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?

Can you ask if he can just go for the pizza and hang out a bit then pick him up?

heterosexist = the tendency to treat heterosexuality and heterosexual sexual relationships as the default framework for interpreting human relationships and interactions.

In this context, I’m referring to the assumption that interactions between boys and girls should be understood in terms of potential heterosexual attraction or sexual activity, even where there is no particular reason to interpret them in those terms.

Just tell him the real reason. Obviously. Stop trying to make this into a drama. And what exactly are you going to say to the other parent? It's 100% not your call to make.

It's actually a pretty standard concern for a lot of parents and is not anything to do with him and if you tell him the truth, that a lot of people don't mix the sexes at sleep overs, he will realise it's not personal.

And then just organise another sleep over at your house for him to make it up to him.

What a lot of silly nonsense.

Hahahahaha! Brilliant. Love a comedic comment 😅

This was a particularly gross example: “Why on earth wouldn’t he feel strong and gentlemanly, for graciously receiving a woman’s no?”

The idea that a virtuous 10-year-old boy is one who feels strong and gentlemanly for graciously accepting a girl’s refusal is deeply heterosexist. It frames an interaction between two children through the conventions of heterosexual courtship, casting the boy as a chivalrous male and the girl as a woman whose refusal he must graciously accept.

it positions the boy as the strong, benevolent party and the girl as someone whose wishes are to be graciously accommodated. It assumes that the appropriate way to understand and evaluate their interaction is through traditional , heterosexual , hierarchical gender roles, rather than simply as two children whose wishes and boundaries deserve equal respect. Respecting another person’s boundaries is a basic expectation of everyone, not an expression of masculine virtue.

This is what I mean by sexist and heterosexist.

Yep, well put.

Although, I would also add that the boy in question has not actually had his freedoms reduced at all. His fundamental rights and liberties remain unaffected by a mother's choice to uphold her own boundary in her own home, and anyone can put any boundary in place in their own home, for any reason or none.

But certainly, the reason for the mother's choice not to invite boys is indeed safeguarding at bottom, and that safeguarding choice is well understood by absolutely everybody, even those acting faux confused.

My Son has been told NO by a girl! The horror! How can I salve his boyfeelz, rewrite the narrative, and ensure this gross injustice never happens again!

Fixed your title for you.

Another really gross example of adults projecting harmful gender and sexual norms onto children.

An ordinary interaction between a boy and a girl is reframed through the lens of heterosexual courtship, male entitlement and female rejection, as though a 10-year-old boy’s feelings must be understood in terms of wounded masculine pride. What’s particularly objectionable is that the girl hasn’t even said no, yet she’s being cast in the role of a female object of desire whose purpose in the narrative is to accept or reject male attention. It objectifies her while imposing traditional, hierarchical gender roles and adult heterosexual dynamics onto both children. It’s a deeply heterosexist way of interpreting children’s relationships.

lol still here pushing your how dare girls have boundaries shtick Lacks

not a surprise given your posts on FWR make it very clear you don't think adult womrn should have boundaries and say no to men either

Lacks doesn't believe in sex either.
@Lacksie your posts are totally inappropriate on this thread. Go and annoy FWR people again, please.
Boys are also entitled to single sex spaces. Girls start puberty earlier. Even primary school aged boys can sexually assault girls. These are all facts but you don't like them, do you?

He’s old enough to understand that one of the mums wants it to be a girls only sleepover.

Do you think you or his dad may have contributed to him being young for his age? Do you tend to baby him?

Ideally the host mum should have told the objecting mum that all invites have been accepted now, including your son’s, so she can’t disinvite anyone now but that she understands if objecting mum no longer wants her dd to come.

However, it’s also a good lesson for your son that life isn’t always fair.

Yes and the harmful social norms that people are promoting and entrenching on this thread, produce the conditions that drive those statistics.

There’s this underlying assumption from some that children are innocent, it’s only adults who are bringing sex into it and that’s disgusting and wrong, as if we’re tainting them with our adult perceptions.

A lot of harm has been done in all innocence. Being open about these things, recognising ‘appropriateness’, doesn’t cast a shadow over childhood innocence. It allows childhood innocence to remain for longer.

