mixed race son wasn't invited to his best friend's birthday party fron Nursery

[baby2011and2012]

Hi, my son is very close to one little boy from nursery, he wasn't invited to his birthday party, most of the other kids were invited except from ones from Poland, one from China and my son :( . Probably affects me more than what would affect him, but I have got not clue what's best for me to do if he finds out he is not going to this party. My husband is white british I am from latin america, obviously my son isn't white and I am scared this issues to do with races and racism will upset his childhood and self esteem. Any advice from same experience or any helpful point of view please. Thanks in advance.

It might not be racist at all, of course. Or it might be a less conscious form of racism, where she has invited only the children of parents she has chatted to, not thinking about the fact that she never makes the effort to talk to the foreign parents. But I don't think it's helpful to rule out the possibility, because some people are prejudiced and denying that to people who are the victims of prejudice isn't helpful.

It could be racism, and if it is, that is very sad. Then again, it might not have anything to do with racism. You can't make assumptions either way.

Some of the Chinese/Polish children might have been invited and declined, or not have replied yet. The mother might have been unsure how to pronounce their names, so mentioned the familiar names instead. Mum may have been friends with the parents of the invited children. Or her ds might simply have chosen the other children.

Overt racism does exist in the UK, but don't assume your ds will necessarily be a victim, OP. My dd is also mixed race, and we have never really experienced any problems.

baby 2011, my ds is a teenager now and I would wish you not to take too much of this to heart if you can help it. I did massively but it was to my detriment.
I think as parents we all have to develop not only a much thicker skin but a realisation that there is often some way we can feel left/out unincluded.

I joined an NCT group with dd and they were all much younger and wealthier and I ended up feeling so inadequate that I sort of let them go.

ds had a few parties in church halls where we invited everyone. But I remember so well that a boy who came to all ds's parties and for a play date once. eventually had a party and invited everyone but ds. I was devastated. I felt so hurt, it was as if she'd stabbed me in the street and spat in my face. Very irrational for sure but profoundly felt.

Now i don't have the racial experience myself but I have learned with dd to separate from her a bit emotionally. Stuff will happen to her that will hurt her. But I have to learn that I am not the same as her, and what happens to her does not happen to me. By separating from her appropriately I can better support her with the tough times.

My elder sis is wonderfully wise about this. She always says they need to get hurt so they can learn about getting hurt. They need to be rejected so they can learn about being rejected. The pain they feel is part of developing them as rounded human beings, it is part of the what will make them strong and happy. It's a vaccination against resisting reality.

My sis has finally go through to me and I am suffering much less. Our children need to feel these tough things and then grow and learn from them (when they're old enough of course)

I just say to DD now, oh we can't go to that party (without too much elaboration) at that age they can usually be distracted.

look after yourself first, you need to separate a bit if you can. For your and their sakes.

It could just be that all the other mums are local and know each other going back a long way, to NCT groups or maybe even since their own school days or whatever.

I live abroad and although I'm the same ethnicity as most of the parents at my son's preschool (USA, but in my whitebread area mostly white and English-speaking like me!) I am a foreigner and didn't grow up here so am not part of any mom cliques that gather at drop-off and pick-up times. I would never expect a birthday invite from anyone at his preschool but it doesn't bother me because I have my own friends outside of his preschool network, a mix of international and American.

Maybe you are projecting your own sensitivity about racial issues onto the situation?

Someone upthread mentioned the mum maybe rattling off the names of those coming... In my experience, culturally some people just don't RSVP and turn up - an invitation is an invitation. So its hard to tell who was invited agains who is coming/has replied.

Now I get my knickers in a twist about RSVPs (very 'proper' me!) but some friends just don't think to RSVP whether they are attending or not.

I'm not saying it isn't racism, but in my own experience, a child with south american heritage isn't a 'natural target', whereas maybe, say, a muslim Afghani kid in an all white brit CofE class may attract attention.

Maybe the mum of the party kid is a cow or just doesn't like the other childs mum, or is jealous? Perhaps all the mums met at an NCT class and formed a 'baby gang'. Maybe one or other of the mums is standoffish...

I'd also be surprised if there was racism that the OPs child hadn't come home upset/with strange words or ideas before now about colour/race/religion.

