Okay, I am so pissed right now, so this may be incoherent.
There are 4 houses in a row that have children around the same age. The 4 houses are fenced in from the road but not from each other, so there is like one looong yard. In the first house is my husband's aunt and her 2 kids - B is 7, K is 6, and my daughter's close friend. Number 2 is us, with M who is 5, then a couple with 3 kids T who is 7, F who just turned 4, and a baby. Number 4 has a 5 year old girl, P. P, K, and M will all be starting school this year, and will be in the same class. So all the parents know each other, and now that the weather is warm, the kids all play together every day after school and have for weeks. Since the yards are not separated, they just run back and forth. M invited all the kids to her party and they came, K invited all the kids to her party and they came, and F invited all the kids... except M.
More clearly, our next door neighbors invited every kid in the neighborhood to F's birthday, except my daughter. This party was held outside in the open yard.
So as I bring M home from school, I have to frantically try and distract her so that she doesn't notice the big party and keep her inside. I couldn't explain why she had to stay inside because I didn't want to tell her that there was a big party going on, but she wasn't invited. I have NO clue why.
It's not really that she wasn't invited to the party, it's that the big party was held next door in the yard, and her best friend was invited. Our options were to either keep her inside, or to have her go outside and watch the party from our yard.
The more I think about it, the more pissed off I get. I feel like you don't invite all the kids but one! Especially when it's RIGHT NEXT DOOR OUTSIDE.
If the party was somewhere else, I wouldn't be upset.
If they told us why she wasn't invited, I wouldn't be upset.
And it seems like my husband's aunt knew that M wasn't invited. I am just so... furious no one thought to tell us. If there is some sort of problem going on, I want to know about it! I would like to have the option of being able to take her out somewhere or try and fix what was going on. I'm pissed off and hurt and just aching for M. I cannot imagine what is going on - she's never had problems with other kids before. She is so social. Her teachers have nothing but positive things to say about her.
I know that as they get older, there are going to be fights and squabbles and not nice things going on - I mean, they're kids and sometimes kids can be mean. But it seems like the parents are totally cool with this?!
When M had her birthday, she wanted to exclude some kids from her class. We told her that it was the whole class or no one from the class, because that was not cool.
It's just ARGH.
I mean, I start to calm down, and then I get all pissed off again. My husband thinks I'm overreacting. He was like "Oh well, I think it was stupid and cruel, but what can you do?" It just sucks because these are going to be our next door neighbors forever and I just feel so strongly that this was not okay to do, that they should have either invited everyone, or told us ahead of time exactly why she wasn't being invited so we wouldn't have to make her stay inside and lie about why, you know? I kind of feel like this was... passive aggressive.
I think that is rude too, I don't think you're overreacting. Especially when everyone that she knows was invited and she wasn't, and F was at M's party, and considering the fact that it was right there where M could easily see it. Honestly I'm not really good with confronting people on stuff like this so I wouldn't really know what to say, but some advice I would give is, if you do want to say something say it to F's parents and not to someone else, just so they hear it from you and not from whoever else. I don't think you would do that at all btw, but I just personally hate it when I hear that someone had a problem with something I did, from someone else kwim? Good luck with this, hopefully you can figure everything out and still be friends with that family!
Oh boy I would be mad too! That is a really crappy thing to do to a child.
Is it at all possible they didn't think to invite her by accident or like they thought she would just pop out and be there? Or something?
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"The words are being spoken now, are being written down; the taboos are being broken, the masks of motherhood are cracking through." Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born
i totally agree with the they should have invited everyone or let you know ahead of time. If they didn't want to invite m for whatever reason that is their right as the parents throwing the party, but its just cruel to have m right there and have her knowing that she couldnt go and watch all her friends having fun and partying together. NOT cool! I would confront them and ask if there is a certain reason she wasnt invited and ask them to please let you know ahead of time if this was to happen again. Id also ask how they would feel if the situation was reversed.
But maybe momnipotent has a point, maybe they thought because she's next door she'd just come on by. I knw with all our really close friends i dont usually send invites i just let them knowof the day and also in the neighborhood we were in before we moved, everyone was really close and parties were neighborhood affairs. kids were always just dropping by when they saw something was going on. we always knew to plan for the neighborhood kids and knew that we didn't have to actually send out invites they'd just pop on by. I actually miss that. but i do think they need to be confronted about it. Im sorry mama and im sorry m. thats just a crappy situation!
Meh, I don't even know what to say to them, but I am still so mad! I'm just worried that this is the first of many incidents. Like... the most likely scenario seems to be that F didn't want M there. F is the youngest of all the kids, but M is the smallest, so I've noticed that F is trying really, really hard to boss M around lately, I guess thinking that M is her only chance. And I know that kids get mad at each other and will exclude one kid from the group, but I am really upset that the parents seem to think that this is totally acceptable. It would be one thing if they were like, 13, but we're talking 4-6 year olds here.
I don't think that it's likely that they thought she'd just come over. Birthday parties are BIG here in Norway - all the kids dressed formally, parents paying outrageously for a clown, etc. M would have been the only kid not wearing a party dress and without a present, you know?
And I don't want to go over there like "How dare you not invite my kid!!" but I keep thinking... how could they not have considered how she would feel? Especially since her best friend was over there? And these are our neighbors forever. UGH.
I don't know if this would be a good idea but could you approach them and ask why M wasnt invited. I wouldn't do it in a rude way I would just explain to them that M felt let out and she doesn't know what she did to not be invited. I don't think it is fair to do that without some kind of conversation to at least explain why.
that is really crappy. my daughter's 10 and she was just the only one not invited to a party, which sucked but it wasn't right.next.door! what rude people those people are!
I would ask them about too though.
That is really effed up. I do not think you are overreacting at all! I think you should ask them what the problem is. It really sucks that they are your next door neighbors. I would hate living next to someone knowing that they had it out for me or my kid and not know why.
When D and Z had their birthday, we invited everyone. Even the class bully.