to think that you should not "un-invite" a child to a birthday party

[extension]

Last week, one of the mums from school told me that she was having a party for her dds birthday and said that her dd would like to invite my dd. She told me the date & venue and said that she would be bringing the invites in a few days. She asked me if we would be able to make it and I said yes.

Today at the school gates she approached me and said that she was really embarrassed but unfortunately, she had made a mistake with the numbers and her dd had added 1 too many to the list. She said she had to be strict with numbers because of the cost spiralling and had limited it to 10 friends. And that sadly, my dd would no longer be invited. She said that her dd was really upset about it and she is really hoping that one of the others cant make it so that she can then invite my dd.

I'm pretty certain that nothing has happened in school, nothing has been said by any of the other mums and my dd hasnt said anything. She even said that she has been playing with her dd.

I have no problem with my dd not being invited to the party but I think its really mean to invite then uninvite. The play area is £8 per head for parties, am sure she could have just scraped another £8 and said nothing. I cant see money being all that tight for her, theyve just got a new car, she always has new clothes and buys expensive make-up etc.

I really feel for my daughter and think its just a horrible thing to do.

YANBU that's horrible.

DD had an invitation literally snatched out of her hands in the playground by a parent while in kindy (reception). DD had come running out of school all excited saying "x invited me to his party", I saw the mum standing around so went up and said "thank you, my DD would love to come", she then looked at DD and said "oh, I didn't realised she was a girl, it's a boys party" and took the invite off her. DD has an Irish name so fair enough the parent mightn't have realised the gender, but if she wasn't sure she could have asked the teacher!. The woman didn't even apologise.

gosh they don't sound as if they would struggle to manage another 8 pounds. I'd never do that, how horrible for the dc. I think you're right, there must be another reason for it but since you don't know and probably won't be asking her, I'd try really hard not to think about it.

Your poor dd is going to hear all about the party at school though. It's a really mean thing for her to have done.

I would steer well clear of th mother in future though. She sounds off her nut

Its definitely not a numbers problem, I have been to this play area before and it holds around 30 children, she is only having 10. I also doubt its really the money, she smokes, has just changed the car, buys her dd new clothes for every party, you can just tell that money wouldnt be the problem.

Also, she has always seemed alright, she hasnt got any problems socially. I think I'm just going to put it down to a bit of ignorance.

Ive told my dd and am lucky that she is a confident little girl with lots of friends and she has accepted very easily that not everyone can be invited to all the parties (as they werent at hers). Incidentally, the birthday girl was invited to my dds party earlier in the year, so its nothing to do with being left out of that either.

Just dismally rude of the other mother tbh.

Being uninvited can be enormously hurtful at any age, especially when no reason is given - the person doing the inviting/uninviting can't know how confident/unconfident the invitee is so they're being really extremely thoughtless and unkind.

Agree with ChippingIn - if DD is invited nearer the time, please don't just say 'No' because you feel upset. DD won't care about the politics and would, I'm sure still love to go.
Our DS had a similar thing happen recently. For some reason a good friend hadn't invited him but had said if someone drops out, you are next on list (were genuine number limits in this case). Someone dropped out but DS still wasn't invited though someone else who wasn't a close friend was. DS bit upset but old enough to understand that these things happen.
Then on the evening before the party, we were rung and invited as the first substitute now couldn't attend. DS was ecstatic (Mum wasn't as had to find present at very short notice!).

Univiting a small child is just so low! I would have found the extra money and never said anything about it, I don't know how some people have the nerve to do things like that. for your DD, how horrible to do that to a child.

Your poor DD, YA definitely NBU

I was sent a text last year 'x's disco is today and lots of people can't make it so does your ds want to come to make up the numbers?'.

We were sent this text around 10am in the morning and the disco was at 3pm in the village hall. The party girl was 5 and is in the same class at school as ds. However there year is only 15 children in their year and at least 5 other children got these texts. None of the children were able to make it at the last minute

This sort of thing makes me really angry

lets face it, i think some of us would be quite tearful if we were dis-invited to a party at our age (i certainly would be) to expect a 6 year old to be 'grown up' about it is pretty low.

agree that if you get a re-invite then accept as your DD won't care about the fact it was a gross faux-pas.

Hey there Mr Po! Back at the beg of this thread you said it's a bit like MN at the mo, what did you mean?

Definitely accept the invitation if it comes.

TBH I don't think you can really judge what this woman can afford unless you've had a very good hard look at her finances.

RunawayWife I was about to say that exactly the same happened to me in the 70s, but remembered that actually it was the other way round - a girl wasn't allowed to come to my party because my mum was single. Another girl told me she wasn't allowed to invite me to her party because the previous year I'd slurrped my straw, but I do wonder if that was an excuse...

Funnily enough in both cases I thought it was their loss. No idea where I got that robustness from.

I'm usually first on to the "children need to learn they can't have invites to everything" bandwagon, but inviting a child and then un-inviting her is just outragious!

Last year I had some children home for tea for ds' birthday and had said to ds that we would invite three children - he told me which three and I said I would speak to their parents etc (wasn't a formal party so no formal invites). Then he came home from school and said "oh mummy I invited x as well...". We had a chat about how he can't just invite children randomly without checking with me first that it was ok/that we had space etc (and bearing in mind I had to collect them all from school and bring them home), but it was done and the child had been invited - there was no way I was going to have ds un-invite him.

How rude!

The woman who's having the party I mean.

YADNBU. Runaway wife suggested offering to pay yourself. You could be a bit sneaky and first ask her if there was any other reason. If she says no and she is not telling the truth she'll be utterly stuck if you offer to pay the £8 and say you are happy to pay it rather than have your ds upset when everyone else is excited about it the week before at school and gossiping about it after.

If you decide that is too mean as you might be putting her in a mega awkward position in flushing out the real reason, then on the other hand you could just accept she has a reason and you are the bigger person by not flushing her out.

Have to say it doesn't look to me like this is about money. Costs are hardly "spiralling" if she invites 11 children instead of 10 - it would be different if she'd originally planned on 30 and was cutting down to 10. Could there be something else behind it and the money is an excuse?