To not ask a child to my DD's birthday party

[Downwilson]

There are 12 girls in my DD2's Year 2 class at school. Her next birthday is coming up and she will be 7. For previous birthday parties I've sent invitations via the teacher to every child in the class.

Anyway, there is one particular parent who has ignored the last 2 invitations and her DD hasn't come (No apology, no text, no acknowledgement.Nothing) . The teacher assured me the invitations were put in the child's schoolbag.

I thought that maybe there was a good reason for this (rudeness) and put it down to some personal beliefs or previous commitments.

I know the mother vaguely and I've since been to parties of other children in the class and there she was with her DD.

So she's just a rude cow, who can't be arsed even acknowledging an invite.

So AIBU if I don't send an invitation to her DD for the next birthday party? It seems a bit unkind to not invite her daughter (who is not unfriendly with mine) but I'm just not sure how to handle it.

It's not that rude not to apply to a party invite!. There's your problem right there, op. There are still complete idiots out there that see nothing wrong in this... Mannerless oiks that they are

Give the invite to her face to face and say
its such a shame the invite to the last parties must have both got lost as you didn't reply to either, I'm just making sure you get this one

I regard good manners as highly important. I have always replied to party invitations....
Except that time when I hadn't actually ever seen the invitation (6 times minimum)
Or that time when my mum was in hospital for 2 weeks and I had to be there 6 hours every day whilst managing work and family life
Or that time when I was running my own business and working 70 hour weeks and barely had time to wee or sleep
Or that time when my anxiety was so bad and I could barely put one foot in front of the other
Or that time when I had a newborn colicky baby and hadn't slept for 6 weeks, and DH was working away
Or that time when the invitation arrived 5 weeks ahead of time and because of one or all of the above I couldn't plan that far ahead so forgot about it and the mum didn't bother to try to speak to me or text me about it even though she vaguely knows me, and now my DD is all upset because she's the only girl in the class not invited to the party of a little girls she thinks of as a good friend.

So, do you think every invitation we extend to anyone else should not be expected to stand alone; but followed up as many times as necessary in case any of those scenarios are happening to the recipient??

1. As evidenced on this thread; there are plenty of people with no manners to speak of who think not responding is perfectly fine,
2. The party child's mum could have any of that stuff going on herself. Life happens to everyone.

HanYOLO if you regard good manners as important you have a funny way of showing it ... on all of these occasions did you approach the mother directly and explained your situation and apologise profusely for being so rude, and your reasons for it?

FameName, none of those scenarios are real for me (apart from the first).

People have stuff going on that just makes prioritising the reply to 20th kids party invitation that year impossible.

People who organise parties, are those who still have the capacity to organise parties. wink

Good God you can't leave just one child out, also. The Teacher would not be able to dole out invitations and leave little Suzie (had to call her something) out.
That's exclusion. Schools can't do that. .

Yes the mother might be a rude cow, but fucking hell. Don't take it out on the child.

In that case they probably feel relieved that their daughter has finally been ostracised to the extent that they don't receive 20 invitations anymore, even if they are all upset.

If you don't have time to be a parent to then don't have kids.

Not impossible, Han, don't exaggerate.

Is your DD invited to this girl's parties? If not, I would stop inviting her.

Are you on school run at any point? If so invite and chase this mum for a reply.

IS it hall party or pay per person. If it is pay per person I would put a date on to tell people they need to RSVP so you can pay for their childs space.

No I wouldn't exclude one child because her mums rudeness.

My point really being that any of those life-taking-over reasons, or even indeed, just forgetting, and completely forgivable.

Anything is forgivable with enough perspective. But it doesn't stop it being rude. Why should anyone make up imaginary excuses for rude people who don't justify or apologise for their rude behaviour.

Had same thing with one boy in D's class, he stopped inviting all the boys. Think if ur inviting all then u invite all. Leaving one out makes u worse than rude, makes u cruel.

Do you know if her daughter has gone to others partys?

Hmm handsyolo not convinced by your heartfelt list of excuses for being rude. Particularly when as op has said the family have consistently not replied to her yet gone to other parties and appear to be fully functioning. Do find the bending over backwards to give rude people the benefit of the doubt and furnish them with ludicrous made up dog ate homework excuses quite funny - see it quite often on this site.

Op you do not sound weird at all! I would feel the same.

You can't leave 1 child out. It is the mother who has been rude - not the child. Just ask her at drop off/pick up if the child is coming.

The hand wringing about leaving one child out is odd. The previous invites were ignored presumably this one will be too so the child won't be coming anyway invite or no invite so what's the point of inviting?

It is that rude to not respond to a party invite when you've been invited to one. If you find the invite too late then you still respond and apologise, surely?

I recently held a party for my son, inviting all of his reception class, and there were quite a few who didn't RSVP, despite being asked specifically to do so. This made it difficult to plan ahead for as I wasn't sure until the day before exactly how many I would be expecting to come in terms of food and party bags etc.

I had one turn up whose parent had told me wasn't coming, two turned up having not RSVPd to me at all, and three children turned up with extra siblings (one of whom had a meltdown about not getting a party bag and the mum had a go at me for not having spares for siblings!!!).

Whatever happened to good manners?!

That's rubbish singing. How rude! As they get older parties pare down to friendship groups - much easier. All the parents who are so cavalier and eye rolling about "all these invites" change their tune as kids get older and only their actual friends proffer invites.

I think if all the others are invited then the child might feel snubbed or as if the op's dd doesn't like her if she's not invited. Not really the kids fault if she has rude parents.

Kids parties aren't a priority for me no and I would assume that the parent would take no reply as DD not attending. I'm abit busy with my other DC and my darling father who has terminal cancer to RSVP to an party invite this last month I haven't known if I'm an coming or going my priority wouldn't be to RSVP. It could easily be that this lady has had a lot on recently and completely got sidelined and forgotten to reply.

I was going to post almost the same thread. Except in my case the parent has replied and said the child is coming but the child hasn't turned up two year in a row.

Sorry to hear about your dad Underthemoonlight but you do realise you could send a text in half the time it took to write that post.

Yes, it is good manners to always reply to a party invitation.

In the scheme of things, not replying to an invitation is not really that big a deal but it is an issue that seems to lead to a lot of irrational annoyance. If it is a major issue, a simple phone call would solve the problem.

Leaving out one child for this reason would be very mean-spirited.