School mum hasn't invited DC due to food allergy

[AIBRU]

DC has food allergies. There's a school mum I'd spoken to about this before as she was curious.

She had told me her DC had a birthday coming up and that she didn't know how to navigate the food allergies. I explained that we never expect people to cater to it and always make sure we bring alternatives. When she mentioned again "still, it must be so tough", I said it wasn't. It isn't at all, DC has now been to loads of parties and DC has never had to eat the food we've taken with.

DC is the only child of their gender not invited to the party, which now turns out to be in a party venue (another parent told me this). We have never had a party venue charge more or say they could not cater for DC. We've never even been to a restaurant who could not cater for DC.

I'm annoyed, not necessarily that my child is the only one who's not going (although it's a bit of a shitty thing to do) but that they've clearly used this as an excuse.

AIBU?

If anything, I hope people are able to educate themselves on food allergies from this thread. I'm shocked at how many seem to be ok with excluding one child.
you can live in hope* *OP, in general (sadly) I find if it doesn’t affect people directly (their own loved ones), people prefer to stay ignorant to it… My best friend and her DD who was my DD’s best friend from 5 years old to 10yo has seen us twice since my DD’s diagnosis, (twice in 2 years!!!) if we bump into them in a supermarket they pretend to be looking for something on a shelf, and only say hi if we say it first… the mum works at my daughters school and actually hides from her there too! I find it incredibly strange how people can see you almost weekly, then when your DD almost dies they back off completely !

As a few other PP’s have said, could it be an oversight? Could you message or ask her if she’s invited your son and he’s lost the invite or has she deliberately Ostracised him ?!

Would you really punish a child because of their mother’s behaviour?

sadly some parents only learn when their child is treated the way they’ve treated others.

And what would the child learn?

when my DC were in primary one of them was in a class with a hugely allergic child. We always invited said child, mum always contacted us to find out what we were having and always offered to bring an allergen free version so DC could join in, and we didn't have to go to any trouble.

In fact we, as did most other parents in the class, just made sure that the menu was the same for all of them, without too much trouble.
Sounds awkward, OP, but you just have to take it pragmatically, and keep your distance from the mum.

I think it's unkind, and when my daughter was small I wouldn't let her leave someone out like this - it was all of the girls in the class/friend group, regardless of whether she had been invited to their parties, because I didn't want any child to feel hurt by being left out.

Sorry this is happening to your son, the mother is being a cow.

How old is the child doing the bullying?

Sadly there might also be the possibility that birthday child's mum is using the allergy as a backhanded excuse not to invite your child.

Some parents are very weird. One parent stopped their child having playdates with mine because they had a minor falling out at school, even though they made friends again afterwards and were happily playing together again. Turns out after speaking to another parent some months later this happened to their child too over another mild disagreement.
Parent was nice as pie to us at school, so you never know what people are thinking sometimes.

Another one here who found an invitation (screwed up in the bottom of a bag with juice leaked on it) a fortnight after the party happened. Do have a very thorough check before anything.

I once had a Mum turn up at a party and sniffly reject the food for not being Halal (having seen said child snarfle cocktail sausages I was quite surprised). I was delighted to tell her that actually all the food was Halal with turkey ham and vegetable gelatine in the jelly because I hadn't wanted to risk kids not being able to eat the food. Not being able to adapt food strikes me as the Mum just being lazy.

The child (and parent) will learn how it feels to be excluded. It’s so ignorant for the other mum to invite a whole class and exclude one.