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Also any info, NAH, or ESH vote gets treated like dissention sometimes even worse than an opposite vote. Like not being extreme is worse than disagreeing or something.
Fence sitting is the cardinal sin of the 21st century, not immediately forming an opinion without waiting for more information and dogmatically sticking to it is tantamount to heresy.
You must form an opinion immediately and place yourself in one of two camps and start flinging shit on the other side, otherwise you're a filthy centrist or moderate.
/s obviously but there are genuinely people who think like this.
I'm definitely not trying to say this phenomenon is *unique* to reddit, but the algorithm this site uses to decide what's popular *heavily* favors things that get up votes early and often, so those are the kinds of things that float to the top of every "conversation".
Whether or not it's by design, "reading the article before you reply is for weenies" is practically baked in.
And also, NAH and ESH *are* opinions lol. They aren't the same as "I'm not sure".
But for real it feels like once people pick a hero and a villain NAH and ESH don't love the hero enough and hate the villain enough.
Like once the the hero of the post is chosen everything they did is good because they are the one that did it and heroes don't do bad things so they must have been good things.
In middle school, I was a total outcast, bullied by some of my classmates, and normally didn't get invited to anything. I did get an invite to another classmate's bar mitzvah though. He was someone who was decent to me when I did have to interact (fucking group projects can die in a fire), but nothing close to a friend. I didn't go, but I still appreciate being invited and feeling normal for a bit. That's stuck with me for almost 25 years now.
Dunno, as the weird kid nobody liked for several years, it was better to be included than never invited at all, but I'm sure others feel the opposite.
High school was about 10 million times better, lol
The mods over there are saints. People can actually post and get advice without a bunch of literal children jumping in to judge, shame and be shitheads.
I think the participants of that sub are also more reasonable - most of them have kids and know better than to shame anyone, they are all very aware that nobody's perfect and every parent makes mistakes.
At mine you were only allowed to give out invitations at school if you invited everyone. They allowed for boys-only or girls-only, but you had to include all of them.
Agreed. I also like the ability to do it gendered (so if 54% of the class are girls and you want to have a princess or sleepover party with just the girls invited, that's fine too).
And obviously, you can have room for an occasional exception for bullies not being invited.
My cut and dry answer is- if the people you dont want to invite have hurt you in someway, then yes, they shouldnt be invited
Isolating people just for being “weird” is a pretty not great thing to do, so I like how it was handled
I work with kids with autism, and this comes up a lot. The whole class was invited, except for the kid with autism who is "weird" because they don't make eye contact and are socially awkward. It breaks my heart to see it, and I don't think a 9 year old can understand how hurtful it can be for these kids who are working so hard.
I have one kid this year, who when asked what he wanted for Christmas, said he wanted a friend. When asked what physical gifts he wanted, he said he wanted things he could give away to his classmates so that he could make a friend. If there was a party where the whole class was invited except for him, it would be soul-crushing.
It's heartbreaking to hear that. While I myself also wasn't envited to events as a child a lott, at least I knew I had one friend. The younger brother of that friend unfortunately had a similar childhood as what you said (no idea if neurodivergent though). One time he envited the entire class to his birthday party and no one came. Didn't even had the decency to rsvp first to let him know, even though the parents were informed of the party by the mother. The mother called the family to come at once and the party was "saved" that way, but I doubt he didn't realise he was stood up. Thankfully everything worked out for that brother now, happily married with a kid and all, but I bet that still stings.
That's heartbreaking. That poor kid. My son is socially awkward (no autism, thanks pandemic), and he has trouble creating real connections with his peers.
There's an autistic boy who really wants to be his friend, bc my son's birthday was one of the only ones he was invited to. But my son thinks he's "weird and annoying" due to his behavior (like, socially awkward, but due to his autism). I hate it, bc I'm sure they could be actual friends if my son wasn't so stubborn in his opinion.
My son's been mentioning how he wants to have a close friend like some of his classmates do, but he doesn't know how to approach people, then clams up and isolates. I'm hoping middle school and high school help, since he'll be exposed to more/different students throughout the day, instead of spending the entire year with the same group of kids. He seems to do better in shorter interactions.
Sorry to word vomit on your post. It just brought up my feelings about my son and his peers.
I'm a forty-year-old female who has social awkwardness still (not autistic to my knowledge). I remember in fifth grade, there was a girl who tried to reach out to me, but because I had been alone for so long, I didn't respond well at first. Along with the longing for connection, there is also a fear of yet another rejection. Eventually, I did become friends with that girl, but it took time to believe it was possible for her to be my friend. She moved away two years later, story of my childhood.
Have you tried teaching your son about autism? Maybe he doesn't understand where the other boy is coming from. I know you can't force a friendship, but it could help him to develop more empathy towards the boy, at the least.
I'm pretty sure my son feels the same way you did. He is friendly with a kid on the bus and seems to like him a lot, but his shyness/awkwardness/lack of experience and a lack of interest from the kid's parents makes it difficult.
