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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To invite 8 out of 13 girls from DD's class?

393 replies

Fr0thandBubble · 18/11/2021 22:56

DD is in Y1 and she will be having a party at home (with an activity) for her birthday.

There are 13 girls in her class, and she wants to invite 8 of them - meaning that 9 girls would be at the party (including her), and 4 girls wouldn't be invited.

Is that bad? I can't decide! Don't have room for all of them so if the consensus is that it's bad I will tell her she can only invite 7 - which is a slightly better ratio of invited/not invited!

OP posts:
Breakingmad · 19/11/2021 02:03

@TheGirlCat

The OP says, in the second paragraph of her opening post, ‘There are 13 girls in her class, and she wants to invite 8 of them - meaning that 9 girls would be at the party (including her), and 4 girls wouldn't be invited.’ It’s quite clear there are four little girls being left out, not five.

‘Parents like you do a lot of damage.’ I’m not a parent.

I was that child. The best reason so far not to give little children, practically babies, a reason to be upset and hurt about not being invited to a party they easily could be. Poor things won’t understand and it’s unnecessary harmful and leads to these sort of strange attitudes and complexes in adults. ‘I was hurt to hurt them too’.

NiellyNoFive · 19/11/2021 02:06

When I was growing up no one ever invited all the girls in the class to their party at any age you just invited the children you played with and hung out with.

I would invite a mix of friends from school and my neighbourhood friends.

Whereas for my DD and DS we had to do all these whole class joint parties in reception and year 1 - 2. They were fun to be fair as all the parents stayed and had wine and got to know each other better.

It was also great when you could finally just invite the DC your children were actually properly friends with in and out of school and also just drop your kids off and have a break.

IHateCoronavirus · 19/11/2021 02:08

As a teacher of young children, I have seen far too many hurt little faces, left out from selective parties. Kids this age are such little innocents, they approach life with so much excitement, parties get spoken about a lot.

Then once a few kids get stung by rejection, they realise how much power having a party has and can use it as a play for power and often as a weapon. “Do x,y,z or your not coming to my party!” “Don’t play with her, or your not coming to my party!” It becomes the bullying tactic of choice with this age group.

Not going to a party IS HURTFUL at this age. They feel it.

As such I warn my parents at the start of the year that I can only facilitate invitation giving out for class invites, if they are inviting specific kids invites must be given out sensitively away from the class. The parents a great and do this, but kids still talk. Birthdays are exciting.

NiellyNoFive · 19/11/2021 02:12

I literally did not give two shits age 8 when half the girls I'd invited couldn't make it to my party because they had a brownie trip and no one had thought to tell me.

My party was great. Completely forgot about it all by the Monday and was playing with all my friends from the brownies as per usual and didn't occur to me to join the brownies to be part of their brownie gang to prevent it happening in the future.

I guess DM and I planned it a bit better for the next year.

Breakingmad · 19/11/2021 02:15

I literally did not give two shits age 8 when half the girls I'd invited couldn't make it to my party because they had a brownie trip and no one had thought to tell me.

That’s not remotely the same.

NiellyNoFive · 19/11/2021 02:17

However I clearly haven't forgotten the brownie incident Hmm all these decades later so maybe I was more upset than I remember BlushConfused

NiellyNoFive · 19/11/2021 02:18

@Breakingmad

I literally did not give two shits age 8 when half the girls I'd invited couldn't make it to my party because they had a brownie trip and no one had thought to tell me.

That’s not remotely the same.

It's my story to tell

1forAll74 · 19/11/2021 02:32

Invite how many you can accomodate thats all.

Breakingmad · 19/11/2021 02:36

It's my story to tell

Well yes, but it’s nothing to do with this thread, really. If one of the Brownies had invited 9 of your little pals to her party and if you, then that would be the equivalent.

However I clearly haven't forgotten the brownie incident hmm all these decades later so maybe I was more upset than I remember

That said, this makes a lot of sense.

Breakingmad · 19/11/2021 02:37

*not you

Nancydrawn · 19/11/2021 03:17

That is brutal and cruel, OP.

Four girls of the whole group not invited, whilst everyone else goes on about the fun they had with their t-shirts (which of course becomes wearable code for those who got to attend)?

Have some empathy: the little girls will be crushed.

Joenlivsmom · 19/11/2021 03:20

I agree with the majority. I remember my daughter not being invited to a party where most of the girls were going and it was traumatic. Either invite all the girls or ask her to choose a couple of friends and do something more intimate. Just imagine it was your child who was one of the ones left out x

DeepaBeesKit · 19/11/2021 03:24

But the activity is painting-related - not sure boys would be into

Starting this whole thing of gendered parties at 6 is Hmm

DeepaBeesKit · 19/11/2021 03:32

How much of this is typical child development, and how much is learned behaviour, I don't know

Its learned and it depends a lot on parenting where you live. My son is friends with lots of the girls, playdates of either sex, parties very mixed.

He is having a whole class party but when he listed names of children he wanted at his party the first 8 he listed were 4 boys and 4 girls!

DeepaBeesKit · 19/11/2021 03:47

Oh and its always the same 3 or 4 kids who get excluded and believe you me they know about it and hate it. It would be fine if different mixes of kids got invited each time but ime that's not what tends to happen.

cali2000 · 19/11/2021 03:56

Please have a little more kindness

LaurenKelsey · 19/11/2021 04:11

When I was a teacher I wouldn’t allow children to pass invitations at school unless they invited everyone.

SaltyPepper · 19/11/2021 04:52

Disagree that it’s mean. You can hardly be expected to invite the whole class to every young child’s birthday party.

On the boys I think you are right, they are unlikely to enjoy a painting party with girls despite the posters who want to be PC about this.

SaltyPepper · 19/11/2021 04:54

@DeepaBeesKit

They start it themselves. Little boys and girls tend to split of by gender even at this age if you let them do whatever they want.

SaltyPepper · 19/11/2021 04:56

@Breakingmad

They will have to learn some time they won’t be invited to every party and shouldn’t be upset by it. That’s life.

SaltyPepper · 19/11/2021 04:58

@CakesOfVersailles

It’s not that boys don’t like painting, it’s that they probably won’t be so interested or have fun at a mostly girls activity.

TheLovelinessOfDemons · 19/11/2021 05:03

Huh? I don't understand Mumsnet sometimes. We've only ever invited DC's friends.

SaltyPepper · 19/11/2021 05:05

@Dancingonmoonlight

This isn’t unusual at all. It’s how every school or large child group is when the kids are left to their own devices.
You yourself said the only reason your child’s school is different is because grown ups step in and stop gender division because of the schools ideology.

TheLovelinessOfDemons · 19/11/2021 05:09

[quote Fr0thandBubble]@vsgkitt That’s what I’m worried about! What age was your DD then? Sounds like she was a bit older? I would hope 5/6 year olds wouldn’t be painting ganja leaves Grin

Anyone who is mother to a 5/6 year old boy, please shout if they would enjoy a painting-related party! Would potentially solve my dilemma if so.[/quote]
DS 14 would have bitten your hand off as he's been an obsessive artist since he could hold a crayon, DS 10 would have been bored at that age and looked for toy cars (ADHD) but he'd love it now.

AwaAnBileYerHeid · 19/11/2021 05:30

Wow, there are some real mean women on this thread.