AIBU to expect a party invite for DS?

[Blueskiesarenice]

My DS has a best friend, they’ve been best friends for approx 4 years, in the same class at school and always having play dates, sleepovers etc.

Due to their friendship, his mum and I have became friends and just over a year ago she came to work for my business. Shortly after she joined I went on maternity leave. She took on a senior role with the view of running / growing the business whilst I was away.

Towards the end of my maternity leave it became clear things weren’t going well at work. I was told the business would make a loss next year if nothing changed. The senior team proposed a restructure and a number of redundancies. My friend was part of these discussions and knew her job was at risk.

Though I’ve not been at work when things went downhill and I wasn’t responsible for the restructure, I did approve it as it seemed the only option for the business and therefore my friend was made redundant.

She has taken this very badly, even her husband has sent me horrible messages.

But what’s shocked me most of all, is her son told my DS at school that he’s not allowed to have a play date with my DS ever again and he’s not allowed to have my DS to his birthday party. Both her son and my DS ended up crying about this in school.

Turns out my ‘friend’ has already invited all the kids in the class to her son’s birthday party and excluded my DS. My DS is heartbroken. Sounds like hers is too.

What do I do? AIBU to expect her to invite my DS to the birthday party?!

I thought we could sort this out without involving the kids. I get that she’s upset about the job but I don’t feel I had any choice and I don’t believe it’s my fault.

Also on the day the management team presented it to me, she was off sick.

I think you lack empathy regarding how she feels. It's all about you.

Yes OP we get you. I haven’t had a holiday for the past 20 years that I have not had to check emails and respond to client needs. Easier when staff contact with problems and you advise on their response to said client etc. A dip in the sea away from lounger requires looking at phone etc. Weekends are the same on holiday you don’t need to check.

But surely on maternity leave it’s the same. You check in and keep abreast of the situation even if not present. You literally distanced yourself far too far.

And again, I didn’t make these decisions. This is what the senior team presented to me at the end of my mat leave. I went with their recommendations as it made sense.

Going with their recommendations was you making that decision.

Yes, there was a business case for it, but ultimately it was you that made your friend redundant, as they were your employee

I don’t understand your logic in believing you had no part in it.

Ok. You wanted the mat leave and planned for it. This is the result.

You should have had monthly accounts at a minimum - you’d have quickly seen revenue wasn’t reaching target. I had more contact with my job during my mat leave and I’m just an employee.

whenever I've employed friends in the past, it's generally not gone well unless a very temporary fix (ie a few weeks, and that's someone I initially knew thru work)

This feedback has been useful, thank you.

Seems everyone thinks as a business owner, I shouldn’t have taken the maternity leave, but sometimes there are things in life that feel more important and sacred than business / making money.

I also thought 4 people would be well able to keep things running as I had done but given there would be more people and more skills and more experiences, they would be able to grow the business.

It has been a shock .

I also thought my friend would understand the situation and appreciate I had no choice but to go with the recommendations she and the others had come up with in order to cut costs and save the business, it wasn’t personal - the business simply couldn’t sustain the salaries.

So her reaction has been a shock.

But what I came on here to ask was about the children - I thought it would be reasonable to expect that their friendship could continue. We could leave them out of it. And I never thought my friend would intentionally exclude my son from a birthday party / make both the children cry. This feels totally avoidable.

You are very self centred . You keep saying it’s nothing personal etc but this woman has ultimately lost her livelihood and most people would , like her , not wish to associate with you again . Nothing stops the children still being friends at school as her son can ignore his mum if he wishes but anything out of school is obviously not going to happen as she doesn’t want to associate with your family .

I take it you've never been made redundant. It's awful. it were me, I would be so upset and angry that I couldn't look you in the face, far less invite your son to a party

The boys can still hang out at school

Just seems so harsh. I trusted her and the others on the senior team to run the business. I’ve returned from Mat leave to find I’ve almost lost my livelihood (and still might). Revenue went down instead of up under their leadership. So costs had to be cut. All of this happened whilst I was away. So why would she not want to associate with me or my family?! Or be so angry she can’t look me in the face? I get that she has lost her job and that’s absolutely terrible but I really don’t understand the level of anger towards me! It’s not what I would have wanted. Im upset with how things have gone but I’m not spitting bile at her.

It’s not rational or right but she blames you and now hates you and by default your son. It’s awful but I think all you can do is gently withdraw as far as you can from any contact with her or her family whatsoever. There’s no coming back from this.

How are costs up because of the SLT or is it merely the costs of employing them? Because, in that case, it sounds like you did create the problem by hiring over and above what was needed. It's also a bit strange they weren't on FTC if they were just going to be covering mat leave.

in your more recent post You also seem to be blaming the slt saying how you trusted them and now might lose your business. But here you say revenue is down due to the colc - that is not their fault. It honestly seems like you massively increased the costs of your business at a time of economic downturn. In hindsight, having 2 people to cover you and try to keep the business at a steady pace for your leave would have been better. And now you are blaming your friend and the other managers for your decisions and the country's economic position.