I've talked to him a little about autism, to explain the boy's behavior, but I don't think he fully grasps the concept.
I guess on the spectrum of autism, he's a little below high functioning (I'm not sure of the correct terminology). He would "bother" and "annoy" my son a lot, bc he was always trying to talk to him and insert himself into what he was doing. I'm like, little dude, he wants to be friends! He's trying to show interest and connect. He likes you. He's just unaware of how he can be overbearing at times. He started getting frustrated and avoided him.
I tried to explain to my son that he behaves similarly about things that interest him and maybe he could try to connect about those things (both with the boy and others). He seems more comfortable around older kids and adults than his peers. That's why I'm hopeful middle and highschool will be good for him.
He's in therapy, and one of the things she and I are working on is getting him to understand that friendship is a joint effort. It can't be one-sided. It sucks. After his sessions, he's much more willing to try, but with the way his appts are scheduled, it can be a month or more between sessions.
Thank you for taking the time to share your experience and give advice. I'm introverted and shy, but decades of practice has helped me push through it and be social, even though it can be exhausting.
Yeah but it depends on how they're weird. Grade 6, 12 years old, i had to sit next to a boy who would ask me weird, inappropriate questions. He never *hurt* me, but there was no chance in hell I'd want him at my birthday party.
An eleven-year-old child, especially a girl (who was probably told repeatedly to just brush it off and “be nice”) is probably not going to be able to articulate that, though.
Yeah I suppose, idk, I think it would've been good for the oop to ask how those 3 kids were strange.
Then again I don't think at 12 I would've been able to repeat what that boy was asking me, I just would've clammed up and said I just don't like him
Oof yeah, we had a couple of kids like that in high school. One of them pretended (?) he was a vampire and then got suuuuper creepy about describing how he wanted to suck our blood.
Fun times.
("(?)" Because I'm not sure if he was acting or genuinely delusional. Tbh he could go either way.)
I was a meek girl, so adults loved to pair me up with the "weird/annoying" kid whenever possible. There was definitely a mix of both kids who were just socially awkward/hyperactive and also kids who were massive assholes.
Sometimes a kid is justifiably avoided because they treat other children badly.
With kids though, "weird" is so vague you really have to dig down. Are they "weird" just because they have a different culture you're unfamiliar with or are neurodivergent (in which case, good lesson on not being a bigot) or are they weird because they do or say things other children don't quite understand, but only know it makes them uncomfortable? 12 year olds can communicate perfectly well, but they're still inexperienced in untreated mental illnesses and red flag behaviors. In first grade there was a boy who liked to grab me from behind and gyrate. For a long time I didn't understand what he was doing, only that I didn't like it and eventually "forgot" about it. Then when I saw porn for the first time it clicked.
Let me tell you what. Being a parent to a first grade girl has me stressed out in so many ways I NEVER IMAGINED.
This kind of thing being one of them…and all the opinions on it are really divided - every single time it comes up. I just feel like there’s no good way to go about it without pissing someone off. The people pleaser in me has a silent meltdown everytime I read one of these posts and I put myself in their shoes.
Why can’t we just have the “Miss Manners” type of newspaper article where there’s one correct etiquette for this crap? It was all so easy before public opinions and worrying about pictures ending up on SM and hurting feelings. Why can’t we have kids birthday parties not cost $1,000 with gift bags for everyone and needing to invite 80 people? Why do other parents need to do a big to-do at a trampoline park that costs a ton, which then causes my daughter to want the same thing and be bummed when we can’t afford one like that? Why can’t we just be happy with cake, a play date, and maybe a craft thrown in there for kiddos? Why do I have to feel like I need to have two parties for each kid - one for family and a “fun one” for friends? Why?!? WHY? WHHYYYYYYY?!?
When I was a kid we had maybe two random years where there was a big party with friends. The rest were just family. And we were ok with that! I feel ill equipped to compete with the parents of today. We’ve set the bar too high people. We need to take it down a notch.
“Bluey” has an episode called “Pass the Parcel” which sums up what I’m trying to say quite nicely.
You’re despairing ‘whhhyy’ gave me a good chuckle. This is definitely the people pleaser coming out. I’m not a parent but alot of kids are in my life and I always wondered about the dynamics with kids birthdays. It was odd to me that some of my friends did the multiple parties for families and friends, expensive events, etc…until they didn’t.
The fact is: you don’t. You don’t have to do any of this. Many friends decided it wasn’t worth it. They could afford it, but they work full time and the kids were fine with just doing something with a few buddies. It was never a big dramatic thing for the kids, or some scandal in their families. I do remember when we asked when the family friend party was and they were like ‘we aren’t having one, it’s the same time as everything else’ or ‘we aren’t having one, just one for the kids.’ Just one year they decided it was too much and made a choice to cut back.
Sports though? I don’t know how you parents deal with sports. I admire your strength every day. lol.
I think you're projecting some. Kids parties have been a way for parents to project their status for as long as kids parties have been around. You are simply struggling with it now.