Hahahahaha! Good lord, you are an utter and total plonker 😆

My boys are 11 and 8 and honestly I think they would both understand very very clearly that there are developmental differences which increase as they move towards puberty, and while you and his friends trust him, it’s really common to have these rules. He will have them on every school camp and mixed sex residential, etc etc.
im sorry he will be hurt and it sounds like a lovely friendship but it’s also a very understandable point of view from the parent. I’d have it- even if I wasn’t worried about your son I’d be increasingly worried about the precedent as there is no way my kids will be going on mixed sex sleepovers.

You are joking right?
97% of the population are heterosexual hence it is the default framework
Considering that 97% of relationships are/will be based on heterosexual attraction and interactions why would it not be the default position?
Pointing out the risks of having mixed sex sleepovers doesn't inappropriately assume that friendships between the sexs will be or involve sexual contact but points out the risks and that the bodily changes that children are going through during puberty are going to cause issues of privacy and dignity aswell as safety and the issues wont change if 1 member of the friendship group is homosexual.
You really are showing your lack of understanding of society, safeguarding and a dangerous adherence to a ridiculous ideology that harms everyone it touches.
Made up words for perfectly normal assumptions that are accurate in 97% of cases only go to show that you are using these made up words to create divisions and remove safeguarding for the everyone just because a tiny minority (who are not harmed by it) might not fit the pattern.

I mean, you are obviously 100% right - but the person you are responding to is an absolute arseclown. There is no way you are ever going to be able to get them to listen to reason, facts or be interested in reality.

@theearthsayshello I know but it helps expose the lunacy of the ideology that is being spouted and the dangers that adhering to it can cause, to those who might not have come across it before.
I've seen this poster in question argue that women are not entitled to single sex spaces, that the SC ruling doesn't say no men in women's single sex spaces (when it does) and that trans identifying men pose no risks to women when all stats show that they pose a greater risk to women (see graph of ons and moj stats below) all in the name of their chosen ideology.
Facts and sunlight are how we end the grip of such ideologies

Yes, you're right to make it clear why and how they are completely wrong. Appreciate you having the patience to do so, I just couldn't be arsed replying to them with anything more than well deserved sneering.

Ah well, sticks and stones and all that.

At the end of the day, people can have different rules and boundaries around mixed-sex sleepovers - that's understandable, but why anyone would think it’s OK to say things like the comments below is beyond me:

"Why wouldn't he feel strong and gentlemanly for graciously receiving a girl's no."
"My Son has been told NO by a girl! The horror! How can I salve his boyfeelz, rewrite the narrative, and ensure this gross injustice never happens again!"

These comments are clearly projecting misplaced and harmful norms about sex, gender and sexuality onto children. These types of norms help sustain the gender hierarchies and sexual entitlement that underpin and drive sexual and gender-based violence.

There’s a really toxic variety of (so-called) “feminism” that has become very popular on Mumsnet, which naturalises patriarchal assumptions instead of engaging critically with them. It’s seriously a problem. If I’m one of the only users on this platform who’s willing to stick my neck out and call it out for what it is, then so be it.

This. This is what's gone wrong in all of this. In an attempt to be all-inclusive we've gone so far as to pretend that sex and sexuality is some nebulous unknown potential. Who knows...you could be straight, could be gay, could be asexual... You could be a boy, could be a girl, could be neither...

No. For 97% of the population, being heterosexual is the default. 3% of the population realise that the opposite sex isn't attractive to them. Similarly, the vast majority of people accept that the sex they were born as is their sex. A small group of people do not. That doesn't mean that it's deeply offensive or wrong to see heterosexuality as a 'default'. It just is. Seeing heterosexuality as a default doesn't make a judgement that homosexuality is not to be acknowledged, just that for most people, it is the opposite sex that will be attractive.

Nobody is talking about gender or gendered stereotypes but you @Lacksie we are talking about the reality of sexed bodies and the risks posed by mixed sex sleepovers at this age and stage of development, risk that will only increase as these children get older.
The fact that you want to not only trample all over basic safeguarding principles but are arguing that they cause mvawg shows that nothing you say should be listened to or actioned upon.
I would ask you to stop and think about what you are advocating but I suspect that you are doing this intentionally so you can shoehorn men into womens spaces for your own personal gains with zero regard to the needs or wants of women and girls or the damage and harm you are causing

You've been humiliated in this thread. Nobody reads past your first sentence or two. You're a babbling idiot.

HTH

I refer you again to exhibits A) and B)

"Why wouldn't he feel strong and gentlemanly for graciously receiving a girl's no."

"My Son has been told NO by a girl! The horror! How can I salve his boyfeelz, rewrite the narrative, and ensure this gross injustice never happens again!"