DS has been uninvited from a sleepover and I don’t know what to tell him

[TryingNotToMakeItWorse]

DS is in year 6, 10 but turns 11 next month. One of his closest friends is having a sleepover next weekend for her birthday and invited him along with 5 other girls. He’s the only boy.

He’s always got on better with girls really. He’s got a couple of boy mates but theyre more school friends if that makes sense, whereas the girls are who he actually wants to spend time with outside school. He’s been friends with this particular girl since year 3 and they’ve been to each others houses loads of times, so it’s not like they’ve only just started hanging about together.

Anyway he was invited last week. They were going to have pizza, watch films and all sleep in the living room.

Yesterday the mum messaged me saying she’d had a conversation with one of the other mums who wasnt comfortable with her DD staying overnight if a boy was there. Apparently she’d not really thought about it before but had decided she was going to make it girls only after all. So DS is no longer invited.

I do understand that its her house and she can have whatever rules she wants but I feel really uncomfortable about the way its happened. He was invited and now he’s been dropped because another parent has an issue with it. The birthday girl apparently still wants him there and they’ve not fallen out or anything.

I havent told him yet because I honestly dont know how to explain it without him thinking she’s changed her mind about being his friend. He doesnt get invited to that many sleepovers and he was genuinely excited about this one.

Part of me thinks I should just say the plans have changed and leave it at that, but then he’s going to find out at school when the other girls talk about it.

Would you tell him the actual reason or keep it vague? And would you say anything to the mum or just leave it now?

@Lacksie

• "Perpetrator age was recorded for 63% of offences. Where recorded, just over half of CSAE (52%) involved reports of children aged 10 to 17, offending against other children, with 14 being the most common age, similar to that reported in 2022."

https://news.npcc.police.uk/releases/second-child-sexual-abuse-and-exploitation-analysis-launched

Tell me again that we shouldn't be worried about children of opposite sexes having sleepovers.

No she's not projecting.

The way safeguarding (and indeed all rules that pertain to groups of people) work is you treat everyone within a category the same, even though only some of them have the characteristic in question, because you cannot tell the difference. You do this for the safety of those in the category that are normally victims.

By your logic you would also have to think that all single sex spaces are invalid, because they "project" onto men that they are all predators.

No, rules do not "project" in this way, you are misunderstanding how they operate.

We have general rules because it is impossible to tell which members of a category display a characteristic, but we know the category overall displays the characteristic.

I’m challenging the claim that a ten-year-old boy sharing a sleepover with his friends amounts to making girls’ bodies available “for male consumption”. That language absolutely projects a sexual motive onto him, simply because he’s a boy.

And it projects onto the girls that their bodies are being offered for consumption merely by sharing a room with him. Nobody has suggested the children must undress in front of other or surrender their privacy.

All of these projections are deeply harmful. Invoking “safeguarding” doesn’t put that framing beyond criticism.

So, 10 year olds aren't sexual?

Gosh your ideas of what children can and cant have autonomy over are incongruous. How on earth do you reconcile it all in your head?

Again, it does not project a sexual motive onto him. It allows for the possibility that he has one, and acknowledges the healthiness of the feelings of the girls who know that is a possibility.

A lot of people's heads are firmly in the sand on the topic of safeguarding women and girls

No, I'm saying that we have a society which has, and continues to treat, women as objects for the enjoyment of men. To correct that, we need to teach both sexes from an early age that bodies belong to the person. Women as a class (that is, those who are born as female and grow into adult female humans) are statistically more at risk from men (those who are born as male and grow into adult male humans), so we need to help them to develop secure boundaries that keep them safe.

I'm not suggesting that this boy is necessarily a risk to those girls, or that he will ever pose a risk to any girls or women. But as 91-98% of sexual assaults are perpetrated by men, and 25.6% of women have experienced sexual assault, or attempts of sexual assault, we need to have protections in place that reduce the risk to women. That means that we have to reduce the freedom that all men have to protect women from the men who choose to assault women.

