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?

My ds was often excluded from parties. Disability and food allergy (although he did have an epipen which I realise changes things for some).

He has a summer birthday.

We kept a note of the select few who made an effort to include him and invited them to his party at the end of the year. Coincidentally () with it being a very small invite list it meant we could do a bigger event for same cost of class party.

Interesting how many people didn't like their kids being excluded from that and how many classmates questioned ds about why they weren't invited.

I said nothing other than "like all of them ds chose who he wanted".

I wouldn’t worry. Just do the same when it’s your child’s birthday. Unfortunately this does mean that you have to throw a much better party than she does. The lolly bags will have to be amazing too.

That socks, especially if you know its a safe place.

To (hopefully) make you laugh, DD once wasn't invited to a party because of her Dad's job. Not because they didn't like the job, but because he was "management" rather than "worker". The children were four...

If you have a party for your child I would definitely keep the high ground and make sure you invite her kid. Let her squirm.

Shell get a name for herself with all the other parents for that kind of behaviour.

Seriously unimpressive

Unless your child has lost their invitation, then I would just put this down to experience.

Not everyone is invited to parties.
Do remember the child's name though for when your child is choosing his best friends to invite to his. Do you think he will invite this child or not? It will be interesting to see.

I do wonder if all this party angst was going on all round us the whole time I was raising my children and we were completely oblivious to it!

If a child was invited to a party, they went, if we could.

When my children had parties, they invited whoever they wanted

Certainly would not have invited anyone because of what class they were in at school, or been invited because of that, or kept a tally of who had invited us back, or even gave one seconds thought to why a child had not been invited to a party

Why would you even do that, I mean, why would you give it one second's thought, or keep any sort of tally?

What a waste of time and energy

It's not great, but I imagine she's worried about the responsibility. There are a few posters who mention being given an EpiPen when looking after a child with allergies. I wouldn't have a clue what to do with an EpiPen, or how to deal with an allergy that severe. It's a massive responsibility.

She's vile and I don't understand other posters saying it's ok. First of all, it's fucking rude to invite all the eg girls and leave one out. Second of all, if she is genuinely worried about the allergies, then she should speak to the parents and ask them to bring food, come to the party and carefully watch their child.
I am so grateful that my DD was in a year group at primary school where this never happened. In fact, we made sure we catered for children with allergies. I know not everyone can afford to do this but then speak to the parents.
Now DD is 15 and and has friends with allergies, if they are round at ours, we always make sure there is food in the house they can eat.

I can’t believe the number of posters who would be fine with their child being the only boy/girl in the class to not be invited, that’s really unkind by itself regardless of the reasoning for it.

well, in real life, they would just have to get over it, no one is obliged to invite anyone.

Totally agree, I never understand these types of threads. Children have friends, the friends are the ones they'll hang out with and go to parties with

The sense of entitlement about what decisions another person needs to make about your child astounds me.

So bizarre! We’ve never not invited someone because of an allergy. Nut free is pretty standard for the school / all the parties we’ve organised to be on the safe side. Occasionally we also have a child with an egg / dairy allergy and get a few pretty vegan cupcakes from the cake store to make up for the birthday cake they can’t have. It’s not that difficult.

How do you know exactly who's been invited? Have you asked the whole class? Is it published somewhere or are you going on what dc says?

So you don't see a problem with every girl /boy in the class being invited except 1?

The allergies are not life threatening. The kid doesn’t have to carry an epi pen.

What I find weirder about this thread is that the OP seems to make such a big deal about her child’s non-life threatening allergies. Why is she talking about them at length with other school parents? They sound like a bit of a non issue. Lots of kids have allergies and intolerances and their parents don’t feel the need to talk about them and let them dictate their lives. The OP even says her child has never actually had to eat their packed lunch at a party because they’ve always been able to eat the party food.

I’m still not sure how you know it’s due to the allergy??? Are you assuming that because he’s the only boy not invited? There could be other reasons that your son is not invited that you are unaware of.

You might well have be asked by other parents why your DC wasn’t there - if so, just tell them that he wasn’t invited and that you think it was because of his allergies. Keep your dignity but drop her in it.

Definitely this. There was only one child in dd’s class with a nut allergy. We obviously avoided nuts anyway. But it wouldn’t have occurred to me to leads him out of a whole class party.

I am not surprised you’re so upset. My dd was excluded from a party for another reason. I struggled to talk to the mum for quite a while.

Its awful to invite all the boys, or all the girls, bar one. Of course people are free to invite whoever they like, but you really are a terrible person if you leave just one child out. Yes you can, and should, explain to children that they won't be invited to everything... but how difficult to explain why they are the only one! Feel for you Op

No Epipen...
Maybe the mother thinks is it far more serious than it is and is scared !!!
Did you explain it's not life threatening and that the child doesn't have epipen ?

Fair enough if it was say 10 kids invited and he never made the cut, but to be the only child not invited she's a disgrace to do that. And all the people on here saying it's OK are just as shitty as her.

Just remember it when your child's birthday comes around. As much as its not her child's fault, it's the only way to show her how it feels for your child to be the only one left out.

Goodness it's her child's party and their choice who they invite and for whatever reason. No one is going to query your child not being there it's common for people to not attend through illness or exclusion.

People dont get to dictate that their child is invited and they shouldnt expect it. Im sure it doesnt feel nice (if its true) but no one is obliged to invite someone to a party that they dont want there, they dont have to give a reason.

I also agree that the mom might think the allergy's are life threatening and might need to administer treatment. Maybe she will be on tender hooks during the party and would rather not have the stress of it.