Should I confront mother for not inviting my child?

[Mallorytimes]

My DS is 8, he is within a group of 5 boys who have been close since year 1. Generally all parties are either whole class or just the boys. One of these 5 friends had a party for just the 5 friends last year. This year I've found out the boy had a party but just invited 4 boys excluding my son. He had to find out in school, apparently they went to this boys house for computer games then all out for an activity. Ive always felt I've been friendly with the mum, no big friendship but always a hello on passing at the school run etc.
I feel bad for my son, he said he asked the boy why he didn't go and the boy said his mother said he wasn't allowed to invite him. We had a party for my son and invited all the boys in class but this boy didn't go as they said they were busy.
I feel a bit confused by it all and my son was quite upset.
Worth asking the mother or just leave it?

Leave it. Friendships can be both upsetting and baffling. He needs to find out at some point sadly.

If it was just at his house I would be more concerned, the going out for an activity and a group of 5 (bday boy plus 4 friends with your son) means won't all fit in one car.
This has come up in our friends groups where often it is multiples of fitting in one or two regular cars that sets the limits on numbers. That said, I get it feel crappy, and it probably not a consolation (if that's even the reason)

I normally wouldn't bother but once when DD was about 6 she was told by a friend that she couldn't invite her to her party because her Mum didn't like me
I asked the Mum (in a very calm and non confruntational way) if I had done something to upset her
Turns out it was a total lie and the birthday child was lying as she didn't want to invite DD due to the usual silly playground friend/not friend squabbles
I didn't have an issue at all with the lack of invite but I didn't want DD to miss out if I had inadvertantly done something to upset another parent

It's a lesson for resilience sadly. They won't be invited to everything and as they get older they need to realise this. Don't make a big thing of it, play it down and stay light and breezy ... they pick up the signals from you about this sort of thing.

I do get that it's hurtful though.

I nearly did this 12 years ago. Having an adult daughter now I look back and cringe. Their friendships change so much over the years.
That isn't to say it's not hurtful at the time. It is!
You can't make people invite you though.

Leave it alone !
This is how children learn about navigating friendships and relationships and learning different emotions it's a life's lesson and more parents should stop trying to control friendships let the child navigate themselves and figure it out !
I have 2 grown up children they have learnt without me having any involvement with the friend choices and they have so many friends now
A mum I knew who navigated het daughters friendships the daughter doesn't have hardly any friends now and she also got bullied in the secondary school trust me when I say it doesn't do them any good parents getting involved x

Sod off with your proactive parent comment.

I just prefer not to waste the school’s time. If there was a serious issue between the kids then school would hopefully raise it anyway.

All of these “leave it” comments are confusing me. There is a mum who has specifically taken against one boy in the group, can nobody think there might be an issue here? Has the boy done something or been badly behaved? I’d want to know if my child was doing something that really bothered another parent.

I doesn’t have to be a whiny or aggressive thing, just a quiet conversation. If the boy has done something specific, OP can apologise to the mum and talk to her son about behaviour. If there was a numbers issue, and they could only take 4 (common if the car isn’t big enough) then that’s fine, no biggie, just thought I’d check he hadn’t done something to upset you.

Are we really so far gone as a society that adults can’t have an adult conversation? Don’t we think as parents, if our children are misbehaving when out, it’s better we know that? There is a difference between not getting involved in the politics of playground friendships, and completely ignoring something which may be a problem.

The schools won’t raise it. Not unless it’s really serious. It takes a minute to respond to an email. Unless you believe we are devolving all responsibility for raising our children to the school system?

No i’m saying the opposite, we should be dealing with it instead of the school. If there was an issue ‘serious enough’ then the school would raise it. But it’s silly to contact them about every little thing, like not being invited to a party.

I don't think you'd be unreasonable at all to ask at this age. You know what to do when the time comes to send out invitations or make plans for your son next time. That's how they will reciprocally learn it's not nice to leave people out.

This is not about the party. Nobody suggested contacting the school specifically about that. But talking to the class teacher to ask if she has seen any behaviour from him that could lead to him being left out or from the rest of the group treating him unfairly is a good thing to do. A teacher will not be able to keep track of the dynamics of every group of kids, but they certainly can keep a closer eye on it for a week or so to see if they can pick up on anything. That’s not an unreasonable ask at all. Most decent teachers would want to do it.

well I wouldn't confront her about not inviting him to the party, but it sounds like there's something going on. could you invite them 121 face to face for a play date and see how she reacts? or is there another Mom in the group you could talk to?

There have been times when I have actively encouraged my kids to make different choices when it comes to friends. Usually because the friend is more of a frenemy than a friend or a toxic friend where they are being territorial and stopping my child from having lots of friends. We’ve also had situations where the friend became violent and that was bloody scary so I actively blocked that going any further.

if the mother has got involved it’s either because you’ve done something or your child has acted a certain way. It could be worth trying to dig into that but it really would depend on if the mother would be honest with you.

Of course the mother wasn't going to say you were the reason your child wasn't invited. If you'd approached me to ask, even if I absolutely loathed you, I'd lie to your face about why your child hadn't been invited.

Sounds like something has happened between the two boys and the mum isn't wanting to encourage the relationship.

I wouldn't confront her, but you could ask nicely if something has happened.

It's interesting to see the responses are fairly unanimous but there was a thread just like this a few months ago where most agreed the poster should talk to the mum in case the invitation had gone astray.

So you could do this, but I wouldn't "confront" - be polite, no pressure and friendly, not confrontational.

Please don’t ask. I was confronted by an angry mum who demanded to know why her child was not invited to my DD’s party. It was extremely unpleasant. Her child wasn’t invited as we had a restriction on numbers (she wasn’t the only child who couldn’t come). Angry mum never got past it which was very awkward for a while as the girls still played together and wanted to go to each others houses, park etc.

They remain friends to this day but fortunately are now teenagers so I do not need to engage with the mother!

There is no way to ask in a no pressure, friendly way. Asking just creates awkwardness all round.

There is no need to confront or even politely discuss the reason someone has made a particular decision.

People need to stop being so entitled to think the other person owes them an explanation.

Hmm, I would say something if friendly with the mum but I’d not confront. I would say is everything ok with fne boys, I heard there was a party which is totally fine, but I wish to just make sure there isn’t something I should be addressing with mine.

im afraid I’d assume there was a reason they didn’t invite him which is behavioural.

Me too, no need for confrontation but I’d want to know if my kid was behaving in a way that caused this,

Thanks everyone for the responses, seems the majority says leave it which I do agree is the rational decision. I am frustrated but don't think I'll get to the bottom of it. Just feel bad for my son especially all of the kids talking about the party in school.
Funnily I did run into the Mum, just out walking, she made a very brief hello and kept walking, definitely felt awkward and seems more going on but think I'll never know

Sounds like car spaces. I had a similar thing with my son.

A child handed out invites in the morning line to every child apart from mine.
I spoke to the mother, as did one of the other mothers.
It was futile, she was too thick to see that what she had done was a pretty nasty thing. As it happens, I was more bothered than my child 🤣 but they didn't hang out or play with that child anymore.