Aibu to be angry about this - dd left out group/party

[Lago1]

So a bit of background, my daughter is a lovely, yet shy and reserved child, who has been dancing for a few years with a group of girls and has grown in confidence around them. One particular girl, she sees as a good friend and they share another hobby which they do weekly together. This morning at dancing she hears some of the others discussing a sleepover and asked in front of the mum if she can join and the mum says of course. She comes home excited and gets her things ready, then I received a text 15 minutes before I was due to drop her off saying I'm sorry dd doesn't want her to come. Now I know maybe she shouldn't have asked but it was nice to see her confidence and she would have not even considered that her friend didn't want her there and probably thought of it as an oversight. There were no excuses made, and not even any effort to try and protect her feelings in this all. I am so sad for her. Aibu to feel really pissed off?

How so?

I don't get that so many of you are saying she probably spent the day trying to persuade her dd to allow mine to come, or it must have blown up massively or she must have been adamant my dd can't come.
I can see my dds not thinking to invite everyone, but they are not friends with anyone that they would be so distraught about them coming to a fairly large gathering.

My daughter will never have to have someone sleep over in her room that she doesn't want.

I'll leave you to work out why your attitude is a problem 😂

but surely its also healthier for dd to step back from it and not continue to have the other girl for sleep overs ect if its not reciprocated.

That seems sensible, and will prompt her to invite other friends who may have been taking second place.

😂😂😂 honestly I’m not the least bit ‘old fashioned’.
i really don’t think “group dynamics” are the most important thing here. I think it’s ok to teach children about reciprocity , kindness and ‘the more the merrier’. These are pro social values. Why are people so intent on raising selfish and uncaring humans?

I think you are being ridiculous to be honest, and turning this into a situation it’s not/ about something else entirely.
If the Dd feels unsafe around this girl that clearly another matter.

Exactly this

Is it usually unequal? Your previous posts suggested it was all friendly and great, so this was one event out of the blue she isn't invited to. How many exactly were going, and how many of those were from the same school?

they are not friends with anyone that they would be so distraught about them coming to a fairly large gathering.

You have to understand, it's nothing to do with being distraught. It's about actively wanting the friends you invite, and sometimes about being confident everyone will be on the same page and have fun together.

I don't get that so many of you are saying she probably spent the day trying to persuade her dd to allow mine to come, or it must have blown up massively or she must have been adamant my dd can't come.
I can see my dds not thinking to invite everyone, but they are not friends with anyone that they would be so distraught about them coming to a fairly large gathering.

You seem to see friends as interchangeable and amorphic, in a way that others don't.

If you've planned an activity to suit friends A-D, then having to shoehorn friend N into it doesn't work. Yet you might be very happy to spend time with friends L, M, N and O together, or A, C, G, I, J, N and O, or the whole alphabet.

What I'm hearing from you OP is that you don't understand people who do things differently from you, with your 'large family, more the merrier' dynamic. You don't recognise that that is one way of doing things, but one that many other people simply do not share; by habit, experience or inclination.

More than that, it's as if you're blind to those other ways of doing things. You don't see them going on around you, because you're so entrenched in your own way as 'the right way'.

Isn’t it just realistic? I might make plans with my friends from work, doesn’t mean I automatically have to send an invoice round to every single person I work with other wise I’m a horrible person who is ‘treating them like shit.’ I’m just inviting the people I want to spend time with. I’m still polite and respectful to other people but they don’t need to be my friends.

I think this is part of the issue. Everyone isn’t always friends with everyone, and all friends aren’t on the same level. We’ve all got people we’re not keen on, colleagues, work friends, distant acquaintances, friendly, acquaintances, friends, close friends etc. You should treat everyone with respect but that doesn’t mean you need to like everyone and be friends with everyone. In real life as adults we don’t think we need to be friends with every other adult. We accept that everyone isn’t our close friend. It’s the same for children.

And why on earth would anybody want their child at a sleepover where the host child had been ‘forced’ to have them there? Nobody wants to be unwanted.

It’s not so extreme as to be an either/or. People choosing to contribute to have the sleepover they originally planned is not anti-social. On this occasion OP’s DD isn’t invited. Such is life. It doesn’t mean the girl and her mother are terrible people.

These threads always crack me up as they highlight how intolerant and, ironically enough, vengeful unkind the ‘be kind lot are towards those that don’t agree with them. There’s a lot of dismissing them as terrible human beings they invariably hope suffer. It’s the ‘selfish and horrible’ people that are far more understanding of nuance, and accepting that other people aren’t going to be lock-step with their opinions.

Absolutely agree with this. Even if the mum said it was fine for my dd to attend, I wouldn't of been comfortable sending her. She wasn't invited. 12 is a difficult age but I possibly would of tried to make alternative plans with my dd instead.

I couldn't send my child to something like a sleep over that she had invited herself too. It just wouldn't sit right with me.

Yes, I can't help imagining the AIBU the other girl's mum might have written.

It's easy to see our own children as sensitive flowers, being bent and shoved this way and that at the whim of every passing person and their thumping, deliberate footsteps, as they struggle to navigate their own path towards the sun.

Yet not to expect, as a matter of course, the same likelihood of sensitivity, struggle and lack of intention in others.