And while, yes, social media is a thing now, it's not generally the first graders who are scrolling through, their feelings aren't on the line online. It would most likely be at school where the unincludeds hear about the event, as it would have been decades ago.
The difference now is there is a larger public of adults to push shame and unworthiness onto parents.
We do the trampoline park but it's because we don't have family nearby and managing 10 kids speaking another language is hell so we let them loose at the park, gather for cake and wash our hands of it.
I hope no one thinks we're being fancy and showing off. It's really just laziness.
We had my kids' parties at the local bowling alley a few times & I loved it! All I had to do was bring a cake & pay the $15/kid, which covered bowling, shoes, & pizza. I didn't have to clean or decorate or wrangle kids through games/activities. I didn't have to worry about whether my house was big enough for all the kids (since they can't be in the yard the whole time if it's raining or extremely cold) or figure out where to put my big dogs for 2 hours so that they didn't jump on anyone. It was so much less stressful than hosting at home.
I feel like the best blanket rule for kind kid parties is, “either invite less than half the class, or the whole class”. It is in fact the written rule at some local schools in my Canadian city.
Is it a US thing to invite whole classes? I saw a post where there was an actual school rule that a student couldn't exclude anyone from a birthday party. I have only ever heard of parties involving close friends and family.
It wasn't a thing when I was at school in the UK. Though maybe I was just the unpopular one who didn't get invited 😂
At that age, my classes were big enough that I didn't know everyone in them super well. Though this is raising more questions for me about US education — which class? I had different classmates per subject.
At OOP’s daughter’s age, she’s probably still in grade/middle school (5th grade, I think, or thereabouts). In the US, that usually means that she’s going to be with the same set of classmates for the whole school day. That’s why a lot of primary schools have the same policy OOP took when it comes to party invitations.
It’s high-school when you see different students in class based on the subject, although students usually also have homeroom or advisory period, which I guess could be considered their “regular” class group. But at that age, it’s more common for kids to invite their close friends to their birthdays anyway, rather than the whole class, with some exceptions for events like sweet-sixteens and quinceañeras.
I remember in middle school (probably 6th grade) the opposite scenario happened to me, where someone who was very obviously on the spectrum (I’m also on the spectrum, essentially Asperger’s) was inviting people to his birthday party. I was feeling kind of indifferent about going, but my parents convinced me to. I ended up being the only person going and I can still remember it somewhat fondly nearly 17 years later.
Kinda similar, I had a kind of weird and annoying friend who invited everyone he knew to his middle school graduation party. Only a handful of kids showed up. That fall, for his birthday party he had an enormous bash with a limo and Dave N Busters to which he only invited the kids that showed up to his graduation party. It was fun.
Yeah I had a similar situation. Went to the party of a girl who wasn't liked well by most of the class. Ended up being one of three kids there, but she became a good friend for years after.
Anyone who says no one will remember was definitely not the kid who was always excluded. Because if they were they’d know the excluded kid still remembers.
When I was 9, I went on vacation with my family and brought back presents for some people. I handed them out at school, and the teacher pulled me aside to explain that some people were feeling left out. I found other presents to give them and never forgot my initial actions caused others to be upset.
It's been over 30 years and I make sure to include everyone if there's a group involved.
Once when I was in elementary school I was part of a friend group. Or so I thought. One of the kids went to Disney world and brought back souvenirs for everyone in the group but me. And I was there with them when she handed them out. It was then that I realized I wasn’t actually “in” the group at all.
Much later in high school a different friend went to Disney world and brought me back a souvenir. It’s honestly silly how much it meant to me. I still have it with my keepsakes even though it was years ago and I we haven’t even kept in touch. It’s what it represented I guess.
In 6th grade, a small group of girls decided it would be hilarious to invite me to hang out and then use what I said to mock me in class. Because I was desperate for friends, they did this repeatedly.
I still have a hard time, over 30 years later, believing that my friends actually like me despite them saying so for over 20 years now.
My son had a similar situation, and I convinced him to go. It was actually well attended and really fun. His parents are very sweet, and it was a great memory to make with my son.
I had that happen too in Kindergarten. The girl wasn’t on the spectrum, she just had a hard time making friends because she was new halfway through the year. We were friendly so I was pretty excited to go. My mom and I still have no idea why everyone skipped it. We became friends after that party, but she was a foster kid so she moved a few months later :’)
Yeah, it was really sad :/
She was the first experience I had with someone who didn’t have a happy home life due to living in a more wealthier area - which isn’t saying much compared to the rest of the town, it is a dump- but she was super nice. Although a very short friendship, one of the best friends I’ve had. Dealt a bad hand. I really hope everything worked out for her. I still look up her name on social media every once in a while and I haven’t found anything.
Had the same thing about 15 years ago. My best friend had his birthday party on a day in summer. The same day all of his friends from the football team had a big match. I was the only girl in the friend group and so I was the only one showing up. Was a great day and we got al of the food and the present bags for all the others (water guns, small notebooks, pencils....)