I remember when ds was about 8 making conversation with ds's really good friend's Dad in the play ground, Dad didn't have a clue who I was or that ds and his soon were even friends. Don't take it personally. In fact he didn't even know which class ds was in as he asked me. I just wasn't on his radar.

It's horrible when you feel your child is excluded, but really it might not be anything to do with race. When my ds was three I wasn't aware of who his best friends at nursery were at all - I just invited children of the parents that I knew well.

After all your messages I realize now I am taking this too far, but after experiencing racism myself in this town I think these kind of things might have to do with race.
As a mother I wish I could offer my children the perfect world but that doesn't exist and is not going to happen, so they need to be hurt at some point in their lives and not necessarily in a racist way but so many different ways.
What I be concentrating myself now is to do my best as a mum to raise my children tolerant, compassionate and clever enough to deal with their emotions and difficult situations. :)

baby2011, hear hear, the best thing we can give our kids is not confusing our wounds with theirs.
Sometimes are children are far more robust than us and how wrong then of us to teach them to be sensitive when they might not be as sensitive as us?

My sister said the same when ds was being bullied at school. She felt it was fine to inform the school and ask for help but after that point she said I had to separate and that he would learn from the experience and that we cannot protect our children from the normal suffering and rejection of daily life. It is very very counter intuitive but we have to see that a little emotional pain now and then is their preparation for the bigger pains of life we need to let them live and learn and not to try to take all the blows for them.

Empathy by the truckload

I don't mean I let the bullying continue, just that once it was addressed there was part of the process he had to do alone, i.e. settling at school and dealing with the kids who had been unkind. He did really well, making friendships with some of them and he adjusted his behaviour as well by behaving better in class and not mucking about/showing off.
It was painful but necessary for me to let him go through some of it and just support him.

Please don't assume it's racism. Parents invite other parents they know. 3 year olds change friends all the time. It's hard when you are doing the inviting and have no idea where to start etc. luckily at ours it's accepted that not everyone goes to every part etc (it's huge school nursery). People have limited budgets too

"Party invitations at this age are about the mum's friendships and nothing else"

Are children's parties really about who the mum is friends with? I am intrigued as this has honestly never occurred to me. I fear my ds's forthcoming party is doomed if so, as I'll be inviting the children my ds talks about the most as having played with. I don't even know their parents as I'm not really one for mixing with other parents. I know that sounds antisocial but that's just how it is. I don't have the time at nursery drop offs and pick ups.

It depends on the size of party/age of child/class size.

When DS was little it was 'come one, come all' but as he got older and formed friendships/dislikes even, and the partied became more 'formal' (ie needed to book numbers/tables etc) the numbers became fewer.

You never know what kids get up to at school/nursery and todays best pal can be tomorrows worst enemy and vice versa. Also need to check for kids with same or similar names. I once invited 'the wrong Alex!!!!', who turned out to be the right Alex after all, but has just pissed him off by being the other Alex's best mate the day before.

Its a minefield I tells ya.

Also... DS was not invited to some parties at his last school along, not race but country lines. We had a clique of french kids who, although they mixed with all other kids at school, at home it was a different story - french tv, french films, french books and comics, french nannies, french tutors, french food and clothes, french holidays, french only spoken and mixing with french friends. Some of the mums spoke english, some didn't and some never bothered to learn (I'm crap at languages but I like to think I'd at least try).

I think so, I think that most of us have/had children who are very monosyllabic when it comes to answers about their life at nursery, so I would say that the best way to ensure your child is invited is for the other mums to know who to hand the invitation to.

When DS went to nursery I had to ask the nursery ladies who to invite to his party and they gave me a list. I probably excluded kids my son was friendly with but I wouldn't have know. Saying that people can be horrible . When I went to a baby and toddler group one of the other mothers tried to exclude a few of us including me because I was older and my friend because she was Polish. We knew where we stood and started our own little group of all the outcasts - we had way more fun than the Stepford wives.

This is definitely undoubtedly 100% racism.
Try inviting the whole class to your son's birthday party and see how many will turn up.
If not a lot, then it's likely they are too ashamed of their own actions and reasons for not inviting your son.
In the meantime, work on your self-esteem and confidence, cause your son is going to need same when he is old enough to understand how sad and mean some people can be in their little racist small-minded bubble !!!

@expialidocious it was 9 years ago.