I don’t think this isn’t a comparable situation to what you are describing though. Of course not everyone is friends with everyone.
In this case the girls are friends, and it was a case of leaving one out.
When questioned the mother didn’t say they weren’t friends, she said that preteen kids are like this and they’d probably be thick as thieves next week.
This isn’t about not allowing children what we allow ourselves as adults, it’s quite the opposite- it’s about teaching children the kind of pro-social, reciprocal behaviour that those of us who are half decent adults engage in ourselves.

It absolutely is an invitation. If someone has said yes you can come it’s an invitation. A bit of a forced one possibly but this is not adult to adult. A child still learning about social skills has asked an adult for an invitation to the sleepover. The adult said yes. Thereby extending the invitation at that point in time. The adult could have said no (in a kind way) when asked. She said ‘yes, of course’ That right there is an invitation for her to attend.
A group of 12 year olds in your care resenting another 12 year old just for being there. Well don’t you sound lovely. I’m sure your child will grow up to be just as wonderfully kind and caring as you. Just remember, you real what you sow.

The OP’s daughter only asked because she thought it must be an over sight and she had been forgotten in the invites. Neither she nor the OP thought the DD wasn’t wanted until the text came through.

In this case the girls are friends, and it was a case of leaving one out.

Not necessarily. One side of the relationship assumes they are close friends and someone is being left out. The other side might well think they are friendly acquaintances at an activity, but not particularly close, and that she wouldn't particularly need to invite this other child to everything. She might not even like her that much.

they are not friends with anyone that they would be so distraught about them coming to a fairly large gathering.

who knows? Maybe there's another child at dancing or school or some other activity that your DD is not best buddies with, but is pleasant to, or occasionally partners with in some activity or whatever. that child might well be sure that she's one of your DD's friends, until she is unwittingly not invited to something because your DD hasn't considered her like that. Maybe she would be devastated because deep down she had hoped to be part of the group. Your DD wouldn't be being mean by not inviting her because she's simply not thought of her in the same way.

The other girl wasn't mean in leaving her out.

No, it doesn't sound like it was dealt with particularly well afterwards, and I can definitely understand being hurt by it. I spent most of my teenage years being on the periphery of groups that I hoped would notice me and include me more. They didn't dislike me, they just never thought to include me, never really noticed me much, though we'd be friendly enough at activities and maybe sometimes see each other elsewhere. But really, why should they have included me if they didn't specially want to? Of course it hurt and was disappointing, but it wasn't deliberately mean or anything. And if they'd had been forced to include me, it would definitely have been worse.

It’s me indeed. I’d say I’d bow but no, no I wouldn’t.

interesting (mis)interpretation of anything I’ve ever actually said on the subject, but that’s by the by. Whilst admittedly my ego is robust and in good health, my self image isn’t dependent on being able to shame others to act exactly as I would. Getting mad and haranguing people online in the name of ‘be kind’ just seems to be a really shit time.

I'd have expected to see more kindness and insight here, into the difficult situation faced by another 12 year-old girl, who has had to navigate her sleepover plan being hijacked and changed, by a naive self-invitation and her mother's knee-jerk 'kind' inclusion - that actually did more harm than good.

I feel for that girl too. I suspect she and her mother had a difficult day.

I never said it was a safety issue. You're the one who assumed I meant that. It's my daughter's personal space. You wouldn't expect to be forced to share your bedroom with some of your work friends/hobby friends who you didn't want to, just because a parent said you had to?
She's 12, she's perfect capable of deciding who she doesn't want to sleep over in her bedroom. I would never force my child to host a sleepover for someone she didn't want there for any reason.

who knows? Maybe there's another child at dancing or school or some other activity that your DD is not best buddies with, but is pleasant to, or occasionally partners with in some activity or whatever. that child might well be sure that she's one of your DD's friends, until she is unwittingly not invited to something because your DD hasn't considered her like that. Maybe she would be devastated because deep down she had hoped to be part of the group. Your DD wouldn't be being mean by not inviting her because she's simply not thought of her in the same way.

No but if the girl was the only one left out at dance when they were speaking about it and asked to come and I'd said yes sure, there's no way I'd go back om that 15 minutes before the sleepover when no doubt she was ready with bags packed ect. I'd have told me dd to be inclusive and say who know, maybe you will get on. Its not like she was going to be the only one that didn't know anybody, she knew most of the people going, and as far as i know, never had an issue with any of them. It's clear they were more friendly than the situation described as the other girl has been happy to sleepover here.
I obviously wouldn't have sent her knowing she'd be unwelcome, I had presumed no she wasn't asked originally but the family do tend to arrange things at the last minute and the breezy can I come was met with warmth from the child in question as well as the mum. I was gobsmacked when I got the text.

A child displaying displeasure and not being mummy’s perfect little automaton. A wild notion.

her child’s fate could be worse. She could grow up to be a ‘be kind’ zealot that unironically posts quotes on Instagram and hectors on mumsnet 🤷🏻‍♀️

in all seriousness I imagine her child will grow up to be comfortable saying ‘no’ and confident when it comes to asserting her own wishes. I’d call that a win, personally.