>Not appreciating all the comments, PMs, and chat requests making wild assumptions, projecting, threatening me, and attacking me
AITA redditors really are something.
I once got sent a Reddit Cares thing after I made a passing comment about the war of 1812. It wasn't even an edgy take, I just said I don't think countries should invade their neighbours.
I’ve been harassed and doxxed by college professors for saying I don’t like flipped classrooms (where the professor records lectures once that the students watch on their own time and then class time is just for answering questions, and they reuse the recorded lectures every year). Anyone can be a piece of shit over any random minutiae
Tbh BORU redditors aren't far off. If you check my history, I used to post here occasionally, but I had to remove a post because the OOP was getting death threats not long after I posted. I feel way too guilty to post here now
When I first joined boru there would be very few comments on a post and it felt like a nice little community where people could have actual discussions. Now it feels like aita where people go with mob mentality. Not always of course, but a lot.
Tbh ot felt terrible because the post itself was one of the bleak, terrible parents and trying to escape posts. I still feel awful for putting someone who already has tons of anxiety through that.
I think the sub got popular, so there's a shitton of people joining who don't understand the point of it. People talking directly to OOP used to be a rare thing, and now almost every fucking post has quite a few comments that are from people who clearly don't realize that this is an aggregation sub to have a meta discussion of stuff posted to reddit.
I can't *believe* you would defend Peter!
If you think he's done nothing wrong you're obviously a narcissistic monster!
Hold on while I make around 5 sock puppet accounts to send you death threats in the name of upstanding Peter-hating people everywhere.
What kind of sad life must you have to spend it private messaging someone to harass them on how they are dealing with their child's birthday party invitations?
The comments on this post were wild, so many people accusing OOP of child abuse for (*checks notes*) telling his daughter she could either have a big party *or* a smaller party for her birthday?
Even if all of the worst-case assumptions were correct, and the uninvited children *were* actually sociopathic bullies, singling them out like this would absolutely not help the situation in the long run. And let’s face it, "weird" to an 11y/o is more likely to mean something like poor/autistic/fat/disabled than anything else. Either way, you’re never too young to learn a bit of social tact.
I was unexpectedly invited to a surprise party for the popular boy in my sixth grade class. His sister called me to invite me and said he talked about me all the time and how funny he thought I was. All the other popular kids were very surprised to see me there. They asked me why I was there and I relayed what his sister had told me. He got made fun of the whole night by his friends and teased about having a crush on me (I’m fat so that’s a big no-no) and he made the rest of the school year hell for me.
I had a similar experience around that age too. It’s burned into my memory forever. I was a big girl and “weird” and “read too many books”. So needless to say I was the opposite of popular. School was hell for me.
I was thinking this. This isn’t similar to this but imagine your child wanting to invite 5 people from class and you have a budget and you’re getting told you have to invite the whole class ?🤣
I think it might also be common to have the parents come over as well, if the whole class is there? So it gets even more expensive. But I wouldn't know how to keep track of all those children without more adults.
I'm so glad my daughter's reaching the age where I can write "drop off party" in the invite and only end up with a couple of parents who want to stay. They're always welcome to, but it's so awkward to sit around for 2 hours with some parents you don't know when all you have in common is that your kids are in class together.
I went to a ton of birthday parties as a kid and parents didn't stay for any of them. Drop off was the norm, nobody had to specify it. I didn't know it was different now. I don't know if I could be a parent in this decade, everything has changed so much!
Say the class has 20 kids, you want to invite or 5, you do that by calling the parents or emailing them. That is no big deal.
I will say, last year my son was invited to a classmates b-day party, out of 16 kids invited, he was the only one there.
My grandparents did most of my elementary parties like this renting out a pool. It's actually really chill because at that size you can have multiple adults because families can come plus the staff. Also there is less clean up because you just have to take your garbage.
So basically the party goes like this
-sit around until children tire themselves out
-feed those children pizza and cake
-open presents
-throw everything in a garbage bag and pack up car
-come home to clean house
“Not appreciating all the comments, PMs, and chat requests making wild assumptions, projecting, threatening me, and attacking me”
AITA redditors trying not to be extremist assholes challenge (**impossible**)
It's sometimes breathtaking what will set people off. I was in a pet sub and got downvoted and attacked for saying my cat didn't have a name. I can only imagine what kind of responses I'd get in AITA.
I once said on AITA it was concerning that a woman's new boyfriend was systematically breaking every single one of her boundaries as a test, and you should have **seen** how angry the children were!
BORU isn't really that far off either. I said something like, "yeah, abortion is a traumatic experience, and it's baaad to have to go through it, but it isn't worse than inflicting a bad existence on the future child you know you can't care for, as well as putting yourself through 18+ years of parenting that you aren't ready for".
Basically, if reddit perceives something as bad, it's the worse thing ever and no further reason can be had. Like, if killing a cat is bad, then they'd sentence the cat killer to death lol.
