Not Inviting my best friends to my daughters party

[GirlsAndPenguins]

Hi, ok so…
I feel bad that I’ve upset my best friends for not inviting them to my DDs birthday party. They don’t have children and I’ve only invited her friends from nursery or friends of mine that have children that she hangs around with (play dates etc).
I stupidly chose a tiny venue so there is a huge lack of space. I’m pretty sure I can’t even comfortably fit everyone I have invited!
We went small for 2 reasons:

1. last year we invited loads that didn’t turn up
2. I’m 39 weeks pregnant and conscious that I may not make it to the party so didn’t want to spend a bomb and have to cancel at last minute. I haven’t even invited any family! I don’t want to upset them as they have been amazing friends and are great with DD. But I had to draw the line somewhere. AIBU to just invite people with children?

I think it depends on why she’s upset. If she is child free not by choice she may see her relationship with your DC as a very important part of her life, and might feel as if she’s been “left out” of a celebration / part of their life simply because she doesn’t have children. If this is the case then I can see why she would be upset.

They don't want to go now because they now know where they stand with the OP. This happens all the time in friendship groups when some start having children and others don't. The ones with children start spending time with new mummy friends and the childless friends get dropped.

Are you actually criticising the writing skills of others when you have such limited use of writing skills yourself?!

I wouldn't expect to be excluded because I don't have children. The OP didn't just invite nursery children. She invited part of her friendship group.

I get the sense you’ve not exactly been thinking ‘what can I do to make this party a big load of fun for me’ more ‘how can I pull off this party with the minimum amount of disruption if I need to cancel.’

I think your amigas are being a tiny wee bit self-focused, and if your mates tried to look at it from your perspective then you wouldn’t be having to post this. I also think having a party with a few days left to go before a c-section is a lot, and your dedication to your DD’s birthday is lovely.

That said, not being at odds with your friends is obviously important so why don’t you give your pals a ring again and say that you really value them as your brilliant pals, how great they are with DD and now you’ve thought about this more and realised that sometimes people without children could feel excluded because parents wrongly assume people without kids wouldn’t want to go to a children’s party(I wouldn’t, no offence, but hells nah). I hadn’t thought anyone else would until I read this thread so it’s been an eye-opener.

good luck with the birth!

This probably makes me look really pathetic but my closest friend did this and as someone who was struggling to conceive it hurt that she invited those in our friendship group with children. Even though rationally I completely understood her reasons and think it's a fair decision to make!

I already feel like an 'other' being one of the only ones in my social circle without kids and this just reinforced it.

This. Please don't put adults through the pain of attending a children's party unless absolutely necessary in order to bring their own child.

This cracked me up😂

I invited my friends with no kids and got upset that they didn’t turn up (they didn’t tell me they weren’t coming either but that’s a different story) I didn’t know why I invited them in the first place anyway? You are definitely not being unreasonable

Yes! I'm childfree but have a beloved younger brother who has children (the girls are now 17 and 22) with whom I have been very involved and support financially with their education.

If he'd even dreamed of inviting me to their many birthday parties, I'd have been very creative with my excuses...

For those saying if you don’t have kids you naturally drop off the invite list once kids are past a couple of years old, I’ve been to soft play parties for my friend’s older children and to parties where parents have dropped off to be an extra pair of hands even though I am childless. I am very much the person who always ends up sat at the kids table at weddings and chasing the kids around, my friends are usually happy that I’ll entertain the kids whilst the other adults mingle or whilst they can get on with hosting jobs. I’m a teacher and genuinely enjoy spending time with other peoples children and find kids far less complicated than adults! So even though I don’t have kids I guess I would feel sad if I wasn’t invited to a soft play party alongside my parent friends because it is the sort of thing I would actually enjoy and I like to think I would be helpful too.

You’re right that does happen but it doesn’t mean that’s the op’s motivation here. People stay friends with people who don’t have kids when they have their own kids all the time too.

Ps and their own behaviour is now contributing to making their fear a self fulfilling prophecy IMO.

When I was childless if my BF invited me to a kids party I’d think she’d lost the plot. YANBU

I invited friends/family to DCs’ parties until they went to nursery school and had a proper ‘kids’ party. 1-3 was adults, close friends of us with and without kids, a few of their playmates from playgroups.
if there’s no-one else coming without kids then they should understand.

Not being invited to a children's birthday party is my idea of bliss ☺ 😌

Exactly! I'm so surprised any of them might be upset.

That sounds lovely. My Godmother is very similar and has a special place in my heart and also in my children’s.

I’m suspecting though that if your friend assumed you would not want to go and then when they found out you would like to immediately extended an invite - you would accept their apology for inadvertently upsetting you and accept their invitation to come and join in.

Your friend is being odd. A child's party is for the benefit of the child, not for adults to socialise.

I found it helpful when my children went to school to have a paid venue party for schoolfriends, then a small, quieter, party at home with family members which involved a buffet tea and a birthday cake. Everybody is happy, children have a kid orientated party with screams and sugar induced zoomies, older or childfree people have a quieter get together and your child gets TWO birthday cakes.

That’s very true! I wouldn’t refuse just because I wasn’t invited initially, even if I was upset at my friend I wouldn’t want to take that out on the birthday child by refusing to go to the party and celebrate with him/ her.

Your friend is being odd. A child's party is for the benefit of the child, not for adults to socialise.
It's a bit of both in my experience until they get to school age.

Most of DCs friends at that age were family friends and a few from nursery, so we seemed to get a mix on parties. Some people invited the whole nursery room and those were the parties DH and would rock, paper, scissors to see who had the short straw.
Others were mainly family friends /friends of the parents and their children. They were quite nice because the children would play and the adults would catch up.

Not with an older child but if it's a baby or toddler and I'd been asked last year and had been great with your child, this would hurt me. For all you know they want to be on the having children club and this could cut like a knife.

I would never have gone to softplay before I had children and never went willingly with children. It wouldn't, in a million years, occur to me to invite a friend without children to a softplay party.

I totally get that it cutting like a knife (which could be for a variety of reasons) is why their friends are upset…
but…
the friends have now said they’re upset. As op doesn’t want them to be upset, she didn’t realise they would be upset as she viewed it differently (ie from her perspective) and has done appropriate repair work because she didn’t want to upset them (what more can she do but apologise for inadvertently upsetting them and inviting them saying they’d love to have them there). But now these friends are too upset to accept the apology and invitation. That I find selfish and manipulative personally. And certainly not conducive to keeping an ongoing friendship. I can see if leading to “see… I told you we’d were being pushed off 1st tier friendship” type comments when op protects herself especially as she’s soon going to have a new born baby and more than enough on her plate.