school mum called to rant why her dd not invited to my dd birthday. what to do?

[pissedoffpartymum]

in brief, we have mutual arrangement re sharing school run. dd invited 7 out of 16 girls in class. school run child not included.

school run dad asked my dd about it in car - date, time and lack of invite. he then me to ask the same. we both explained no big party, only few invited. school run child gets specific from my dd. then tells my dd that "weeeellll, me and my mum think your mum is a liar".

school run mum calls me to say her dd should have been included and not missed as her dd and mine are very close, and they consider my dd as family.

as far as im concerned the friendship has it ups and downs. not unusual. but other girls tries to dominate my dd - preventing others from joining games, getting my dd to ask for an invite to any playdates my dd is invited to etc. my dd said other girl not on list of invitees as often problems with the girl in group scenario. i say fine.

so, am pissed right off re parent questioning my dd, re girl telling my dd re 'liar' and re calls from parents.

so, do i still continue to let them take mine to school? my instincts say no, but recognise it may just be my initial (emotional) reaction. i would still be willing to take ans collect their dd. your thoughts pls.

tia

I would invite a child who I car shared with to my child's party, as I think it would be awkward for the children to be in the car together when one knows that the other is having a party and she isn't invited.

However, if it were my child who wasn't invited, I would never phone the other parents and make a massive issue out of it. Yes, I probably would be a bit pissed off, but I wouldn't behave like they have.

I think it is a matter of etiquette really.

Personally, I would have invited her seeing as she sees your dd and it would be very likely to come up in conversation, only one more child..

Personally if I was the other mum I wouldn't want to do the school run with you! Your lack of empathy astounds me. I doubt very much the OC is clingy or their parents mad. Your daughter is 7, as is my eldest, they change freinds all the time at this age. Yes I'd let mine choose the majority of invitees but if I shared a school run that child would be included, full stop. It's about manners. Have you actually ever stopped to think how you would honestly feel in reverse and your daughter? They are 7 they share the school run that makes them special friends in that they share a time everyday when no other schoolfriends are present. That you are even posting this for self justification is beyond me and more than a tad arrogant. Of course the little girl was devestated and rightly so. Yes the parents over reacted but fair play I think it is incredibly rude to share a school run and not invite the little girl when they are only 7.

Agree with the last few posters. If you have a daily arrangement with someone which involves the children being in the same car as each other talking and giggling during an 8 mile journey, if the girls see themselves as being friends and if they've socialised outside that arrangement of 'convenience', then yes, of course you should have invited her.

Your child is 7. It's up to you to guide her on the invites, esp. when the other child has to continue making that car journey knowing the neither you nor her wanted her at the party. How sad for her.

that neither you nor your DD I mean

I'm totally with Katiestar as well...
Of course, it's your party, you and your dd can invite who you like and you keep telling yourself that,
because imo, to not invite this girl when she spends at least 30 mins a day with your dd is unbelievably rude and designed to cause hurt.
And you can't tell me you didn't consider the fall out when the invitations went out.. I don't believe you.
you're making a point imo.

interesting last few posts. i considered that the parents would explain to their dd that only few invited and that does not mean that she and my dd are not friends. my expectation is based on what i believe i would have done in same situation.

no, didnt 'do' this to make a point. why would i? if had a point to make, i would do so in an appropriate fashion - like talking.

of course i am sorry that both the parents and their daughter are upset by this. if i have omitted that from previous posts, due apols. but, that upset is not my responsibility, nor how they process that upset. imo that doesnt make me a hard-faced cow. neither does that give them the right to behave as they did.

