Party pooper - How to respond?

[Secondchoice2]

My son has ASD and struggles to make friends. He is a cheerful 10 year old and is nice to everyone but rarely clicks with people. He has two good friends and I am grateful for that. I have been planning a small birthday party for him for months. He needed 8 guests to run the activity.

I planned it with the mum of one of his two good friends. Let’s call her Cowbag. She has helped me plan, understands the difficulty I have in getting people to attend and I even changed the activity to something her daughter would like. One week to go before the party and she has now withdrawn her acceptance of the invite saying that she accidentally double booked. she sent this by text. My son is devastated.

However, I have now found out that Cowbag’s daughter is now going to the party of another girl on the same day. This girl only gave out invites two days ago.

I spend a lot of time with this woman and I do not know how to respond. I am so upset.

And presumably cowbag knew all this. Yeah you’ve got to call her out that’s just shitty. Even if she had really genuinely double booked, it would still be shitty because she knows it will ruin the party.

”yes I heard x’s party invites came out on Tuesday. As you know we need 8 so hopefully I can find someone or DSs party will be cancelled. I really wish you hadn’t ‘helped’ me organise if you were then going to pull something like this.”

Terrible form of cowbag. I would let her reap what she sows. Don’t respond and don’t bother with her anymore

Hope you find your eighth

The problem is I will see her and her kids at the park after school. I feel sick at the idea of talking to her. I am so angry and hurt.

Oh I am so sorry. Cowbag deserves a worse nickname.

All the more reason why I think you need to be honest. You don’t need to attack her or get in a row but just be brutally honest. Avoid her if you possibly can, one word answers to questions and, if pushed, “I’m not really in the mood to chat. I’m quite hurt you nearly ruined my sons party”, shrug, wry smile and walk away.

I had a vaguely similar situation with a mum pulling the whole ‘Oh there wasn’t enough space to invite everyone’ when my daughter was one of 2 kids not invited out of a large friendship group. When I next saw her face to face she tried saying “oh no hard feelings I hope, ha ha, just one of those things”. I just shrugged and said “you could have invited the whole group, you chose not to. That’s your choice but I’m not going to pretend that’s perfectly fine. It’s a shitty thing to do.” Then just stood and looked at her. She looked horrified and it was never mentioned again. But she was noticeably much more ‘careful’ around me, very nicey nice.

People like this are used to treating others like shit, covering it with obvious lies and getting away with it because people don’t want to cause issues.

Give her a thin smile, talk if you have to. But nothing more. She has shown her colours and she isn’t a good person.

I think though to follow your gut. Not answering her message is a powerful thing. Her letting you down is the last interaction between you, so you could let it hang there. But if you feel you’d prefer to say something then that is what you should do x

I always wonder what people mean when they say "don't take it personally".

Such a weird thing to say when somebody had personally messed up plans you personally made with them - person to person **

Its awful what she’s done.

Could you cancel the planned activity and do something else where there’s less pressure to have 8 children attend?

Even without her letting you down it feels a bit risky if it simply won’t be possible to run if you’re even 1 child down. It doesn’t allow any flexibility for a child to be sick for example.

She's putting her child first and letting her choose what she'd rather do, can see why you're hurt and I'd probably feel it was too savage to do this, but I can see why she has. It's probably that lots of her friends are going to the other party and she doesn't want to miss out. Either way up to you how you respond, worth being honest about being hurt but if it's one of only two children he really gets on with i would try not to burn that bridge.

Adults made it on behalf of the children though, and most parents put their own children first.

“Well, thanks for letting me know. 😐 Hope Evvie has fun at the other party.”

Then bin.

What a scummy thing of her to do. Don’t let her off the hook. Tell her what this has meant for your son, leave the shame of it with her. Coward sending a text

Do they have to be children, what about th parents of the kids going, or siblings perhaps?

It’s more important to teach manners and the right thing to do, then to be put first on this occasion. This is not a put child first situation.

I dunno it depends, 9/10 is still pretty young really and it depends whether you believe it's good to be a people pleaser or not.

Putting her daughter first would be teaching her that integrity and good character matter more than Lily Mae’s party.

Having accepted to OP’s party, a decent person would attend, not bail for a better offer. That’s rock-bottom.

That’s all very well but we teach our dc that once we have made a commitment we don’t junk it when a better offer comes along.
it’s called parenting. That’s our job.

It’s not about people pleasing. It’s basic manners. If you accept an invitation you do not last minute blow it off for a better offe

I think especially for girls it's okay to teach them it's okay to put yourself first sometimes personally.

What a horrible woman

I think I wouldn’t respond or react to the text as nothing I could say over a text could adequately express my anger and I certainly wouldn’t be polite to her

Give her the cold shoulder at the school gates as well

Hope you find someone else

She’s flung the exact opposite of parenting. Parenting is teaching children that when you Jaye a commitment you don’t junk then a better offer comes along .

it’s no wonder society and communities non existent if people think doing this is teaching a child anything positive. It’s teaching them all about selfishness. Entitlement. Rudeness and to treat friends as disposable. Shocking attitude.

I need to channel your energy. I love your response.

Lol, dont make out this is about someone putting in the famous MN 'boundaries'

Its about letting someone down. Poor behaviour all round.

What?