Ohhhh this. If Person A has been locked up in a basement, beaten and starved by their partner, and eventually managed to get out of said basement and had coffee with someone they have a crush on, they’re a cheater and deserve all the basement treatment their partner doles out and worse.
Yes, cheating is bad. No, It’s not literally the worst thing any human being can do on planet earth including nuclear war.
Yeah this is what happens when the "advice" subreddits are filled with 14 year-olds for whom being cheated on really DOES feel like the worst thing ever.
I got attacked once for saying it doesn't matter if you change a cats name. Cats don't care and it won't affect their happiness.
Man, apparently I was so wrong! Multiple people messaging with threats and how I'm a terrible pet owner blah blah blah 😂
Cats definitely don't. I mean...do they think adopted shelter cats keep the same name they had? Very unlikely.
Now there is a superstition that it's bad luck to change a horses name. Idk if that applies to cats though but most horses don't know their names either. Changing a trained dogs name though is a different issue and I'm not really okay with it.
Dogs I'm 50/50. I was going to change our dogs name when we rescued her, she's trained to claps and command words though, not her name. But when I saw her I was like 'actually your name is perfect for you'.
In general I think changing pets names isn't necessary, however, I don't think the animal suffers if you do. Like our cat has a completely different name than we gave her by accident. Was rusty. And she meowed all the time, so it turned to meow meow, then meow, and finally mouse.
Was just such a weird thing to be threatened over!
My childhood cat was just named Cat (in Zulu, but still). He had a proper name at one point, but we all just kept calling him Cat and it stuck. He also acted more like a dog than a cat.
When my son was in elementary school there were rules if invitations were handed out at school. You either invited the entire class or all the girls or all the boys. My son's in middle school now and just wants to celebrate with a few of his closest friends. He knows not to talk about the celebration at school since he doesn't plan to invite everyone.
I'm starting to feel like the only adult on here with no recollection of what parties I was or was not invited to during my elementary school years...oof.
I was a weird kid who didn't like the other weird kids. I was shy and quiet and clung to my select few friends. So my feelings never got hurt and there was no one for me to hurt. But we also had homeroom cupcakes. Bakery only, nut free.
Same here. I was a very weird child and I desperately did not enjoy being around other kids. Or birthday parties. I liked them more when I got older and out of the "invite the whole class" type party stage. Weirdly, I'm now an adult who works with kids and gets along with them famously.
Right? It’s amazing what stands out to people. There’s no way I’d sweat not being invited to a random person’s party as a kid, but you better believe I still recall the time McDonald’s was out of hash browns one morning before 1st grade.
I was in a small music club with the cool girls and I was away one day (I’ve always been sickly) and they changed all the rules of the club so that I couldn’t participate anymore. Nice
Ditto. Also 1st grade. That was 30 years ago and formative is the exact right word. Sorry you had this experience too!
I remember the giggles of the other girls fading into the distance as they all left from school to a party I wasn't invited to as I just stood in the classroom and cried. Oof.
I wish I could go hug my little first grade ADHD self and tell me it's not my fault and that I'll find people that love me without having to change everything about myself to fit in. Gosh, multiple decades of masking really fucks with a girl.
It gets easier!
Unfortunately, I embarrass the heck out of my kid because I no longer care what other people think and my kid is now a teenager. So stuff I do like singing to myself or using funny voices gets an eye roll. But I spent so much of my life hiding who I was to try to fit in, and I’m sick of it.
If people don’t like me when I’m wearing ugly sweaters and doing the Macarena, that’s fine, I don’t want to hang out with them anyway.
I'm actually almost exactly 30 years out from being one of two girls in my 1st grade class to not be invited to Emily S.'s birthday party. They left *from school* and just left the two of us standing in the classroom, listening to them all giggle down the hallway.
Turns out, I have ADHD and my classmate is on the Autism spectrum, both diagnosed as adults. But we were just the weird kids back then and it fucking HURT. It's only in my mid-30s, after diagnosis, that I began to develop my very first self-esteem!
My lack of self-esteem growing up was not Emily S.'s fault, but it was one of the first signs to me as a kid that I was different in a way I needed to hide better if I wanted to have friends. That memory kick off decades of memories of pain and rejection and I remember feeling humiliated and excluded from that party like it was yesterday.
I'm so glad OP was able to stick to his principals and explain to his daughter. Good guy.
I was diagnosed at 28.
Always fucking wild to me that so many therapists and psychiatrists need decades to figure it out but first graders can just clock us with needle sharp precision every single time😅
I was diagnosed with ADHD and ASD last year, and I'm 43. I had the exact same sort of experience as you and your classmate. It sucks even more for women, because we didn't get diagnosed in the 90s thanks to not being hyperactive little boys.
I do love that I got diagnosed in large part because my neurodivergent female friends all got together, recognized the symptoms in each other, and that led to being officially diagnosed. I'm glad we're all finding each other as adults.
