To feel excluded from the community with no way back?

[Alixeab]

We moved to an area close to where I grew up. I went to an independent school and didn’t really know anyone where I lived.

When we had dc I said I was unsure about being part of a village where we didn’t go to the local school as it feels isolating. Anyway, we love living more rurally. I don’t want to move back to a city. But I feel completely left out of the village now my dc has started independent school. We are not invited to parties… there were three Halloween ones last week and all the photos up etc. I do socialise in the village and have made efforts to chat to the other mums and meet up with them but often I am asked if dc will move back to the local school
and I’ve always said I’m not sure and tried to be vague but it feels like a wedge between us.

we want dc to go to the independent school as the local one is basically two rooms ranging from age 3 to 11 and dc is very happy at current school. Is this just my life now? Feeling totally isolated? I do have friends from DC’s school and have mums I have known since the baby group days but village mums seem to have zero interest in my and my family. It feels so shit and was almost instant when we moved dc from the nursery in village to start school. Feeling really low as I love my friendships and would have loved to have been part of the fun and events in the village.

@Abracadabrador maybe I’m being over sensitive I don’t know.

Try putting your child in the local school then? That is the way back in. You can’t really have it both ways unfortunately, you’re either committed to being part of a small and close knit community, or you aren’t.

Sorry but yes you have rejected it.

Most likely most in the village can't choose the private option and the smaller classes and you stand out.

@Okiedokie123 i went out of my way to be friends with everyone because of this. I have made a real effort

But you have. You rejected it when you chose somewhere else. Now you may have very good reasons for that and it may be the best choice for you, but not to consider that it would have an affect on your child's friendships was naive.
It's not deliberate, you're just not there every day.
The best thing you can do is get your child involved in a local group ... rainbows, football, horse riding whatever. You need to build local friends naturally over time and shared experiences.

I’m not sure op of you e answered who the hosts were? If it was people in their individual homes then unlikely your kids would get an invite unless they’re friends with the kids? Is there a scout group? If so join that as that’s a good way of making friends and getting to do activities with people outside of the school you go to.

Sorry OP, I feel your pain but I do think this is common. I don’t even live in a village but all the kids on our street go to the same primary apart from one family where the kids go private. Those kids don’t get invited to parties of kids on our street as they don’t go to the same school so the kids aren’t close as don’t spend all day with them. Just the way it is I’m afraid. The parents have confided in me that they wish they’d chosen differently but feel it’s too late to move their kids now they’re settled 😞

By sending your child to an independent school, that the village kids don’t go to you’ve made a real effort to set yourself and your child apart (and in the villagers opinion, above).
You didn’t like that experience as a child and yet you’ve put your own dc in the same situation. But are no confused as to how come history is repeating itself.

You are coming across to the other parents “my DC is better than yours and must have smaller class sizes. But of course we will let him socialise with the hoi polloi.”

Typo in my previous comment “your dc will miss out” not its out!

What stopped you from hosting a Halloween party and inviting the kids from the village?

I’d assume parties were arranged on the playground. You’re not on the playground so miss out. Are there any village clubs you could join?

My dc go to a different school to most of the village (we live the other side of the school catchment) but we are involved in the village Panto (dh, me and our 3 dc) and dc go to a club every Friday in the village hall, so they have friends from outside their school.

So, if i understand correctly, the local school isn't good enough for you, but because you don't send your DC there they are not forming friendship groups where you live?

You have to work at it then, don't you? or put up with it. You know how it was for you, do you want that for your DCs or do you want something different?

I'm in roughly the same situation. My ds goes to a different school.

I joined the parish council. When I have time I make endless bacon sandwiches for the local youth club. This time of year I turn out dozens of apple pies made from windfalls for the youth club.

Join the local Facebook page and opportunities to volunteer will present themselves.

It's also the route to buying tickets for the village quiz, the village pantomime etc.

Your family won't get invitations because no-one knows you. You need to get involved.

But surely if they are school parties you wouldn't expect to be invited? Likewise private parties where your kids aren't friends? And if public/community events you don't need to be invited, you just go?

Yes, you would be very unreasonable to expect them to think about and invite your family to school or private events when they don't really know or have anything to do with you or your kids.

Presumably your school have events etc? You wouldn't invite them?

Why don't you throw a party - great way to meet people and then you will likely be invited back.

There will be other ways for you to take part in village life that doesn't revolve around DCs. Look into that, instead of sitting around moping!

Said with kindness OP, but honestly, I've found that village life is what you make it.

Our DC went to a different school from the ones in our village for complicated reasons i don'T need to go into.

So we made sure to get to know the other kids at the playpark at the weekends, and join in village activities for the sake of the DCs even though they weren't necessarily my thing. And it has been fine. Eventually they all went to the various secondary schools around here and formed their own friendship groups. You have to work at it.

2 classrooms is very small. We live in a remote rural location and our primary school has 4 classrooms. I can see how in such a small community, your children would need to be part of everyday school life, because the other children live in each others' pockets and are used to mixed age group and close family friendship networks. You have opted out at a critically early stage.

Organise a party and invite them.

I am still not clear what kind of party it was, who organised them and what the set-up was?

You need to chill. Your kids go to a different school, they will friends there. When they join a village sport or club, they will make friends in these set ups.

You want to be part of the village life? Entirely up to you, volunteer and become par of the village life.

One or 2 people might be jealous or take it personally that your kids go elsewhere but most parents really will not care. You are not losing anything out from the bitter one anyway 😂 but you are unreasonable to expect invitations just because you live there.

Just as unreasonable as posters miffed to be "excluded" because they believe they have a right to everything when kids go to the same school.

In my experience school mum/village friends are generally friends because they can support each other, eg school pickups, or someone to chat to at the school gate. Their kids are classmates so socialising is easy. If you're not in the mix for all that for whatever reason, you're going to be treated differently. You're not unreasonable, you are being excluded and that feels shit, but it's unavoidable.

But you’ve made a conscious choice to set yourself and your child apart by saying ‘The education setting on offer in this village, which all your children attend, is not good enough for my child.’ Now you’re complaining about the predictable consequences of that decision without being ready to reverse it. You made a decision. It’s no one else’s job to stop you feeling the consequences.

I think you’re being a bit silly to say it’s cruel - were the parties thrown by the mothers you do know a bit more? I don’t want to be at a bloody Halloween party, so if I throw one, it’s for my children and I’ll invite the people they want me to invite from their school or from Beavers. Not children they don’t really know, with a mother I don’t really know. To be honest I’d assume you’d be confused as to why I was inviting you!
You also didn’t throw a party and invite people.

Are there local groups your children could join eg guides or scouts, a sports club? Then they’d actually know the children in the village, and then their names would be mentioned when parties were being arranged.

I’m in a similar situation @Alixeab I echo people saying get involved in other volunteering opportunities like parish council (selectively, don’t wear yourself down), ideally something you can organise a Halloween party at…

at some point you have to realise too that fitting in is largely a myth, I don’t fit in particularly with the other parents at dcs’ p school, didn’t fit in when they were at local state especially…

work out what makes you happy, do more of that.