

Absolutely. If the event is large enough to accommodate 20 out of 23 then it's extremely rude to miss 3 out. I don't believe you are bestest friends with 20 out of 23. Equally nothing wrong with inviting only the ones you are friendly with.

It's not every child must get an invite though. It's just 3 left out out of 25. Fair enough if it was a party of 10 or just the girls/boys but it isn't

Agree with this too.

QuipFree · 24/07/2014 22:53

I'm dreading parties now! I'll make a mistake without realising and have a personal vendetta held against me and be completely unaware that some poor person is seething over an imagined insult!

It's pretty hard to mistakenly invite that vast majority of the class and leave only a couple out. You may not know everyone's names, but you surely know how many are in your DC's class! We're not talking about kids being left out of parties for a handful of friends. We're talking about excluding an unwanted few from an otherwise all-class party.

Original poster
starterforeight · 24/07/2014 23:01

I'm back home again now.

Real Life stuff took rather more of my time to day than planned.

I can't really offer more than to say I'm not a parent of an excluded child nor the parent who has doing the excluding. The whole point of being able to use AIBU as a sounding board is the anonymity (sp ?)surely and providing too much info could jeopardize that. In particular getting opinions from parents.

Thanks so much for contributing, all opinions have been digested.

For what it's worth, the actions of the parent are not something I could ever bring myself to do unless there was bullying involved and that is simply not the case here.

I'm all for the unwritten but common sense etiquette (sp?) of the options being inviting a few friends for a treat, a larger group of up to about half maybe just over or all boys or all girls but I would just feel mean leaving out a very small number.

OP posts:
Gileswithachainsaw · 24/07/2014 23:03

It's pretty hard to mistakenly invite that vast majority of the class and leave only a couple out. You may not know everyone's names, but you surely know how many are in your DC's class!

Not really. Many come and go. I've no idea of final numbers In dds class. I hear occasionally if I'm lucky of a new kid or who's left. Dd also gets confused over names sometimes as there's two of X and three Y (all spelt differently etc) the only reason I know there's a new kid starting in September is because dd said he came for induction day. If I'd hae had a party planned already then easily he could have been left out due the fact I didn't know of his existance before handing out invites the first day back.

I consider myself lucky cos dd is fairly good at telling me about new arrivals/friends. But that won't be the case for everyone

PhaedraIsMyName · 24/07/2014 23:06

I agree with your etiquette on this. I might even include the bully as wouldn't want to be as bad as him/her.

YankNCock · 24/07/2014 23:47

In light of all the opinions starter, how do you feel about this party host now? Sounds like they aren't quite the person you thought they were.

IneedAwittierNickname · 25/07/2014 00:01

The way we do parties in our house is
You can have party a and invite b number of children
Or the cheaper to do party y and invite the higher number of Z children.

Dc then choose the number of children budgeted for. These may or may not be in their class, or even their year group. Occasionally they may be from outside school but rarely as they don't do any extra curricular activities and are either much younger or much older than most other family children.

If they haven't been invited to someone else's party the chances are we don't know it's happened.

Original poster
starterforeight · 25/07/2014 00:10

They certainly aren't Yank, I don't know how I'll look them in the eye and not feel disgust for their actions. It's such a revelation after all this time.

OP posts:
YankNCock · 25/07/2014 00:13

Oh dear. Well, here's hoping it's someone you can drift away from if you want to, rather than a family member.

Original poster
starterforeight · 25/07/2014 07:55

Unfortunately our paths will continue to cross several times a week for many more years.

OP posts:
greenfolder · 25/07/2014 08:02

you are asking AIBU

people are looking for reasons as to whether you are or not.

zzzzz · 25/07/2014 08:19

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LadyIsabellaWrotham · 25/07/2014 09:01

I agree with Giles. Number in a class isn't normally communicated to parents. If you aren't really paying attention it would be pretty easy to think you'd invited 22 from a class of 30, excluding 7, (basically fine) when you'd actually invited 22 from a class of 26, excluding 3, and look like a bit of a bitch.

Not the case in the OPs example though - acquaintance clearly aware of the circs and operating a robust e "my party, my rules" policy. The only possible explanation that would justify it would be a bullying (or percieved bullying) incident which they don't choose to share with the OP.

Original poster
starterforeight · 25/07/2014 11:09

zzzz I would totally refute that I am weirdly judgement about someone's guest list, that implies that I have opinions as to the people included/excluded.

I am totally being judgemental about their actual decision to exclude just 3 kids (and remember this is children we are talking about).

OP posts:
Original poster
starterforeight · 25/07/2014 11:11

For all those who state that they wouldn't have a clue how many were in their child's class and what their names were. By the time the kids get older than infants they themselves know and, to give away a bit more than I'd like to, this is a close knit community school due to it being a faith school and church playing a part in out of school lives also.

OP posts:
BookABooSue · 25/07/2014 11:15

If you are unsure about class numbers, why wouldn't you ask the teacher just to ensure you didn't accidentally miss someone?

Our school is the same as the one mentioned upthread. We all give permission at the start of term for our email addresses to be shared. Invites are usually given out in class and then a round email sent just in case any have been lost between class and home. All parents are on email which is just as well as the school uses it for a lot of communications.

I'm still confused in the OP's case if the party host has given a reason for not inviting the 3 dcs or not. Obviously the OP doesn't want to share all the information with us but was there a reason?

zzzzz · 25/07/2014 11:16

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Gileswithachainsaw · 25/07/2014 11:19

Look you clearly know something your not letting on because people had posted perfectly valid reasons as to how this came about and have pointed out that it may well not be some cryptic message that most of you are so paranoid about and assume everything's about you.

So why don't you tell us what this reason is rather than continuing with your agenda to away everyone to think there's malicious intent.

Gileswithachainsaw · 25/07/2014 11:20

Sway

BookABooSue · 25/07/2014 11:23

assume everything's about you
Unless you choose a guest list by alphabetical order or age then surely whether you are invited to a party or not is about you? Confused

zzzzz · 25/07/2014 11:27

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Gileswithachainsaw · 25/07/2014 11:33

That's the point zzzz

Not having an invite is not necessarily about you

It may be about money or numbers or a mistake or the invite got lost. But on MN everything is twisted to be about that one person who takes offend

Gileswithachainsaw · 25/07/2014 11:34

Offence

BalloonSlayer · 25/07/2014 11:37

Oh for heaven's sake.

It is quite clear from what the OP has already said what has happened.

Someone she knows very well, and has hitherto liked very much, has invited all but three children in the class to her DC's party. The OP clearly thinks this is appalling, and believes that the uninvited DCs will be upset and that the parents will be also upset and furthermore worried that their children or their families are disliked because it is a clear snub. She doesn't know how to view her friend any more because she had no idea how they could behave in such an insensitive fashion.

The OP then thought, hey maybe it's not a clear snub . . . maybe loads of people do this and it's me who has got it out of all proportion. Maybe my friend isn't so awful after all. Maybe I can carry on liking her/him. I'll ask on AIBU without giving too many details and get the consensus.

BUT, her one mistake is to forget that in exchange for posters giving up the 30 seconds it takes to type "YANBU, would never do that" or "YABU this happens all the time where I live," she is expected to answer every question put to her, including but not limited to: confidential educational details of left-out children (are they bullies? have they SEN?), financial details of inviting parents (how do you know they can afford to invite any more? Have you seen their bank statements? Well then scan them and put them on your profile to prove it!) etc. Failing to cooperate with this list of demands renders the OP, sadly, U by default.