You can't be for real. She is 7. "That upset is not my responsibility". Get over yourself. You are older, you should know better. You clearly have no manners and I wouldn't want any child of mine sitting in your car. Do you take pleasure in upsetting the little girl? Let me guess she must be getting better grades, is more popular or knows a few more timestables than your daughter because this/you smack of pure spite. If I had been directly or indirectly responsible for causing distress to a child that I take to school I would be mortified. The other parents have my utmost sympathy. If you start receiving looks at the school gates you'll know why. What goes around comes around.

blueyonder - you are wrong on every count.

so, say the daughter's upset is my responsibility, what am i expected to do? really?

given what ive posted throughout, im surprised by your post.

pissedoff - there's a difference between your responsibility towards your DD and your responsibility towards the other girl. Your DD needed exactly what you did in terms of allowing her to choose who she invited to her party. Your responsibility to the other girl was solely to transport her safely. It sounds as though those other parents are being very precious, and they probably need to learn that their child isn't the centre of the universe.

I'm just incredulous you can be so lacking in empathy.
You have left out a little girl who spends time with your dd every day, of course she's going to be upset... she's what? yr 2?
the parents have gone overboard... totally..
but you seem to be completely emotion free, cold and clinical and that is not something admirable imo
If the boot was on the other foot would your dd not be upset?

I would have invited her. What difference, really, does one extra child make?

Do you not remember what it was like to be 7?

I have to say that, whilst I think some posters are giving you a rather hard time, I am surprised by those posters who do not think you should feel any remorse for the other girl's hurt. This girl thought your dd was her best friend. Did you not believe her when she expressed this sentiment? Do you not think she hasn't expressed the same sentiments to her parents, leading them to feel that they should make an effort with you, bringing your children presents at Christmas, etc?

How would you have felt at age 7 if your best friend didn't invite you to her birthday party? Would it not have felt like a deliberate slight - either cruelly designed to upset and bully, or calculated to send you the message that you are nothing special so please stop going on about being "best friends"? Or do you not believe in the concept of having genuine, long-lasting best friends - in which case, you are lacking in empathy, because some little girls do, and this means an awful lot to them. In fact, are you sure there wasn't some kind of argument or unexpressed misunderstanding between the two girls, resulting in your dd not inviting her?

Did you ever ask your dd why she didn't want to invite the other dd??? Maybe you have been a bit too distant from the real feelings going on between the two girls, because to your mind it was just a convenient school run arrangement?

Ah, just re-read your original post and see that your dd did justify it. I can see that it was, therefore, on your dd's part, a way of her saying to the other dd to stop going on about being best friends. ie was calculated to send a message. Fair enough, in a way, if the other dd is getting manipulative and clingy and not otherwise getting the message, but still going to be a shock to her!

What are you expected to do? Are you really asking this question, OP? I'm also a bit as to why you didn't question your DD to find out why she didn't want to invite the girl in question, but wanted to invite 7 others in her place - and then perhaps guided her. One other really wouldn't have made any difference.

I suppose the other way of thinking about it is this. Supposing you had a friend who you saw twice a day, every day when you lift shared to work - you'd been doing this for quite some time. You thought of her as a close friend, and you went on nights out etc. She then invited friends round one weekend for a big, girly dinner party or arranged a night out on the town. You knew the other women going, but for reasons which were never explained to you, you weren't included. Can you honestly say that you wouldn't feel slightly left out, and a bit awkward the next time you were in the car together? I know I would - so imagine how a little girl, who hasn't developed the thicker skin that we have, might feel.

I would have invited the girls she travels to school with tbh. Certainly at this age I would have steered DD over her choices about who to invite if it was someone she was in contact with out of school.

How would you feel if your little girl was treated in this way. Seven year old girls can be pretty nasty to each other. It is up to you as the mother to moderate your daughter's behaviour. Otherwise you are an insensitive bitch.

It is cruel to have a lift sharing arrangement like this and not consider the little girl to be a friend. Children do not understand arragements of convience. The little girl does not realise that she is just an aquaintance and is not considered to be a friend.

If you want your daughter to end the friendship then end the lift arrangement.
Stop using this family and sort out your lift arrangments.

