AIBU unreasonable to loathe this parent ?

[Lappy214]

Have name changed for this for obvious reasons

End of Y6 and emotions have been running high for kids and parents, lots of reminiscing, special tear-jerking assembly at school and a prom in the school hall etc. My dc is fairly sanguine about the whole moving on to secondary school thing as they have no really close best friend, although no-one has a bad word to say about them and they get invited to parties sometimes as they are sort of on the edge of various friendship groups but not near the centre of any. We've never done a whole class party, just about 10 kids that dc gets on with.

Last day of term is an early finish and a group of Y6 parents have organised for them to head off to the nearest park to have ice cream and play football etc. I arrive at the park to pick dc up, end up hanging around whilst they get their bag/stuff and whilst chatting to a few parents I hear calls of "see you tonight" as other kids leave and also hear mention of "the REAL end of Y6 party" "it's gonna be great/so cool" etc. They seem way more excited about this than the Y6 prom which was considered by many to be a bit of a damp squib tbh. Parents are double checking who's getting/giving lifts to get there etc.
It dawns on me that one of the Y6's "birthday party" to which my dc did not expect to be invited (as they're not in the birthday child's main friendship group) is not a run of the mill birthday celebration after all. It turns out that my dc has worked this out too.

Just round the corner from the park pick-up I stop for petrol at the local service station and bump into another mum who I know well enough to ask about the party without any awkwardness. She told me that she specifically asked the hosting parent if everyone is going to this party and was blithely told all except A, B & C.

Don't flame me for lack of further information about B & C but it would be too identifying as to why they are not invited. They attended the prom but that was school run and staff were on hand.

A, as you've guessed by now, is my child. No-one's best mate friend but not a billy no-mates loner by a long run.

The parent has specifically excluded my dc who is acknowledged to be kind, well behaved, hard working etc etc just not cool or obsessed with the opposite sex like a lot of the kids in Y6 currently seemed to be this year.

Now to the point - AIBU to object to the parent posting pictures on the PTA pages of the school website (the parent is on the PTA) alongside pictures of the prom with captions about tears shed etc etc. I so want to not show how much they hurt dc and by extension us as parents but to exclude 3 out of 29 is just mean and posting photo's of the event on a page that I and any of the excluded dc/their parents can see is at best thoughtless.

AIBU unreasonable to absolutely loathe her for what she has done to a child, my child, as far as making them feel utterly excluded at the start of the summer hols and upcoming transition to secondary school. Dc won't go to the park today to hang out for a while as they know classmates will be there talking about last night's party. It's put such a cloud over the beginning of the summer hols for us as a family. I'm formulating a plan of lots of activities with friends and their children who don't go to dcs' school to create some happy memories to blot this out but I feel I have some work to do to build up dc's confidence again before secondary school starts in Sept.

AIBU to actually, deep down, think that parent is a simply not a nice person inside, however smiley/friendly and great they look on the outside ?

It truly amazes me that parents of young children themselves can show such inconsideration to another child. Reading this, I hope I never inadvertently make such poor judgement. Children who have done nothing wrong don't deserve such cruel treatment.

How bloody awful. When my dd was in primary school there were only six girls in her class and we generally only invited the girls to parties. One was very problematic as far as the other girls were concerned, but none of us parents ever allowed her to be excluded from a party and we even nagged our dds to include her in the playground. It is just not on to treat anyone like that, let alone a child. The payback has been that my dd as an adult is very inclusive and it has even helped her professionally.

retro I'm sorry, but you won't like this either.

You seem to be trying to blame what happened on the ops dc (by inferring that its their fault for not being part of the in crowd).

You seem to be blaming the op for not inviting party child to the ops dcs birthday.

Really?

Is party child best mates with everyone in their class except three children? Highly unlikely.

Has party child been to the birthday party of every child in the class except three? Highly unlikely.

Ffs. Put the blame where it lies. The party parent is being mean, they are excluding the few, they are teaching their children that its ok to do this. Horrible.

Oh good retro, something else to feel guilty about. So its my fault if my daughters never get invited to things, lovely. I had zero friends at school and was always excluded. That coupled with constantly being told my failings I still self harm today as a punishment. I cannot make friends with other mums, I am completely unlikeable and incapable of having friends. Even if you forget this part I'm almost never around for school run because I'm at work.

It breaks my heart to think I'm going to be responsible for my dc suffering as I did :(.

Fantastic retro so as a LP working FT I can expect my DS to be excluded because I don't get in with the playground parents?! Really?!!!!!

So because my DS doesn't have parties - he has HFA - but just a friend or 2 to do something he should be excluded from all whole class events?

What I find highly amusing re the SN thing is that in my case it's not my DS who causes the problems at parties. He'll happily do his own thing on the outskirts. It's the children who can't accept him for who he is or use his SN as a reason to bully him that cause the problems. DS is very reactive and they know it - so keep pushing him.

Retro yiu are sadly mistaken. I woukd agree if it was a birthday party and her ds was one of those not invited, it's just one of those things, it was not! It was an unofficial yr6 leaving party in which the whole yr 6 were invited but 3, not acceptable, tge party woman had the audacity to post the pictures on the PTA website, as if it were endorsed by the school. Glad she took them down.

I sorely doubt whether party boy knew all of the yr6. So retro you are saying, if your not in the in crowd, expect not to be invited. Sad state of affaires really.

what a super shitty thing to do. yes, there are incredibly vile people around. i haven't worked out whether they're just thoughtless or really malicious.

Retro, you are projecting majorly there! Ouch!

red do you think it's possible that your dd was accidentally overlooked rather than excluded? I wouldn't be able to remember or name every child in my dc's class at school.

Utterly horrid thing to do! Concentrate on having a fab summer!

Surely it wasnt a mistake? The parent would have asked school for a class list for invites?