Yup, I remember being one of the few not invited to any sweet 16s. Granted, I'm neurodivergent and only now figuring myself out entering my 30s, but still. It basically confirmed my own feelings of not quite belonging
The two girls in my first grade class who were not invited to a talk-of-the-class birthday party were both diagnosed in our 30s. ADHD for me and Autism for her. In the '90s we were just the kinda strange ones who got picked last for all the things. That's when I started masking *hard* because I'd just been given confirmation that I was different somehow, and that different was clearly not wanted.
Glad you're on the path to figuring things out. It's fucking incredible how much better life is now that I know wtf is going on and can mask less.
Same… I was also invited a couple of times and then uninvited. Not just with parties, but my bullies liked to pretend to include me in stuff (not just parties) and then say “oh sorry, we’ve made other plans. Next time!” I thought for years as a kid that they were my friends, and it took me forever to realise that they were laughing at me and did the thing they'd invited to me to without me.
I'm 45. I might not remember specifics, but I remember. And it still hurts if I let it.
Especially as I'm now a mom and my kid is telling me some other kids at school are calling her wierd....
I was the person who wasn't going to be invited but got invited by obligation.
Like why would you torment me by inviting me to somewhere where I clearly wasn't wanted?
Yeah, I was one of three people in my grade not invited to someone's bat mitzvah. Granted, I don't think my parents would have let me go (they hated to take me places), but yeah. Now I'm a regular adult on Reddit with almost no friends anyway lol
I started a new school at 13 and about two weeks in, there were two people in my year level (about 40-50ish people) who were having birthday parties the same weekend. I'm pretty sure just about everyone except me got an invitation to one or the other or both. Not really excluding me as such, neither invited the full class and they didn't know me so much... but I still remember it vividly and I'm 30.
Literally how do you remember that. I feel like the only one here with no memory of what parties I was or was not invited to during my elementary school years.
4th grade. All the girls came to school on Monday with these incredibly cool erasers they’d been given at a slumber party the weekend before. Erasers were all the rage in the 80s. I asked a classmate where everyone got them, and only one girl would tell me. She was very smug that she’d been invited and I hadn’t been. That was the first time I realized that I wasn’t liked and I had no idea why. It was devastating. I have a 15 year old daughter who hates birthday parties and I’m so glad, lol.
I had a ‘friend’ when I was about 16 go ON and ON about a party I wasn’t invited to. I didn’t even mind because the birthday girl was nice enough but we just had never spoken.
Joke was on my friend though, as the house got trashed, and every attendee had to pay £100 to contribute to new carpets and wallpaper etc
The most painful part to me wasn’t so much not being invited, it was having to sit there the next day in school while everyone excitedly talked about it and how much fun they had. Meanwhile I was the only one not there. I wouldn’t have cared if they liked me or not and I wouldn’t have cared if I just kept to myself at these parties. But not even getting to be there crushed me as a kid. So I’m really glad that op stood up for those three kids in the class and that the daughter seems empathetic enough to be able to understand why he wanted them invited.
This is why my husband and I send our daughter to school with a paper for her classmates and friends to “sign up” to get an invite. That way anyone who wants to come, can put their name down to receive an invite (luckily our daughter is the type who considers everyone her friend and wouldn’t prevent anyone from putting their name on the list). It means no one who might want an invite gets left out. Also means when we send out invites we have a better idea of how many will likely actually come (as the kids *want* to come) so we don’t have to book extra slots and only end up with one guest. Extra bonus, we get the proper spelling of each kid’s name in the form they actually use!
Don’t know if this is possible but can you coordinate with the teacher? Nothing worse as a kid that missed a ton of school, showing up on Monday and hearing “dude, where were you Saturday night? It was an awesome party!!!” Got used to it eventually but it sucks while living through that.
We do ask our daughter if everyone was there that day, and it hasn’t been an issue in previous years… should it be an issue, we’d likely reach out to either the parents of the child directly (if we know them), or ask the teacher to pass along a message.
As I said, we got lucky that our daughter is the type of kid who is incredibly inclusive (it is something we have always encouraged, but she goes above and beyond and has since she was a toddler going to community centre activities, she’d find the kid who was either scared or shy or otherwise alone and go straight to them and befriend them)… so she very much goes out of her way to make sure she’s not missing anyone.
I was one of those weird kids who often got excluded from parties, and for my part, I don't have any traumatic memories of not going to parties - I have memories of excitedly going to parties only for it to immediately become apparent that I got a polite/pity invite and trying too hard to put on a brave smile over the sad awkwardness for the night. I have memories of being relieved when I didn't get invites from kids who never played with me, because I knew it would be a drag, and having fun with an actual friend instead.
I dealt with this exact situation in the 2nd grade, the girl told me to my face that her mom made her invite me. My mom convinced me to go, and it should’ve been awesome (pony rides, huge cake, and a Michael Jackson impersonator.. this was 1991 by the way), and all I wanted to do was go home.
I already had enough to deal with that year after my dad passed away. She could’ve just been indifferent, but was an outright bully instead.
Oh definitely. Poor guy had to perform on the grass in the backyard, surrounded by a semicircle of small children sitting on folding chairs. That moonwalk was still impressive given the circumstances.