Thanks for having the patience to set that out. I worry how we've forgotten the obviousness of these things, and how basic errors of thinking (the difference between all and some, for example) are so widespread. I think it comes from such an ascendency of rights based thinking - mainly apparently with respect to the perpetrator categories - and us having been taught from childhood now that "generalisations are bad" meaning we're losing the ability to parse concepts like the prevalence of certain traits amongst certain populations, weighing rights in conflict and so on. Previously the culture protected this - imagine a mixed sex sleepover being proposed for non-related children decades ago - and now the culture seems unable to distinguish these concepts anymore.

Who mentioned gender andwtf is hetrosexist?
Look your clearly unable to understand the safeguarding rationale behind separation of the swxs for sleeping and other arrangements such as changing or toilet facilities be we do so perhaps you should either listen or bow out of this conversation as your not helping anyone and are coming across as an idiot

Exactly this. it’s not saying boys are sex pests. It is safeguarding. Stories like this are overheard at school and teachers or other adults are obliged to take action and investigate. It may be something, it maybe nothing but child on child abuse is a thing and the host mum is going to enter a world of difficulty explaining herself and her dodgy decision making. Why expose yourself to this?! No wonder she has thought better of it.

but I have to say, several people have implied mums of boys are the ones who don’t have an issue with this and don’t get girl’s rights. I don’t see that in this threads. I am one of many boy mums who has said not a cat in hells chance would my son go to this.

I actually think it’s really important that people properly and critically consider the harm they are doing in the name of “safeguarding”.

Framing ten-year-old boys as potential predators and girls as potential victims, regardless of their actual relationships with one another, risks entrenching the very norms that drive sexual and gender based violence.

Sexualising children and casting ordinary, happy mixed-sex friendships as inherently suspect imposes a deeply troubling, heterosexist framework on their relationships. That risks reinforcing the conditions that enable violence, rather than teaching children mutual respect, bodily autonomy and care for one another.

Indeed - I have one of each. Because my 16yo ds respects girls and understands boundaries, he actually reported his best friend for sharing a semi nude photo of a girl in their year. They're no longer best friends. Ds has learned that sometimes doing the right thing is uncomfortable, but it is still the right thing to do.

You say that asking a 10 year old boy not to attend a sleepover with girls is "sexualising children".

But then you also see the statistics around 10 year olds having sex and also 10 year old boys committing sexual assault.

How do you square that circle?

I would suggest you are not even trying to square that circle, but instead are fine with letting that burden fall to the girls in question, who yet again have to

• accommodate everyone else's feelings and suppress their own
• pretend they are "cool" with undressing in front of males
• pretend that it's "inclusive" to not have natural feelings around privacy
• pretend that boys and girls are the same when they know the boys are stronger and are at 10, in many cases very sexual! And watching porn
• shut up and be nice for the sake of harmony

When we don't accept reality as we find it - the reality as evidenced by stats that 10 year olds are having sex, and in some cases coercive sex, then we abdicate our duties to the vulnerable. Puts me in mind of Desmond Tutu's analysis - if you are neutral in situations of oppression, you are taking the side of the oppressor. And before you go down a rabbit hole again - no, not all boys are oppressors or perpetrators, but as a category they are compared with females, and so our rules have to be based on those generalisations since we cannot tell which those boys will be until after a girl has been victimised - which should be an absolutely unacceptable outcome but doesn't, incredibly enough, appear to be for you.

Additionally, you continue strangely to frame this in terms of how the boy will feel hurt. Why on earth wouldn't he feel strong and gentlemanly, for graciously receiving a woman's no? It's such an odd framing of this situation to suppose it makes a victim out of him - on the contrary, it gives him an opportunity to put his girl friends at ease and acknowledge their personhood. A very strong and attractive quality in a young man.

