School mum making it clear we’re not invited to the party

[Thatbucketheadssong]

Just weird.

Mum at school, we’re friendly and chat, kids are friends etc.
She asked me at pick up if I was going to ‘X’s’ birthday party-other girl in the class, my Dd, 5, friends with her. It was the first I’d heard of it, felt slightly embarrassed, said ‘Oh I’m not sure, have to check my WhatsApp’s etc’ She then persisted with ‘Oh X’s mum sent me a message, some people invite the whole class on WhatsApp, others WhatsApp each person’ (yes, I know 😂) we’d obviously not been invited, bit 🤷🏻‍♀️But not too fussed really as our main larger friendship and mums/kids group is outside school and Dd wouldn’t know anyway at age 5 or be that bothered.
This mum clearly wanted to let me know…why? Was it being mean? I could see in her face she knew we weren’t invited, it wasn’t a casual oops mistake at all
Should I stay clear of this one?

Me three! I had no idea I had to do anything specific at school pick ups to avoid drama, it was literally 10 mins out of my day and I’d just say hi to people then leave.

If you actually read what @trussedchicken had clearly written, and I concurred with, it involved not rushing into becoming too closely involved with people in the first 5 minutes of children being in school.

I never mentioned any drama at pick ups.🙄

It's really not difficult to understand the point being made if you take the time to read properly whats been written.🙄😁

Who mentioned drama at pick ups? 🙄

If you are going to quote people, try and find the manners to read what they have actually written.

Um,... you did: As a result of this excellent advice we did 4 runs of primary years completely drama free🥳

I am saying I didnt follow that "wise advice" and still managed no drama during pick ups.

Definitely knew you/your child wasn't invited! Had this a few times personally myself.. including 'Oh are you coming to Xs party on Saturday' no we weren't invited.. Monday comes.. 'oh such a shame you weren't at Xs party on Saturday, such a good party' to then find out your child is the only one not invited! Party child's parent is now a TA in our school 🤣 side note: I get on with anyone and everyone you know the 'good morning you alright' type.. so it was UNREASONABLE! But shit happens 🤣

Some School mums are just plain weird. Zero reason behind a lot of behaviour I see. Just avoid!

I wouldn't have given this a second thought! She likely assumed your Dd was invited (as her dd may have been invited a while back) and so when you said you'd have to check your WhatsApp she thought oh shit I've dropped my foot in it. So the was trying to clumsily explain that some have whole party and some only invite a select few by direct invite. I wouldn't assume malicious.

Ha, happened to me before, also from someone I thought was a close mum friend. She thought she was so clever with it as well, the stupid meanie.
‘Do you have the address for X’s party on Saturday, I was added to the WhatsApp group for the party a little later and didn’t see the details’. ‘No idea, we weren’t invited’. ‘Are you sure? I’m really surprised, lots of girls have been invited. Like almost every single girl is going to be there’. She knew I wasn’t in the party WhatsApp group at all, why the theatrics?

I didn’t care at all, it was a girl from the other class, never heard her name before and with having multiple kids I was glad to not get an invite. But she was such an asshole.

I do wonder why though? Wtf is the point of being like this?

I would have replied "no we can't go as have a really exciting day for child/children so I deleted details I think. I honestly cant keep up with all these party invitations at the moment '. Then she'll worry she's not been snowed under with invitations too,but then I can be a bitch too 😁😄👍

Where were you 2 years ago? 😭

But that is probably because you are a nice, straightforward and level-headed person. I was blindsided by school gate mum politics. i'd been lucky enough to have really good, straightforward friends right through school and uni - women who never played games. It never occurred to me that friendship was a cruel game for some people.

But the school mums were something else. Always targetting one person to be left out of a group. Always ensuring anyone who was concerned their child wasn't popular at school knew about every single event they hadn't been invited to. I avoided them all once I worked out what they were up to and made some unmanipulative friends who are still close fifteen years later. It's hard to fathom if you are not a bitch but they do exist and it is worth being cautious of them.

You clearly mentioned 'drama'. You said you had avoided drama because of following 'wise advice'. We were all just saying we avoided drama with no need to follow that 'advice'. It's a perfectly valid response (and not difficult to understand it you take the time to read properly what's been written.)

I agreed with @trussedchicken that not rushing into friendships was what had avoided drama, nothing else.

You mentioned drama. It's right there in your post. We can all read 🤷🏻‍♀️

Let’s just say you haven’t lived until you heard a West London independent school mum threaten to beat up another mum at a parent social gathering because she declined a play date invite with her daughter. The invited girl’s family moved homes 3 days prior and it was inconvenient to say the least.

I’m sure she wasn’t like that until she had a child and started worrying about popularity and some other nonsense.

She might have felt awkward and kept talking about it because she felt flustered that she’d mentioned it then realised your daughter wasn’t invited. I wouldn’t assume that she meant to cause upset. She could be thinking it over in her head now and feeling bad/awkward. I wouldn’t make any judgement or even spend much time thinking about it.

Yes, exactly you mentioned drama. We just made the point that we had had no drama without doing that. And it wasn't just 'not rushing into friendships' anyway. You mentioned listening carefully to your 4 yo about the class dynamics or something similar!

Well it's basically one of a few options

1. she wanted you to know for genuine non malicious reasons. Maybe she felt bad on your behalf, so was bringing it up as a heads up and to judge your reaction.

2. she loves a gossip and wanted a reaction out of you. Either so she could participate in a big bitch session, or so she could pass it along that you were 'very upset'

3. somewhere in-between - she felt bad for you but then when you didn't react she didn't understand why, so kept pushing it. I.e she's a bit of a gossip but not a fundamentally bad person.

Why is the assumption that she’s shit stirring? I would ask my kids friends if they were going to another party with no agenda, other than to be able to say to my child, oh XY & Z are going, so she is more excited. Plus it’s nice to know what familiar faces are at kids parties, as they can be such frenzied bore fests.

what on earth would indicate a lift share?????

This was exactly what I thought and exactly what I would end up doing, especially if it was a bit uncomfortable. If it was someone I got on with, I'd also have only asked in the first place to be like "yes thank god OP is going to be there for company" or for a liftshare. Or just to make idle conversation really, definitely not to rub it in anyones face than my 5yo got invited to a party...

I CANNOT wait to not have to go to Primary School.

It's not necessarily malicious. She probably thought that your DD would be invited.

I have a kid about that age and I can tell you now that she is hopeless at party lists and both years I've had to point out that she's missed people she really likes ("Oh YEAH of COURSE!"). I think it's entirely possible that she's missed out people she really likes and I haven't picked up on it, so if part of this is about feeling sad for your daughter that she's not going, it definitely does not mean that she and the other little person aren't friends. 😊

This has happened to me, by the way. My kid was very excited about a party that I knew we hadn't had an invite for. I dealt with it in a way that hopefully gave her a start on learning that it's OK not to always be invited, but obviously I'm not expecting her not to be disappointed.

Some people just love to point out that they’ve got something and you haven’t. Like Phoebe saying to Chrissy Hynds “So does your guitar have a strap? Oh… mine has.” Just laughable really.