We’ve hurt the birthday boy’s feelings?

[sidneytweeney]

So my son who is 8 has been invited to his friend’s birthday party next weekend. Another mum who I am friends with has asked me to take her son to the party too as she is working (he’s been invited.) I’ve agreed to do this and to help my friend out further, her son is going to be having a sleepover at mine in the night of the party. (Mum friend is a single parent, works as a nurse) The birthday boy is staying at his grandparents after his party in order to see extended family for his birthday. Birthday boy’s mum texted me this morning to say that I had disappointed birthday boy by organising a fun sleepover to which birthday boy can’t come. She said I had ‘taken the shine off his special day.’ Unless I’m missing a higher chunk of social awareness , this woman is batshit right?

@EverythingGolden so what would you have done instead?

My god. WTAF are you on?

I’d be really interested in your evidence that the OP is relishing a child’s sadness.

And yes, it’s ok to feel disappointed or a bit sad on your birthday. Even if you are 8.

Nothing bad is happening to this child, he’s having what sounds like a super party with all his friends and then going off to have a family party where he will be no doubt be appropriately celebrated by his Grandparents.

I did post further up that the Mum is crazy for texting this. I this she’s totally out of order. What I didn’t like it OP saying she wasn’t responding and not seeming to care that the 8 year olds feelings might be hurt and that she can do something about that by responding and explaining the situation whilst not apologising.

Oh stop it. He might feel disappointed but that doesn't mean he needs to be saved from a totally normal human emotion by being included in everything. Rather than being a PITA to other parents maybe his mum could spend her energy helping him deal with his disappointment. Resilience isn't magically acquired, it's learnt through experience.

Of course it is. That doesn't change the fact that what your child did was rude and that it would be doing him a long-term favour to tell him that. It's also ok to sometimes keep quiet about something you're excited about to avoid being rude, and - just like the other boy can learn that not everyone gets to do everything - your child can learn to be a bit more thoughtful about his friend's feeling. Everyone can learn!

Yep.. son sounds like a total brat, they are both coming to the party for her kids benefit, what they do after isn't anyone's business- there may be some politics going on beetween the kids who knows? - they are kids! She should be telling that kid he cannot always have what he wants - she should threaten to cancel the whole party. Kid, be happy you're having a party and both your freinds are coming- simple.

I cba sorry, I can just tell she’s smug and it’s only half a story. I’m sure it’ll be her kid that gets stung by something like this soon. It’ll be okay though because her kid would never be sad about something like this and if he is it’s tough, being sad never hurt anyone did it? Oh wait…

Just respond saying "Seems to be a misunderstanding. Friends DC is staying at ours because that's how his mum can get him to attend the party. Please reassure your DC he isn't being left out, and that you'd already made plans for him at GPs so he's busy on this occasion, but there will be others!"

To be clear, I'm not even slightly suggesting that birthday boy should have been invited to the sleepover or that his mum texting wasn't an overreaction. I just think it's basic social etiquette that you don't talk about something only two of you are doing together in a group of three, and that an 8 year old could usefully learn that.

That's a wildly more unpleasant attitude than OP or her son has demonstrated.

OP has sent the other mum a really nice message. No smugness anywhere.

She has now. But she said she wasn’t going to which some of us thought was a bit mean to the child and said a lot about her intentions. But then she updated to say she had responded which makes us all look crazy now.

Ok if you say so 😉

It’s fairly obvious that some people commenting here simply have no idea what it’s like to be a single parent, and it’s quite odd that nor can they even imagine it!. Yes you do sometimes rely on other people and then you feel beholden, and you can’t always reciprocate given lack of extra help / adult at home. So when you get single parents whose kids get on it’s a brilliant and sociable way to ensure your kids can be included in things rather than having to stay with grandparents (if available) or have a babysitter (expensive and not always a favourite way for the child to spend time), and you can help out another parent too so you don’t feel quite so shit about parenting alone and being on the outside of the assumed norm of two engaged parents.

Ah, non working mothers. My colleague used to say that the most organised ones were the working ones as we would organise lift shares and help with late shifts. Non working parents just didn't get it. Now that's not true of all non working mums but there was a few that were like this.

The boy is having what sounds like a lovely birthday, a whole day of celebrations with friends and family. He’ll be fine.

I’m more than half way through my life, bad things have happened on my birthday occasionally, such is life.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😒🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I'm not at the primary school parents politics stage yet so I’m a bit confused by this and some of the responses.

As I understand it, they’ve been invited to a softplay party which they will both be attending for the duration of the party. They’re not leaving early or declining the invite to have a sleepover. They’re just doing it afterwards, in their own time, when the party has ended. It’s only two of them out of a much larger group as they were lift sharing anyway, not everybody going but the birthday boy. So what’s the issue?

Why does it matter what anyone does after the party? It has no bearing whatsoever on the birthday boy’s enjoyment of his party surely. The party is over. Birthday boy will be seeing his family. Two boys will be having a sleepover. The others presumably have other plans for the rest of their day. Do you really have to block out the whole day of a party so as not to offend? I don’t understand the issue or why you should attempt to justify it.

She's being unreasonable. I can understand the boy feeling left out if there were only three celebrating his birthday and all but him were having a sleepover but that's not the case.

Sometimes it is better not to mention these things to people who are not invited...

I agree that the other mum is batshit but is nobody finding it absolutely crazy that 8-year olds are chatting to each other online?!

Why on earth was he rude? what did he do that was wrong?
Birthday boy is having a lovely day a party with his friends with presumably lots of presents and attention followed by a party with his extended family with presumably a lot more presents and attention.
Why on earth shouldn't two party guests have a planned sleepover after the party, especially in these circumstances where OP is helping out the other child's mother.
I am 100% sure that at every child's birthday party there will be things happening after the party that don't include the birthday child and no one will think anything of it because it's a perfectly normal thing to do.And there is no reason why those things should be kept secret or not talked about that's just odd
And I think it's a complete nonsense to say that his birthday was ruined because two of his friends are having a sleepover!

I don't think the OP would have been at all unreasonable not to respond. We have only the mildly demented mother's word for it that the child is at all upset. For all we know that's just her outsourcing her own discomfort at her child possibly not being particularly enthusiastic about going on a duty visit to his grandparents after his birthday party (which is not the best idea, anyway -- an eight year old after a big soft play party will be tired and high as a kite from sweets, and probably not in the humour, but we all make those choices from time to time. My DS is attending his granny's eightieth birthday instead of football training this weekend).

The OP responding or not is not going to make the slightest difference to the child, and certainly wouldn't have been a sign of indifference had she not responded. It's nothing to do with the child, really. Not responding would have been a message to the mother than she was being mad.

My son had to have his birthday party postponed one year due to snow, I think he was about 7, he coped with more grace than some of the posters on here!

I don't think having the sleepover is rude. I think talking about it in front of the boy who isn't going is rude.

I agree that the birthday boy is suffering no harm, and that his mum should have just talked to him about it, not texted OP. Her saying the birthday was ruined was a total overreaction and unhelpful. But I'm not surprised that an 8 year old is a bit sad after his two friends talked about a fun thing they'd be doing together without him in front of him. I think the birthday party element is irrelevant - that's just always a rude thing to do.

Why were you so condescending and patronising to her? That will just antagonise the misunderstanding further…You only needed to say sorry just helping x with her shift…