To be so upset about being left out?

[Jiminycrickets]

Son (12) was really excited to go trick or treating. One of his friend’s Mums started a group chat with the Mums of several kids who live locally, trying to drum up enthusiasm for a local group to head out, I responded enthusiastically, volunteered husband to take the group. Nobody else responded all day. Eventually my (close) friend (who is also a school Mum) responded with a strange cagey non-response. I ended up calling her and she ummed and ahhhed a while before admitting there was a party, that her son and all of the other kids nearby were invited to, with the exception of my son and his friend (whose Mum had started the group chat).

The other child was devastated, too devastated to go out with my son, due to the awkwardness of potentially running into the group, and the mother got angry and ended up blasting the party organiser.

There was no last minute invitation to join the party. My son was left with no one to go with. The party group (of 8 kids) then came and trick or treated MY HOUSE.

What the actual hell? What kind of parent excludes two out of ten kids?! How dare they treat my son like that and then come to take our sweets?!!

AIBU? This is just such an awful way to treat children and neighbours! How could they have not had room for two more to walk in a group?

Im also really feeling betrayed by my friend for not giving me a heads up, I feel embarrassed by my enthusiasm to be met by silence of the “chosen ones”. She should have told me because now I feel like an idiot. And so awkward!

The party organiser also briefly had a Facebook story but then it disappeared, I think she blocked me from the audience. All of the secrecy and weirdness makes me think they knew it would be hurtful.

I just feel sick to go out in my neighbourhood now.
And like I can’t even feel comfortable around my friend.

Is it an overreaction?

Why do twelve year olds need their mothers to organise this for them?

I like the way you volunteered your husband to go out with them. Did he have a say in it at all?

It all sounds very controlling

So kids walk round without parents, they all know each other and live near enough to each other for this to work...I am assuming you live in a small village or something because in a city this wouldn't work. If I was to draw a walking distance radius from my house there would probably be thousands of children!

I live in London and it's been the case that families from a few close roads might probably be in this position, of all knowing the neighbouring kids.

How do you draw the boundary? What if little Johnny one street along isn't invited and gets upset at being left out?

Clearly the families on those few close roads knew each other better, which of course is fine. You can't include everybody in everything.

100% this

Once it's mentioned that somebody is looking for a squad, a group to go trick or treating, you change your plan to make sure you can include them and that the event and theme can stretch a bit to be about loose friends.

This is how I read it too. I can't understand why so many people think the kids/mums are being mean. What am I missing? This is not a group of 10 who are good friends and do everything together except this. It's not clear to me quite why the OP considers these 10 kids to be an established group. Parallels with inviting every child in the class bar one are odd as that is not at all what has happened.

It's unreasonable to expect a party to have to stretch - we don't know about the family's space or money, or what are the limits of what the hosting child could tolerate or cope with or enjoy - and it's not clear whether there would also have been other kids who considered themselves 'loosely' part of that 'group'. The kids at the party want to be able to head out when the time suits and not be tied to rigid plans in order to co-ordinate with others.

If they have bumped into each other when out, they could have chosen to join up of course.

If I were your friend, I would have spoken to the party organiser on your behalf and said - how about Jiminycricket's son? Did you friend do this? Totally with you on this. I would be very hurt. Party Organiser is mean and nasty...fine to exclude adults, but when kids are involved, adults should know better.

Think it's time to expand your friendship group and find nicer people.

So they knew that the children were upset and still didn't say that they could join in? I mean - there's no justification for that surely.

And those who are saying the parents had limited numbers, it doesn't really count in this case. Halloween parties start at someone's house (The organiser's). The kids stay for a short time, and then move out as a group to go trick or treating on the streets. It's not like a pre-booked event at soft play or a special activity like go-karting where there may be limits on the number of children attending. The parent organiser could easily have squeezed in two more kids who were going out in a group trick or treating anyway!

Also noticed that many on here are not reading the Op's post properly and missing the point entirely!

What sort of horrible parent excludes one child out of thirty?!

Horrid an yes children (and parents) can be cruel. I wouldn't make a big deal to your son as it's likely to make him feel worse not better. But you know these people are not your friends.

Exclusion like this is a form of bullying. I feel for you OP.

there are also parents who will try and shoe horn their kids into any activity and group they can and not be present for, and said child is a ticking timebomb for whatever reason.

not saying that’s happened here by any stretch, but some people will go to lengths to avoid having that child in the group as they are being shoe horned into it and not really part of it and sometime the parents just don’t see that.

however at 12 like Ops is I doubt that the above is the most likely fits how you outline it

A large group of 12 year boys out trick or treating with no adult supervisions isn't something I'd even let my ds do.

Around us halloween parties start early and last a couple of hours

In that case I’m mad at this mum too. She’s bullying my kids - they weren’t invited to the party either!

@Kanaloa
Oh, do you live in their neighbourhood too? Did your child end up trick or treating alone while all the other children his age in his area went together (including to your house)? Was the party mum (and other mums) aware that your child was the only one being left out but did nothing to include him?
If not, why be so facetious.
But at least, through you, OP can see inside the head of these selfish people.

He wasn’t the only one left out - do you think these 8 boys (who he isn’t even good friends with) are the only children in the area? I doubt it. And there was another boy who they know who wasn’t invited. This isn’t the case of every child in the class being invited and one being deliberately excluded - he isn’t part of this group. It’s just a child who lives nearby.

They aren’t selfish. They’re just people he’s not friends with who had a party he wasn’t invited to. That’s absolutely normal, and what’s facetious is insisting that they’re bullying him just because they didn’t invite him, when he already isn’t friends with them! Just because someone on my street has a dinner party doesn’t mean they’re bullying me by exclusion, even if I would have liked to have attended.

Kanaloa has summed up the situation well I think.

Also I asked the OP a couple of times if her son has a phone and is on WhatsApp but she didn't reply. The fact that she and the other mum were trying to organise things for them suggests they don't, which is unusual for 12yos.

DD has just started y7 and in a class of 32 girls, 27 of them are in a class WhatsApp group. During half term they were organising between themselves activities, open invite to all, some of them went shopping one day and cinema another. Obviously the girls without phones couldn't be included. One of them DD actually hangs around with at school and would have loved her to have gone, but there you go. It'll also be how friendships are consolidated nowadays through video calls etc.

@Kanaloa is right. This is a classic instance of parents projecting their own emotions and feelings of exclusion and vulnerability onto a situation that really didn’t merit it.

Don't get me wrong people can invite or not invite whoever they please but when you thought they were friends otnhurts and its OK to be angry. What would have got me is the secrecy and BS, especially yer so called friend. I would definitely be having words with her and explain her not being upfront and honest about things really hurt you, can she be upfront and honest moving on? Something similar happened to my son at one of his best mates birthdays, my boy was in years devastated when he got home but give him his dies he went right up and asked the kid what the problem was and why was he left out. He made me proud

@CrazyLadie but if you read the OP's later posts, her son isn't good friends with the boys. They just attend the same school and live locally to each other. If the OP followed your suggestion she'd come across as utterly batshit.