Dancergirl, the OP asked another Mum about it, who was in the know, but didn't have a child going. This Mum said she knew that 3 children weren't invited. 1 was the OP's dc.

merry I was referring to red's situation, not the OP's!

We had a bit of a situation in Y6 where one boy had fallen out with almost every other boy in the class, partly down to his character but pretty much fuelled by his mum's strange PFB attitude that her DC could do no wrong. She was always up at school complaining that he was being bullied, but the teachers just couldn't see it. I don't think the school dealt with it very well, TBH. By Y6 he really had become quite unpopular and there was some excluding going on by some of the kids. He had no DXed SN, or any obvious unDxed SN. (But who knows?) I know this because I had been good friends with his mum. She had fallen out with almost everyone over this, even with parents completely uninvolved. (Including me as my DS was still fairly friendly with him.)

When we had our unofficial leavers' do, we made damn sure he was invited and included. We asked one of the parents still friends with his mum to check that she was happy with the arrangements etc. All pupils were invited via a letter addressed to 'the parents of Xxxx' put in bookbags. We had a decorated double decker bus pick the Y6s up from school and take them to a party venue to which we took bring and share party food. All parents and siblings were invited as well. His parents didn't attend, but he did come and had a great time. We were worried that his mum might not let him come, but I'm so glad she did.

As far as I know he's had a much better time in secondary, thank goodness. (My DS is in a different school.) He's escaped his 'reputation,' made new friends and in secondary there's no school gate mentality with parents.

So even with this situation and some probably poor behaviour on quite a few people's parts in the past, everyone could still see that it would be completely unreasonable and bloody unkind to exclude him.

That's a very positive story ellen

But what always amazes me about stories like these is how everyone seems to be an expert in what other people's children do/don't do, who's popular/who's not, whose parents are complaining to the school and so on.

And parties, how on earth could you possibly know exactly who is invited and who isn't? I wonder if some of these parties where it looks like only a couple of children are seemingly not invited are actually possibly smaller parties? People gossip, get the facts wrong etc.

Excluding one child from a party isn't nice, but nor is it nice to gossip about other people's children.

I strongly believe people are not obliged to invite guests they don't want. But this coinciding with school leaving parties is really shitty.

What a revolting thing to do! Just be glad your son has left that school. Don't mention it ever again to anyone. Try to rise above it. Good luck to your DS in his next school -he'll be fine.
I feel your pain.

That's hideous. People can be so thoughtless - surely it was an oversight?

I would find it impossible to ignore. I would email the parent who hosted the party and say "Was there an invitation we overlooked? My child didn't know about this end of term party."

Some mothers just never seem to outgrow the playground themselves. I had a really weird face off with a parent over the teachers gifts this year. She collected the money and then split it unequally between the teacher and TAs and when I dared to question how she'd split the money and whether it could be done differently she was really shirty with me along the lines of "you're new, this is how we've always done it...". She then spent the whole of the leavers' assembly and after-school park-date going round bitching and whispering about me to everyone - including the class teacher who seemed to be in on it! It was unbelievable. DC knows nothing of it but it was quite staggering. Thank god we're moving to a new school next year.

I sometimes envy my friends who work full-time, drop and run and have zero contact with the school-gate mums.

Very mean, one of the parents organised a Y6 leavers party at her house for all 32 children. Ds chose not to go (ASD) but it meant a lot that he was invited.
YANBU

This is so vile, at the school I teach in, the Head would want to know about this and I reckon would have intervened. I have never understood the mentality of people excluding children with special needs from while class parties. It just wouldn't happen in dd's class or in my school. Terrible.

Thank you to those who answered my post. When it's time for me to arrange parties I will never exclude a child with sn, heartbreaking that people could be so cruel.

I'm so sorry to hear about this OP and can understand your unhappiness. Have been discussing with DD (12) and she thinks the DM in question is a b**ch. Proud of her. Apparently a similar thing happened at her Y6 unofficial leaving party however. It was organised by 2 mums and held at a local venue. We all got invited and as it wasn't organised by school we had to pay about £5 towards venue hire and food.

DD now tells me 3 were excluded there too, which I didn't know about at the time. One had 'anger issues', one had caused bother for the two organisers' DDs and one was 'just a bit smelly and not popular'. DD tells me that she did mention to one of the girls that it seemed unfair but didn't push it.

I'm not sure what I would or could have done if I had known but I'd like to think I would have said something. I am a bit gobby when riled.

Like other posters have said, lead by example. We don't all get invited to everything buy hey, we're so busy with all the things we're doing this holiday so who cares.

Am very impressed with what clearly mature and dignified DC you have. A big high five from DD and me, if that's not too cheesy! Have a fab summer with them. They will make much more like-minded friends at secondary school.

WickedWax well done to you. It needs one parent to raise their head above the parapet and say "no, it's not ok to exclude kids like that" so others will support them.

OP I know you don't want to say why B and C were excluded but I'd like to think if A had been included but you knew B and C were excluded you would have spoken up?

I hate the schoolgate mafia, always bitches I find.

When my eldest left primary a girl in his class won the school award, it was for highest achiever or something like that, could be academic, sporting or whatever. I stood at the schoolgate comforting her as some mums had been bitchy about her daughter getting it. Three years go by her second child and my second child are leaving primary, this time my child won the award. I arrived at schoolgate and was just behind her about to say hello when I heard her bitching like mad about my child getting the award. I looked daggers and she obviously felt them as she turned round and went a whiter shade of pale when she saw me. She started to stammer out something totally incoherent and I just looked. It was enough as she visibly shrank. When the kids came out and I turned to go, she said "Sorry" but I just kept walking.

31 years ago and it still makes me fume if I think of it, not that I do very often but thinking of vile adults reminded me of it.