I agree with the last few posters - I was astounded that you can separate the lift arrangement so totally from feelings that children develop. They enjoy each others' company, they don't ignore each other, and they have been to a panto together; that to me, is friends. My son didn't want to invite the girl whose mum looked after him before school and took him there - he said she was clingy and got on his nerves. However, I said to him that it would be incredibly rude not to invite her and whether he liked it or not, I was inviting her. He gave her the invite and said 'I don't want you to come but my mum is making me.! I was horrified, and apologised to the girls' mum - who thought it hilarious and said that her DD would definitely be there! She came and he enjoyed her being there - the incident has not affected their friendship at all, but I could not have been so rude as to not invite her. The same could be said if he didn't get an invite - I would have been upset for him and I may have even asked if it were a mistake not to have invited him, not the extent that the parents in this thread have, but I can totally understand why they did.

rabbitstew, i think your post is probably spot on, from the family's perspective and mine. hadnt thought of it that way.

maisie, im asking what i could do now. party is in the past. however, no girls were invited 'in her place'. my dd made list, originally of 10, this girl wasnt on it. thought about poss implications of inviting half the girls, so cut it down to 7 - also cos of space.

i agree i poss didnt give this enough thought, but to be fair, i did not place this girl at the centre of the decision-making. it really wasnt a case of 'to invite or not to invite'.

i would, however, be lying if i said i feel we made a mistake. dont mean to be sanctamonious, just honest. im not sitting here smugly, im genuinely sorry their dd is feeling hurt. a hurt that has arisen out of my family.

erm, reallytired, my prev post explained that when my dh is here we take and drop of this girl 9 out of the 10 school journeys. in no way am i using them for a lift.

I would feel very uncomfortable with my child using party invites as a way of communicating levels of friendship - to me that is manipulative and spiteful.

The other thing to consider is that some kids get invited to parties all the time - for these kids not getting one invite to a party is no big deal. For the others who rarely get invited to a party, the lack of invite from someone so close to them is crushing - is not a case of "just get over it" - it's big deal and a blow to a child's already fragile self esteem.

DD had this last year - her only friend in the class chose not to invite her - we had no idea why, but silently fumed and when dd had her party she chose not to invite this other child. Unfortunately other child pleaded for an invite - suddenly she was dd's best friend - horrible, horrble child. On dd's request we issued an invite - it nearly killed me to hand it over...we moved areas and left the friendship issues behind.

Children can be so self-centred and bloody cruel at times but they have youth as an excuse - it's up to us as their parents to guide them. Still it you don't care about another child's feelings, that says it all!

i really do hear what you are saying, but really, this girls name was just another name on the list of classmates. she did not stand out in any way - not to my dd as a special friend, or to me, by virtue of the lift arrangement.

i have already explained that the panto does not set her apart in any way. we have taken other friends out at least as frequenly this girl.

s

It's a lesson learned for you. Little girls can be very intense when it comes to friendships and parties, and although you didn't mean to cause any hurt, you did. If you are taking and collecting this girl 9 out of 10 journeys, in addition to taking her out to the panto etc then it's no wonder she thought she was sufficient enough of a friend to be classed as party material

In answer to your question what am I supposed to do?' I really don't have all day. I think a number of posters including myself have answered that. Firstly you should have invited her and not taken on the personna of a spoilt 7 year old. Secondly you should apologise, but I think pigs will fly first. My daughter can decide who she invites etc. etc' yes of course, within reason. You speak regularly of the other child needing to learn this lesson and that. Perhaps you could have taken this as an opportunity to teach your child that sometimes in life we have to do what is right as well as what we want. To all of you that say the other child is `pecious' she is 7, why on earth would she not think she would have been invited. As for her parents I would expect for them that they felt less like their daughter had not been invited and more that she had been excluded. You have clearly upset alot of posters. What we have in common is empathy, something you appear to lack. We are imagining how we would feel in the situation and more importantly our children. They are so young, everything is black and white but ultimately they are extremely sensitive and she will have been hurt by this and as with any parents, myself included, we want to protect our children and it very upsetting to see our children distressed. My question to you. Does this really not resonate with you?

granddesign - im sorry your dd had that experience. im sorry this girl did too - i had not said i dont care about another childs feelings. never. i have in fact said the opposite and that i feel bad for her.

you may have missed those posts.