Uninvited child turned up

[Imjustshockedx]

AIBU as I'm seriously shocked by this.

My DD had her 12th birthday a week ago.

What she wanted to do to celebrate, the max number we could have was 6 that included her. So she picked 5 other girls. 3 from outside of school and 2 from within school.

In school there are a group of 8 girls altogether and she's also friends with others who aren't part of the group.

One of the 8 girls we've known since primary. When this girl found out about the party, she told her mother and the mother messaged me asking if an invitation has gone missing and whether her child can go too. I explained as above regarding the max number and that only 2 children from school are invited, the other 3 being outside school. However I said my daughter wanted to get everyone together at some point round ours. She replied saying she feels it's unfair as her daughter hardly gets invited to any parties, only one of the other girls in the group did invite her daughter, and if I can accommodate her child. I replied saying how sorry I was but it's a max number.

The daughter found out where and when the party was and, on the day she turned up with her mother! I explained calmly the same as I responded in the message, however she said she's here now and all the girls are chatting. I spoke with my daughter to one side and asked if she had invited the uninvited child by mistake. She said no and that the child kept pestering her for an invite at school. I again apologised to the parent calmly as I didn't want a scene to be caused but she still wasn't having it. The party then began and they had to go into a different room in the back but the uninvited child still went to follow. At this point in my head I was beginning to get annoyed. When the staff member came to get them into the room I explained an invited child had turned up and the staff member was so lovely and dealt with it for me by speaking to the parent explaining the max number had been booked. As I walked into the private room for the event I could hear the parent complaining to the staff member and getting frustrated. Her daughter was also beginning to get angry as she wasn't going in. They eventually left. I apologised to the staff member and also thanked her. I explained she had previously messaged me.

These are secondary school children and I'm actually shocked they turned up. The uninvited child knew she wasnt invited and so did the mother as I explained it to her clearly on the messages.

I felt bad for the other child but 5 within their group weren't invited. The other children were fine with it and were excited for the day they were coming to our house. My daughter is now wanting to plan for the rest of the group to come to our house, however my daughter said she doesn't really want the uninvited child at our house now given how she acted turning up at the party uninvited.

So Mumsnet what would you do?

If no body else wants her there either it may well be that she’s either not nice to be around or they just don’t get in with her as she’s changed in different ways to the rest of the group. Not everyone gets on with everyone else. Sometimes, especially when growing up where you change quite rapidly, you need to move on and find friends you fit with better.

You cannot expect a friendship group of 8 kids to remain unchanged through secondary school. That’s entirely unreasonable.

Life can be lived without being constantly at war with others. It’s not about being nice, or being taken advantage of, it’s just having some perspective. I read word ‘disgusting’, ‘atrocious’, ‘despicable’…

Except of course for the posters who apparently think that OP should prioritize this girl’s feelings and wishes above those of her own daughter at her own party. To be ‘nice’.

Who said anything about war, or being in a constant state of it? Having perspective would be to not conflate saying no to or distancing yourself from someone to war.

I know. I’m talking about the party at OP’s home.

It's not just the mother. It sounds like the mother is enabling a difficult child but it's the child who tried to force an invite, then found out the details and communicated them to her mother.
The child needs to learn consequences

If you think that the tone of some the answers is proportionate to the matter we’re discussing - good for you.

100% this. My mother always was fair and thoughtful. I was taught to be kind to people, whatever background and there is always a reason for poor behaviour. I don’t think people who are kind and understanding are pushovers. I would definitely talk to the Mum another time and try to understand if there had been a miscommunication and talk through the issue. I would probably say “how did your daughter feel?” This would help understand the issue better instead of just being judgemental.

There haven’t been any demands made regarding that party.

OP this is a genuinely juicy story... I've been waiting all day for an update or replies to comments.

Are you ok? Has the physco Mum cut off your head and popped it on her wall like you're a trophy deer or something?!

Just awful.

Yet, anyway.

OP’s daughter wants to distance herself from a girl who, along with her mother, thinks it’s fine to ignore being told no. She shouldn’t be forced to have this girl at her own birthday party in the name of being ‘kind’.

@Hufflemuff
Exactly!
@Imjustshockedx - are you there 👋🏻

Yep, OP did the right thing. Her daughter chose who she wanted at her party, the girl wasn't part of that choice. Everyone has a right to exclude people from their lives, parties, gatherings, homes etc - and it happens to all of us. Such is life. How cruel the other mother was to do this to her child - but the OP didn't cause that cruelty.

The bulldozer mother's behaviour was frankly barmy. While I do feel sorry for the child, having any contact with them beyond that required by politeness will escalate matters. You cannot be friends with a person who will not hear no for an answer.

OPs duty is to her kid. OPs daughter is not a body shield, or comfort blanket for a pushy, entitled mother and her child. She had a right to have a nice birthday with the friends she chose. I am glad OP politely insisted that the answer was still no.

OP must now follow her daughter's wishes and not invite the child her daughter does not want to be around to her daughter's home. OPs daughter's instincts are good, she knows instinctively that turning up despite repeated Nos and trying to bulldozer someone's clear and fair boundary is weird, abrasive, antisocial and unsettling.

We do not insist that adults be forced to tolerate other adults leeching onto them and let them into their own home and neither should we insist upon this for a child. All that teaches them is that #bekind is more important than our own boundaries.

The #bekind mentality - almost always aimed at females - causes immense harm. And it is rarely ever kind to the person who wants to say no.

Lol no she absolutely does not need to invite her. They've crossed a boundary and acted in a very bizarre manner. The child does t want her there either. Op ignore this advice, don't encourage this behaviour.

