Joint Party - no gift

[KinderEggg]

AIBU to be peed off?

A parent has been asking since year 1 to do a joint party with both our sons. I said no last year as I didn’t really know them and she asked again this year so I relented.

I bought their son a gift - asked what he liked etc.
She asked what my son liked etc and said she wanted to buy him something he liked. But she came empty handed and gave no gift.

Her son also tried to remove my son’s name from the board and then punched my son on the hand when my son told him off. I saw it and told him not to punch my son, and he started crying.

So I’ve put in all the effort to arrange everything, the upgrades etc…remind her constantly to send reminders which resulted in my getting stressed out because the venue needs the food orders but because she paid for half (as she should because it’s a joint party). I should let go the punch on my child’s hand for no reason and no gift ? Erm okay.

Can you stop gaslighting the OP?

OP, I've seen this poster goad people on other threads.

I will let it go as in lesson learned.
Are you her? Have you done this yourself? You seem determined throughout the thread to make me out to be the villain. Strange.

Poor woman definitely. She can arrange her own parties now.

Thank you!! She probably does this herself!

I think you need to do some introspection on why you are the way you are. Why spend your time needling strangers on the internet?

Thank you are hiding the thread. You can go gaslight others now as you have nothing better to do.

Oh it IS cool! Noting that for stockings!

I am not sure why you even agreed to it if the children are not REALLY good friends

Well that’s what I said last year but everytime I saw her at parties or school events, she kept mentioning it and the appeal of going halves and one less party to go to… I thought why not. She claims our two boys are good friends.

Did your son have a good time?

And you don't know your son and his friends well enough to know if this is true?

Yes but got upset he got punched for no reason and that his mom ignored him when he told her.

My friends is friends with most of the kids. All the class turned up.

So she was on the school run after school today my husband said. She ignored my husband lol.

He told his friend’s mum after you had seen the punch and told the friend not to punch your son on the hand?

You said she never does it
so maybe she was in a rush

Yeah it sounds like a bag of shit delivered by some cheeky fuckers. Sorry some posters are not seeing your point.

Grit your teeth and let the present thing go. Never do a joint party again with them.

YANBU at all to tell the other boy off for punching your kid.

Maybe she saw your 20 quid present (which was too much) and was embarrassed to hand over her more sensible lower value gift.

Wow some posters on here are wild. £20 is not too much for a gift and if it’s too much for you then that’s you. Not everyone is you. What can you even buy for less??
I have no idea how the OP is getting any level of crap about this. She is clearly in the right and the second party host was clearly a cf. Good god mumsnet. Get a grip and try to see even the obviously right thing here.

I'll take a guess there was no present even in the car! Well now you know OP not to do it again. On the positive note you did save some money by having a joint do.

I think she’s a CF.
Let you arrange it all - didn’t bring a gift for other birthday child. Likely not in car… would’ve been bought into school today….
Saved herself a nice lot of money too.
I’d try and distance myself. No more joint parties

some posters just have to take issue - either as sport or to vent their own frustrations.

At our school 20 is pretty standard. At the generous end, but most gifts are in that 15-20 window as more common than not. You have to choose wisely to get away with a gift under 10 quid without it looking fairly flimsy.

Me and her were stood next to each other in front of them, but she tending to her younger child. He tried to take off my son’s name on the board, my son said “stop”, he got worked up and punched my son on the hand which he used it to try to stop it. I said “no, insert boys name”. My son then turned to his mum and said “insert boys name punched me”. She just sighed.