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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Preschool parent rang to invite her daughter to my daughters birthday party

95 replies

LondonDove · 29/04/2016 16:56

Had the weirdest message on my phone this morning. Am stunned and not sure what to do.

I work full time so I don't meet the other preschool parents. I left invites with the staff for the children my daughter said she played with so she can have a good party in a few weeks time. We have a number limit as we have an entertainer booked.
So the message was from a mum who had got my number from another preschool mum - goodness knows who as none of them have my number! And in it she asked me for the details of the party as she'd heard there was 'a pile of invites' and her daughter wanted to go.
AIBU reasonable to think she went too far? A note in my daughters bag maybe but to call me and ask for an invitation. What would you do?
Btw I had actually asked the staff for a few more names as the cousins can't go, and her daughters was one of them. So there was a second round of invites which she clearly hasn't seen and which she is part of.

Are we expected to invite everyone these days?

OP posts:

BackforGood · 29/04/2016 18:44

Wow. Am stunned by some of the entitled replies on here, as well as the rudeness of the mother asking for an invitation.

Firstly, no - you don't have to invite anyone. You invite whoever you want and whatever number you want.

Second, I'd ask her who on earth gave her your number. That is a gross invasion of your privacy - it's not for anyone else to give your phone number to other people!

Third, I'd say - sorry, numbers are limited and we've family to invite so she's only asked a few little ones from Nursery.

Peppapogstillonaloop · 29/04/2016 18:53

You totally dont have to invite everyone, not sure what kind of crazy pre school people go to that would expect that.
Nothing wrong with second round of invites, we all do that here..why waste the space esp if paid for. No one is offended by that(or even really notices)
Mum who rang is rude and entitled in my opinion.
Not sure why you are getting a hard time yanbu

GeorgeTheThird · 29/04/2016 18:56

Is it possible your child told her child that they were invited?

Pinkheart5915 · 29/04/2016 19:00

You don't have to invite anyone you don't want to and if you numbers are limited you can't anyway.
I think it was rude to call and ask for an invite, she's probably one of those mums who can't understand why her child isn't invited, she doesn't think about limited numbers etc.

Rainbunny · 29/04/2016 19:17

Well two things. First I think this mother was very rude and as you indicated that she had a rather bossy tone, I wonder if she saw other children getting invites, knows her dd hasn't received one (as far as she knew when she called you) and was annoyed that her dd was not invited. She perhaps felt her dd was wronged and decided to force your hand. By acting as though her dd was already invited and aware of it it would make you heartless to say no wouldn't it?

That said, I'm not sure how I would have distributed the invites but I just feel that giving them to the staff to deliver is fraught with possible problems. If only certain children are invited, you'd want the invites to be delivered discreetly if possible right? Leaving them on a side table or handing them out publicly so other children can see they weren't invited is exactly the kind of situation I would dread!

donogue · 29/04/2016 19:24

YANBU. The mother was rude and totally out of order. You invite who you want to your child's party, and all the uninvited children and their parents just have to Suck. It. Up. That's life! Nobody goes to every single party! 14 out of 40 is perfectly reasonable.

She's an entitled so-and-so and the "now please" tone would irk me no end. Steer well clear, IMHO!

Alisvolatpropiis · 29/04/2016 19:26

She sounds like a weirdo.

Tempted to avoid all this ridiculous party palaver by never letting my daughter have a birthday party. It just seems a real pain in the arse.

You have to invite every child, even children your own child doesn't like to the party, lest anyone be left out/offended. Wars have been won with less fuss

dementedpixie · 29/04/2016 19:32

Totally rude of her. Would make me want to uninvite her child tbh! No need for whole class parties and totally fine to invite just a few.

IcingandSlicing · 29/04/2016 19:45

These topics usually entertain me - mainly the replies I have to say.
So if it was the opposite - a mum complaining that her child was left out of invites I can imagine all the answers too.
One of the parts has to be the villain and it's usually the opposite part of the one that posts.
I hope all involved will be able to find peace wih themselves and the opposite part at one point.

anotherdayanothersquabble · 29/04/2016 19:49

Have wine with the rude one at the party and I bet you become best friends....

IcingandSlicing · 29/04/2016 19:53

"Who gave her your number?" - this is not a strager or anything it's a parent of a child from the same class as the OP child.
Besides - "phone is only for family" etc...
I am sorry but this behaviour is unreasonable in my eyes.
Can you not communicate like a person, not as someone who assumes and presumes, and give a reply to whatever question is thrown to you?

So if you want to invite the child say yes, please come. If you don't - say - sorry but I couldn't invite all the kids. What's the whole drama there?

glamorousgrandmother · 29/04/2016 19:54

As a reception teacher I was often asked to hand out invitations. They weren't usually for everybody so I just gave them to the children concerned at the end of the day and if a child questioned that they didn't get one I would just say it's so-and-so's party and they haven't got room for the whole class. I would have thought most people could understand that parents wouldn't necessarily be able to afford to invite everyone in the class.

On the other hand, we found out recently that last year my GS was told off by his Head Teacher and called 'unkind' for not inviting every child in the class to his party. The party, which was shared with his younger brother whose birthday is in the same month, was quite an expensive one, at an animal house. As well as both sets of friends there were cousins and old family friends making up the numbers. It's a good job for that HT my daughter only found out after she had left the school - how dare she approach the child and tell him off about party invitations - it was his 6th birthday!

FrancesHaHa · 29/04/2016 19:55

Totally normal to invite just some of the class here, both in nursery and reception. And never been a problem with giving the nursery worker/teacher the invites to hand out.