Hiw do you know that? Op hasn't said what the venue was and she hasn't said it was a party. She has said it was a max of 6 though, that doesn't sound like a party. And moat venues have set numbers for a reason, not just for fun or for arbitrary reasons.

That's so weird. You're entitled not to invite the child and the mother caused the problem by turning up, no doubt telling the child it was fine to do so, and upsetting everyone in the process. I'd keep distance from them.

Sorry to the ones who expected me to reply throughout the day, I have been working! It's been a busy day!

My DD has decided that she will still invite the child to her get together at ours. As she doesn't want to cause any issues at school.

I will also not be contacting the school as this incident happened outside of school.

I will also not be messaging the CF mother as I want to keep the peace.

Thsnk you to everyone who has replied. Seems there are a few CF mothers about!

Happy Christmas! 😊

Edited to say I wasn't able to allow the uninvited child into the party due to health and safety.

Nowhere has op said itsa punishment. It's much more likely the daughter has seen how friend acts, and is freaked out by this and doesn't want a repeat performance if she doesn't get her way

I bet you wouldn't use the term "witch hunt" for a group of men.

Some activities can be quite expensive subject is another reason that the whole group may not be invited.

Years ago DD had a segway birthday event and at £40p per person (without food), numbers had to be limited.

Like the OP, more of her friends were invited to a separate celebration on another date. Its important they the celebrant has the event they want.

I don't like excluding people, but these are secondary school kids and mother and child should have known better. My kids wouldn't have wanted to go a party they weren't invited to at any age.

Can't believe this is secondary. I actually feel very sorry for the kid - I knew one mum who tried to push her kid into things in the infants, but to be fair she stopped after this.
Not got any experience of parents interfering at HIGH school at all, but when a mum (maybe she's related to this one!) tried to push her way into our nights out, we just bluntly told her to get her own friends. Sounds harsh, but she actually thought her daughter (we were all teens) was her best friend, and she kept trying to join us on nights out. Her daughter, our poor friend, kept cringing that her mum wanted to hang out with us and the only thing that worked was being honest. Bit harder if it's a mum pushing a kid in though.

No, the invite should be revoked when the mum didn’t hear “no” from you-it’s absolutely disrespectful and isn’t helping encouraging her daughter to be one of those obnoxious kids who get whatever they want and thinks the world revolves around them. You teach people how to treat you.

I was in a group of 3 friends from year 7 at school and we spent most of our time together equally.
We stayed at each of our houses almost every weekend rotating and hung around together at school. Any parties or sleepovers we did as a threesome but we didn’t really see each other much after school.

I lived round the corner from my friend Laura but our friend Jess lived in a village 8 miles away which is also where we all went to school. Occasionally we’d go to Jess’s house after school for tea and catch the next bus home but it was rare Laura and I spent time without Jess as we got home from school at 4.30 did homework, had tea and went to bed to get up early for the bus the next morning.

At 15 I had a boyfriend who was 18 so didn’t want my parents to find out, I started lying saying I was going to Laura’s house after school when I was actually seeing him.
Laura and Jess both knew and covered for me plenty of times when I said I was seeing them but was with my boyfriend.

One day my mum ran into Jess’s mum and made a comment about how I spent so much time at Laura’s house and how close we all were as friends, she assumed I was with both of them when I lied and was with my boyfriend and joked that Laura’s mum must be sick of us “all” spending so much time there.

Jess’s mum then assumed that we were “leaving Jess out” and ganging up on her and got herself worked up about it despite never even speaking to Jess.

The next time Laura and I went to Jess’s house to stay for the weekend her mum went absolutely berserk at us and called us “horrible little bullies” for isolating her daughter and accused us of giving her severe mental health issues in future.
Jess was mortified and begging her to stop shouting at us and said she didn’t know what she was talking about but she threw us out of the house.
My dad had to pay £20 for a taxi home for us because our car was in the garage and Laura’s parents had a drink and were over the limit to drive.

It was embarrassing and upsetting and unfortunately it pretty much ended our friendship with Jess as we didn’t want to stay at her house and with her living out of town it meant we didn’t see each other as much. We also didn’t get the full story till later and assumed Jess had told her mum these things and so there was a few arguments and the friendship didn’t recover.

Laura is still my best friend of over 30 years now and I think we’d have stayed a trio if Jess’s mum hadn’t behaved like that. I felt sorry for her because she struggled to make new friends afterwards but we left school soon after so I hope she made friends elsewhere.
She was supposed to be doing the same college course as me and Laura but changed it to avoid us, her family moved away later and when Facebook first became popular we sent messages to get in touch again but she blocked us so was obviously still hurt and angry.

I don’t think it helps when parents try to get involved with friendships once they are no longer needed to help facilitating them. I feel sorry for the girl who wasn’t invited in the OP but hopefully her mum will have learnt her lesson not to get involved. It should be up to OP’s daughter if she wants to invite the girl to her party or not, there might have been a reason why she isn’t invited to most parties and forcing her into the group won’t help.
If OP’s daughter really likes her then hopefully it’ll blow over but we don’t know if this was down to the mother or if the girl is so pushy that this was her choice to intrude and this might be why she wasn’t invited to start with.

Frankly (although I know that OP has now done so anyway), it seems a pretty moot point agonising over whether or not to invite this girl - as her mother doesn't take any notice of invitations and clearly just sends her anyway if she hears of a party or event that she fancies going to.

It's a bit like, if you owned a shop, considering long and hard exactly how much you need to charge for a popular item, in order to cover your costs and make a reasonable profit - when you know very well that the local thieves are just going to pounce and swipe your entire stock anyway.

She’s a twelve year old girl who has been humiliated by her narcissistic mother.