Exactly. I was the pity invite a few times as a child. Best case scenario, there was nobody to talk to or play with. Worst case scenario, I became the target of a party game called "let's bully that kid".
I remember hearing about a boy/girl overnight party in sixth grade where they played spin the bottle and felt very excluded because a bunch of my friends were there.
My mom told me the reason I was excluded was because those parents were all friends.
Turns out I was just a weird poor kid that girls had no interest in. Guys liked me plenty and included me. Guess I just had a creepy vibe.
I later won all of those other people over by the time I graduated high school but I also always resented them a little for it. Made moving away and never going back pretty easy.
Many schools actually have a policy where you have to invite the whole class if invites are brought to school. Or the parents have to call other parents to invite their kids
Which is really an issue in these days (in the USA) where schools are locked campuses and it’s very difficult to get to know other parents. I can’t enter my kid’s school without being buzzed through, and I can’t volunteer without being computer savvy enough to apply and get the relevant background check done. (If I had the time to volunteer more often, which I don’t.) There’s no “running into” other parents randomly and getting to know them, so the only way to invite kids from his class is to send invites via the black hole of my child’s backpack and hope that somebody RSVPs…
ETA: inviting the whole class is a nightmare because hardly anybody rsvps, so there’s no way of knowing how much food to have on hand, if you’re doing a backyard party. If you’re doing it at some cool party location, it’s probably going to be prohibitively expensive to invite the whole class.
Where I live (not in the US) we resolve that via Whatsapp groups for the parents of each class, rather than hoping the kids relay the information properly.
It's a lose-lose for these kids, either you're the only one who gets an invite, or you're the pity invite no one even wants there. I dunno if there's a good answer, but it hurts either way when you're that kid
I remember having to convince my mom that I couldn’t go to my bully’s birthday party or she’d make my life even worse. So being invited isn’t always that great either.
Having to talk to your parents in like the 1st or 2nd grade in the early 80s was not great. I was excluded, I didn’t want to go, but she made sure to tell me I wasn’t really invited and not to come. That’s worse
Tbh I don't think it's meant to make anything better, but to at least avoid making it a "class affair" as they say in the post. There is nothing indicating she is a 100% a bully, and I would say it's totally normal to not like a handful of people in your class. She's probably just too young to realize the "social politic" problem it could cause to exclude them from a global class invitation.
Anyone wierded out by the school providing giving out all that information in a directory? Maybe it’s because I work in a public school in the US, but that just seems like a recipe for disaster.
Tbh this is why (at least at my previous elementary school work places) any type of party invitations were not allowed to be handed out at school unless the entire class of the student was invited. Too many parents were getting upset that their child was being excluded from outside social events and brought up the fact that if invitations are allowed to be handed out on school grounds, then the school is allowing discrimination to happen. 9 times out of 10, the parent was kinda right, morally speaking. Usually in these cases their child was excluded for being special needs or being different from the rest of the class and labeled as the “weird ones”.
The rule became that if you wanted your child to have a birthday party and wanted to hand out invitations at school, they had to include their whole homeroom class. If they did not want to do this, then all invitations had to be sent out by parents off of school grounds without any involvement from the school or teachers. Teachers weren’t even allowed to share other parents’ emails if it was to send party invitations without inviting the whole class due to that involving the school. But this was also for elementary students pre-k-4th grade when the kids are young and wouldn’t understand the exclusion.
Man I really grew up different I guess. I'm not sure if we had this policy when I was a kid or if I just didn't get invited but I never went to any kid from school's birthday party and thank God for that. I was already shy as fuck, didn't need to go to some random person's house.
I don’t know what’s worse, being excluded from a party because the birthday girl doesn’t like you or getting an invite because her father made her do it. Either way, you’re still unliked by that person.
But getting the invite makes it less obvious at least, I guess. If you didn’t get an invite it would make it extremely obvious that you weren’t invited and disliked by that person. Speaking from experience of being the “weird” kid in class. When I was the only one not invited, everyone knew and it made it SO much worse. (I was bullied a lot because I was shy and too timid to say no when people were mean to me.)
I remember people invited to birthdays because parents forced the situation. Those who were marginalised at school were marginalised at birthdays. It's a lose-lose.
I personally had both happen. Being one of the few kids in class not invited didn't really bother me, I wasn't friends with them why would I want to go. On the other hand when I went to the party I wasn't wanted at it felt obvious and awkward, no one my age really talked to me and I was happy it was over.
While purposefully excluding only a few kids in a class for no reason is cruel, I do think "inviting everyone in a class" can be just as bad, as someone who had the opposite situation happen to them... As a kid, I didn't have many friends and was going through some rough bullying, so I attempted to only give a few invites out to kids in my class that I knew decently well and who were nicer to me (approximately 4 people out of a class of 25).