We invited about 10 of Dd's reception class recently this way recently. Other weeks she's aware that there are parties that she's not invited to, but understands that people can't invite the whole class, just as we didn't on her birthday.

diddl · 29/04/2016 19:56

She sounds very rude.

Have you actually given her an invitation?

If so, leave her to find it & turn up.

I do think it's rude to ask staff to give out invitations when there isn't one for each child.

I'd also be asking the preschool how she got my number.

Original poster

LondonDove · 29/04/2016 20:17

How am I supposed to subtly give invites to the children my daughter says she plays with when I am never... Ever... At the school gate? Answers on a postcard please.

This is labelling all full time working mums as rude and feels really unfair.

Should probably have written the following rant and then deleted it before posting but am fed up now. Walk a mile in my shoes and see how it feels.

If I could afford to work part time, if I didn't need the paper salary to get a fixed rate mortgage to give the family a home where the cost doesn't goes up regularly, I would.

I'm in a ludicrous (but common) situation where I work all afternoon when I'd like to be at the gate in order to take home less than if I worked part time! Because of the cost of childcare. But the cost of housing means I get to slave all afternoon for a piece of paper to tick a box. I'd love to afford to invite lots more people, and make friends with the mums in our neighbourhood but I'm stuck on the treadmill.

Working mums get left out of school events as we only have limited time off and they always seem to schedule them in the day time. And now apparently we can't invite who our children actually want at the party because the only avenue we have to do so is apparently rude.

Good old solidarity. Make the working mums feel even more doubly guilty.

Now let the responses fly as I know you want to. "You chose this way" "you didn't need to have two kids" "you should have thought of this before having them" "you must be rich you have a mortgage" aka it's your own fault.

OP posts:

diddl · 29/04/2016 20:28

"How am I supposed to subtly give invites to the children my daughter says she plays with when I am never... Ever... At the school gate? Answers on a postcard please. "

Post?

I'm sorry if what I said came across as judgy, it wasn't meant to.

I suppose as adults the staff should be able to carefully do it so that children don't realise who has & hasn't been given an invitation at the time.

Although it perhaps gets talked about anyway by the kids.

BombadierFritz · 29/04/2016 20:33

What you did is absolutely fine and normal. The staff should have been diplomatic about handing the invites out.

Dontcallus · 29/04/2016 20:38

Op we give out invites all the time at nursery, often only some of the group, no one comments, my son is a child there so he is often not invited, it's just everyday life. Very odd attitude on here about what's acceptable or not.
Other mum is nuts, who does that?!

diddl · 29/04/2016 20:38

"The staff should have been diplomatic about handing the invites out."

Well it would have been nice, but I don't see why they shouldn't just leave them to be collected.

clam · 29/04/2016 20:41

The staff should have been diplomatic about handing the invites out.

It is not the staff's job to hand out bloody party invitations in the first place! And if they do kindly agree to do so (and in my school they've been told not to by the HT), it's a bit much to then complain about the way they do it.

In the US, schools will not allow party invitations to be disseminated at school at all, unless every single child has been invited.

knittingwithnettles · 29/04/2016 20:45

There is a child there, under 4, feeling upset because they are not invited to a party that everyone else seems to be going to, and the birthday child is probably talking about [with an Entertainer]

I think the mum IS pushy. But you develop a thick skin when your child is upset about being left out. If there was a chance that her child might have been invited, and it was all a misunderstanding, I think she was right to pursue ringing you up. And in the end, there will be people who don't turn up on the day (there always are) so just go with it this time.

Fwiw I found small parties of 8 children, much much nicer, and stopped any aggro because really there were so few going that no-one could complain..(and this is after years and years of parties I say this, my youngest are 14 now)

BombadierFritz · 29/04/2016 20:45

Its not a criticism of the staff. Its an assumption they were diplomatic rather than having them in a big bag pulling names out of a hat style. If they leave them on a table as a policy, may as well just ask op to do that. Most likely they put them in bags/book for home.

diddl · 29/04/2016 20:49

"There is a child there, under 4, feeling upset because they are not invited to a party that everyone else seems to be going to"

But the child has been invited.

I think that the mum sounds rude, but Op, just tell her that there is an invitation at preschool for her daughter & she can pick it up on Mon or whenever.

Schwabischeweihnachtskanne · 29/04/2016 21:14

LondonDove it is normal and sane to invite your child's actual friends to your child's party - a party is not a public service. Obviously you don't invite almost but not quite every child, but otherwise the rest of the "rules" are silly.

The "second round" was perhaps a bit clumsy - no need to over think these things but at the same time, if it is not something you'd do with your own friends it might be worth asking yourself whether it is a brilliant idea with kids (inviting second choice, "B" class friends).

We always do a friend per year of age and the birthday child themselves decides who to invite. For term time parties invites go on the shelf above their peg for small children (for my older children we do a delivery round and actually drive to each invitee's house due to birthdays immediately after long holidays).

It is surely perfectly fine that kids talk about things they have done outside school/ nursery together, as long as it hasn't been 90% of the children invited and a tiny number left out.

I don't think your dilemas actually have anything to do with working though, unless you mean that is why you haven't yet had any friends over to play - handing out invites at the gates if all parents pick up at the same time might well be just as fraught...

FrameyMcFrame · 29/04/2016 21:17

*anotherdayanothersquabble Fri 29-Apr-16 17:28:37
Try to see it from her point of view..

Her daughter talks about your daughter and the party...

She checks with nursery in case the invitation has gone missing and someone says there was a pile of invitations...

She decides her's must have gone missing or that it seems odd that nursery decide who can go and knows both girls are friends.

She decides to stick her neck out as she works full time and her daughter doesn't get to meet up with her nursery friends often and in doing so, managed to sound pushy.*

This.

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