This is why I can see why she doesn't want to be friends with you. Playdates would be too awkward. But she is not being fair to either kid by excluding your son from the party or stopping her son being friends with yours at school.

Wow you are under fire on here OP. Ignore all the arm chair analysts, you don't have to lay out your entire business plan. However, your ex friend/employee is entitled to feel angry and hurt. I would also assume it feels awkward and embarrassing to have have children in the same class but I do think she is in the wrong for off loading her work woes on her son.

Of course home based play dates would be weird due to pick ups and it's not unreasonable to assume they would tail off for a bit but to exclude one child (his best friend) from a class party is mean spirited. She could have approached another parent to collect and drop off your son. Happens all the time at that age - especially when you have other children or kids at different parties or hobbies. The fact she chose not to - she still wants to hurt you and the easiest way to day is via your son.

I'm not really sure what you're looking for but you need to close this chapter, move on and focus on rebuilding your business.

Goodluck as I know challenging it can be, but spending all this time trying to explain why you took maternity or why you approved the redundancy etc on mumsnet is a fruitless exercise.

And she has already shown you she doesn't want to be friends anymore, to the extent she and her husband are sending you nasty messages, so why the hell are you still expecting party invites?

What a horrid situation OP - those poor children.

From what you've said I think she's being very unreasonable, completely unprofessional and you can take the moral high ground.

What were the circumstances of her getting the job though? Did she leave another well paid job to work for you?

I'm trying to understand where this level of animosity is coming from.

If it wasn't a whole class party then fair enough. But whatever the reason is, a whole class party excluding a single child is never ok.

I agree that pickup/drop off would have been weird, but then your DP or someone else could have done it.

I would actually let the teacher know to look out for your DS. She would never imagine a best friend being excluded from a whole class party.

Don't tell the teacher why though! Just that before/after the party date DS will be feeling left out.

I never mix business and pleasure because of this, and especially not with school parents.

It sounds like she feels she have been the sacrificial lamb, in her mind she may have worked extremely hard for you and the others have thrown her under the bus to save themselves?

I don’t think you can unwind this now op.

It is best to speak to the school, and make them aware. Encourage your son to make lots of other friends and explain age appropriately that it’s not his fault or the fault of the other boy.
Next year take your child to a theme park for the day on the friends birthday date avoiding the upset as far as possible. Organise lots of play dates for your son and broaden his social network. Ride it out basically.

I imagine she feels used and betrayed, you seemingly exploited her for your maternity cover and then got rid. Whether or not this is what actually happened, it certainly looks a bit dodgy that you hired her (presumably not as maternity cover but as a permanent employee?) and then as soon as you were done with your big holiday coincidentally the financials don't look great so she has to go. I'd find it difficult to believe that wasn't always your intention - not least because, as has been mentioned, owners/CEOs don't take a year's maternity leave (at least unless they have a multi, multi million pound company!). That's the trade-off with being the bigwig unfortunately.

So she was part of the team that oversaw her own job going?
And is taking it out on your son by excluding him from her son's party?

She sounds a nutter

It's mean to exclude your son and upset both children. YANBU for feeling upset about that.
YANBU for wanting to take maternity leave but YABU for not keeping an eye on your business.
It's not really good enough to say oh well it was doing well before I left. You are the owner, you should have at least kept an eye on things, even if it was a weekly/fortnightly report. I can't believe that you'd just ignore your business for a year and still expect it to be running smoothly when you went back.
I think you have to take some blame for your son losing her son's friendship.

She’s taking it personally (would be difficult not to) and is perhaps embarrassed as being seen as a not very good employee. She really could have avoided the current hoo ha by having a smaller birthday party for her DS, citing “limited numbers” for why Johnny wasn’t invited.

I wouldn’t do anything OP. Treat her with grace, say hello rather than diving into the bushes if you see her, work on other friendships for your son. They can also still play together at school presumably.

The best thing you can do now is to make sure your son is ok on the party day. Maybe take him out and treat him. Let him know that life isn’t fair sometimes but that he’ll be fine. I’d maybe give form teacher heads up on the day after the party to check no one is being unkind about him not having been there.

I don't really understand all these responses.

YANBU. Your son is not you. She shouldn't be taking her grievances with you out on a child. Simple as that.

Generally, I would say that no-one should expect an invite to a party. But, for the other woman is BU to invite the whole class, except for one, to the party - that form of exclusion is bullying. Are you absolutely certain that everyone else in the class has been invited? This is important to get right.

If she didn't want your son not to come then she should have only invited a smaller number of pupils so that she wasn't .

If you are sure that she has definitely invited everyone in the entire class apart from him, I would either talk to the parent, or the school, on the basis that exclusion is bullying. It can't be allowed to continue, but if it is left unchallenged, the bullying (exclusion) could be emulated amongst the children and there will be much bigger problems at school in future. Best to get this addressed now - if he is the only one not invited