to be upset our children are not invited

[droopyoldbird]

I am sure this subject has been done to death but my dh niece is having a meal for her 21st birthday.
They will be eating at 6 prompt as the 'youngsters' want to go into town for the rest of the eve.It is being held at a crap cheap Beefeater place.
We have no sitters that eve and my dh's sister and her husband (who are paying) have said 'they made the decision that it was an adult do and they dont want little ones running about - dont take it personally'
We are the only people invited with little ones.
The niece would like the children to be there.
AIBU to be really upset and cross that they have this attitude ? We are now uanble to go as have no sitters.

she can sit in the kitchen then with my mum, and the children, and a big plastic sheet on the floor

Oh my god, I've just reasised that none of my cousins invited me to their children's christenings a few years ago.

I think I shall harbour a grudge, PMSL.

Good plan about the plastic sheet!

You had better hide the sherry too....

Oh, Harpsi........ Better hide the sharp knives from Saveme too....

Yes, I shall be going on the rampage at the next family event demanding to know why I was excluded!!!!

Then I shall be moving to France (I like the sound of Anna's dinner party).

God, finding self getting dragged back in as well... It's not about hating kids at all. It's simply recognising that not everyone wants kids at every single event and not being so bloody precious about your kids that you can't recognise that.

I love DD dearly. I love it when we go out with friends who have kids. They play together, we have fun and no-one minds that:

(a) the kids are jamming straws into ice-cream machines/ pouring orange juice over each other / drawing on table/ running around like lunatics

(b) that at any one time, only about one third of the adults at sat at the table whilst the others retrieve said kids from pub kitchen/ main road/ car park

(c) every conversation goes a little like "no way, so your best friend just got hit by a bus and the ambulance.... wait, Lizzie! no, Lizzie! no, honey, not there... oh sorry, hang on a minute..."

Strangely, not everyone always wants that. Actually, in fact I don't always want that. I like having evenings/ lunches/ afternoons out without DD. I quite enjoy, for example, having conversations that last longer than two seconds. This does not, surprisingly, mean I hate kids. It mean that I am capable of drawing a distinction between times when having kids around is fun, and when it's not. People should be free to draw that distinction themselves.

yes otherwise my mum will start singing "Love Me Tender"
actually there are a couple of adults I wouldn't mind excluding from my family get togethers. the children are pretty unobjectionable.
how about this:
would you mind not bringing your dh? nothing personal, I just don't want anyone there who is likely to get pissed and make a slobbering pass at me while you are in the loo then try and drive home"

I could understand if it was at a posh place but a party at beefeaters at 6pm which will be packed with everyone elses kids running around screaming? What on earth difference would your kids make? Perhaps they're trying to make it posh by saying the no kids to try to hide the fact they're holding it at beefeaters.

"would you mind not bringing your dh? nothing personal, I just don't want anyone there who is likely to get pissed and make a slobbering pass at me while you are in the loo then try and drive home" "

Can't see a problem with saying that actually, don't be a doormat Harpsi!

Bl**dy hell! Harpsi!

You know my DH as well????????

lol at me being a doormat
I think you may have missed my point a little
I was saying excluding children because they are going to behave badly is about the same as excluding men because some of them might get drunk and obnoxious.
or maybe that is just my in-laws

"dear SIL, please don't bring your dh to my party. nothing personal, but I just don't want anyone boring there."

Dh is from a different country and his family parties are sooo different from British ones. ALl the kids play together, all different ages, there are no set times to arrive or leave. It's so relaxed and our children have grown up with a large extended family mixing socially with people of all ages. I find typical British ones pretty stuffy now tbh.

That said I love going places without my kids.

Well, FWIW I'm with harpsi!!

There aren't many kids on earth who are as hard work as my mother after too much sherry / white wine!!

(she's OK with red wine, for some strange reason, but white wine just makes her evil!! !)

Harpsi - my sentiments exactly.
One of the elderly family friends is going a bit batty and frequentl loses her handbag but she is still on the guest list.
I assumed family was not a conditional term on the grounds of weather you could sit still or converse.
If m-i-l had a stroke and suffered from dysphasia would she be excluded ?

My s-i-l has very high standards for her children (her son moved to USA at 20 for some reason) and I think it is this conditional aspect to being accepted into the family I cant stand.

meant to add my other s-i-l is asian and children are included in all occasions. I am used to this attitude and not the excluding camp.

It's not wrong to not like kids. People who whine about the moral failings of those who want to avoid children are invariably those with the most revolting, snot-covered, shrieking, intrusive, undisciplined monsters anyway. Why should everyone like children? As long as disliking them doesn;t involve active cruelty towards them, what harm dose avoiding them do?

It's not wrong to not-like-kids but it IS wrong when that is the prevailing attitude of an entire CULTURE.

I don't particularly like other peoples children either but then at our family occasions the children are playing together which means the adults get to talk and not worry about the little ones.

Oh, and the thing about 'your party should be welcoming to all your guests and put their wishes first'. Well actually most people do think that. ANd if they are having a childfree event its because they think that the majority of the guests, or the guests who are most important to the hosts, would prefer a childfree event, with fancy canapes in an elegant setting (or with fetishwear and recreational drugs) and don't see why they should rearrange for the child-obsessed minority. Particularly as people who bang on and on about how stuffy and rigid and coldhearted and selfish formal gatherings are have so frequent a tendency to lack discretion, tact, table manners and personal hygiene (so pretentious and unecssary, bathing every day, much better to be in touch with your inner beauty...)

madamez have you read the op? Beefeater at 6pm? Hardly fancy canapes in an elegant setting...

lol @ Beefeater canapes

do you think there's much of a market for that?

God I would run a mile rather than break bread with any of my cousins

MP - you really need to get out and see a bit more of the world if you think that the British are anti-children