That's such an attractive quality in him, to have such values. Girls will appreciate that

Why on earth wouldn't he feel strong and gentlemanly, for graciously receiving a woman's no?

Gross. This is exactly the harmful stereotyping, adultification and heterosexualisation I’m talking about.

This is a ten-year-old child being disinvited from a sleepover with friends. He doesn’t have to be “strong” and “gentlemanly” about “graciously receiving a woman’s no”. His friends are ten-year-old girls, not women, and there’s no suggestion they’ve said “no” to anything.

Why are you framing a childhood friendship as though it’s an encounter between an adult man and a woman rejecting his advances? Ick. Gross. No .

Any reason you're not answering the question about how you square your evident distaste for the possibility of 10 years old being sexual - distaste so strong you are denying it could even be a possibility here - with the statistics about 10 year olds having sex including incidence of rape and pregnancy?

Could you answer the question?

I never said ten-year-olds can’t ever have sex, perpetrate rape or become pregnant. Those things are very rare at 10, but possible .

However, the existence of a risk doesn’t establish that any measure taken in response is proportionate or appropriate. I could severely restrict my children’s lives and friendships to reduce particular risks; that wouldn’t automatically make it justified. You still have to consider the actual circumstances, whether the proposed restriction addresses the risk, and what harm the restriction itself might cause. Citing those statistics doesn’t answer any of that.

And who bears that risk? You? The boy?

Just tell him the truth, no drama.
Just say to the other mum, no worries you completely understand, but would be lovely if they could do something together another day like the cinema.
i think it’s the right decision not to have mixed sleepovers.

My DD is the girl in a group of more boys than girls. We've always said that we'll only allow same sex sleepovers. It's a valid stance, it doesn't mean we think DD male friends are abusers. We made sure DS and DH went away for the night when DD had a sleepover. Both DCs have been on Scout camp where it's single sex, usually from Beavers up.

I vote separate sleepover when the birthday is over, if you and the birthday mum are happy with that.

If he is friendly with girls, your DS must "understand" them IYSWIM and so I reckon he will understand why the plan changed and will be OK with it.

Its not unreasonable - the family who know him well were happy to have him over, but another family who doesnt know him is uneasy about boys being there.

Its perfectly reasonable of them and I think your DS will understand and be reasonable about it too.

Although if he can join in for the rest of the night, as has been suggested, then that would be ideal!

What a shame for your DS, especially when the birthday girl still wants him there. I'd tell him a gentle version of the truth - that the mum decided to make it girls only, so it's not about him or the friendship. If you keep it vague he'll hear it at school anyway and fill in the gaps himself, probably in a way that feels worse. And I'd say something to the mum, calmly - not to change her mind, just that dropping a child after inviting him sits badly. Then plan something nice for that weekend so he has his own thing to look forward to.xx

It doesn't even need to be a case of risk or intent. These are 10 and 11 years dealing with brand new hormones that they neither understand nor can control. Best to avoid uncomfortable situations for all involved.

I see that you still haven't explained what you mean by hetrosexist (a made up word btw) yet you keep using it.
As for your nonsense about safeguarding causing mvawg it just proves that you have no idea about either nor the risks that some 10 year old boys pose to the girls around them. We don't know which boys or men are the bad ones because they don't have it tattooed on their forehead so we have to put in measures to protect women and girls from them all and the good ones understand that.
Nobody is casting ordinary mixed sex friendships as inherently suspect, that however doesn't mean that we ignore the risks that boys of his age and above can pose because of those risks he is now past the age when mixed sex sleepovers are appropriate he needs to accept that as a boy there will be things that his female friends share like sleepovers that he will be excluded from due to being male and tbh the sooner he learns this the better otherwise he will be destined to be repeatedly disappointed in life and that is the path to mvawg not safeguarding or women saying no its allowing a sense of entitlement to women and girls time, energy and later bodies all for the wants or men