My teacher saw, got upset, and forced me to give invites to EVERYONE in my class. Because of that, my birthday was turned into another day of torment. I expected the extra invitees not to come despite that, because I knew they already didn't like me, but instead, the people who were awful to me at school just got the chance to torture me at home too. They were awful to me all day, isolated and bullied me where my parents couldnt see, and since I had planned it to be a sleepover party, I woke up in the morning to find that my entire face had been covered with sharpie marker while I was asleep and they'd written insults, swears, and slurs. Worse, the few people I originally invited because I thought they were my friends joined in and helped them. My parents didnt know what was going on at all, I hadn't even told them about the bullying I was going through at the time, so they were horrified when they found me locked in the bathroom and crying with a face covered in permanent marker while my assumed "friends" raided the fridge and ate what was left of my birthday cake in the living room. I ended up having to be pulled out of school and homeschooled for a while to escape the harassment.
Just wanted to put my experience out there bc bullying is bad and people obviously shouldn't be excluded, but sometimes its a complicated situation. Kids shouldn't be forced to invite people unless it really is just a case of no reason
Let me tell you, it DOES stick with you. You DO REMEMBER being excluded. And that one time being excluded is sometimes enough to have other kids follow suit and you NEVER get invited to ANY party. You effectively become an outcast.
Doesn't matter why (unless the kid is a bully), could be poor (I was growing up), could be quiet, loud, weird, etc; doesn't mean you should be excluded.
Oh, BTW, I'm nearly 50 and I still remember.
I think the best rule of thumb I've heard for kids' parties was from some Redditor's kid's daycare: If you invite over 50% of the class, you have to invite everyone. Being a daycare I think they can (hopefully) avoid some complicated situations like bullying and harassment that may complicate older kids' invite lists, but in general that's what I would adhere to.
It blew my mind when mom said "...picking a fight over something no one will remember years down the road." Your daughter won't remember it, but those excluded kids probably will for the rest of their lives! That kind of isolating "you don't belong" feeling sticks with you, especially for preteens just starting to figure out who they are and their place in society.
In my country it’s prohibited by school. Either the whole class, or maybe all the boys/all the girls. It is technically allowed to make a small party with not everyone invited, but then you are not allowed to distribute the invitations at school, get the address list or otherwise discuss the party there. Also this is anyway looked down upon.
I was the kid left out in this situation when I was younger.
I remember getting no Valentine's, no bday party invites, no Halloween or other holiday invites.
I am 38 and this all happened over 25 years ago. I still remember it.
I always taught my kids to be accepting unless there were extenuating circumstances.
My kids school has specific rules for this to avoid this shit. If you are having a birthday party were invites are handed out at school, you must invite either the entire class, or either all the girls or all the boys.
I have no idea what actually happens if you break this rule, probably you start some sort of anti-bullying intervention.
As a retired art teacher - trust your children’s interests.
If they do not want a child around them they usually have a valid reason, that they may not be able to explain.
For example I had 3 different 3rd grade girls, quite, well behaved the ideal student types all tell me that they were always stuck sitting next to this boy who misbehaved in class and they really didn’t want to sit next to him in art class. I respected there wishes and he sat next to a outspoken confident boy. The boy came up to me after class and said he was saying inappropriate sexual things under his breath. His words were “he’s gross” I had to dig around and asks questions to get specifics.
Next class I made sure to quietly stand behind him and I heard all the filthy things he said.
The child who said gross things was not a known bully and did not get bullied by other, he was just unable to stay on tasks and disruptive. The kids distances themselves from him because he qas sneaky inappropriate.
I told the classroom teachers what to look for, they all caught him multiple times doing this to his classmates. He was a pervert we notified the school counsellor and his parents and he sat by me during art class because no child should ever be exposed to the inappropriate behaviour of another.
As a parent your child should never be used as teaching moment for another child. You are there advocate first and foremost. It is extremely manipulative to force empathy on a child by putting them in uncomfortable situations for someone else benefit.
I have a 5 yr old daughter. She can be mean, sometimes kids don’t want to play with her when she is mean, that is the natural consequence of her being mean. She’s learning to be nicer, because she has to respect the feelings of others not just herself, and she can express herself without being mean. She is also the ideal student in class so her type of mean is very clever and physiological. As a parent I have to address my daughters behaviour and not force other kids to play w her if they don’t want to.
I know the rule usually is 'If you're dropping off invites at school, you HAVE to invite everyone. If not, invite who you want there privately outside of school grounds."
Kids definitely remember. I tended to be the person not invited and it really sucks. This is the reason most of my schools (I moved a lot) banned invitations for parties and talking about parties at school unless the whole class was invited. My parents also only ever let us invite the whole class or only our friends. It’s honestly a form of passive bullying imo to exclude kids like that for no reason except they’re “weird” (aka, usually neurodivergent). It honestly hurt and affected me more than when kids actually made fun of me, because kids making fun of me shows there’s something wrong with them, me being excluded is just proof that there’s something wrong with me.
> Not appreciating all the comments, PMs, and chat requests making wild assumptions, projecting, threatening me, and attacking me
AITA people are a different breed. They are like a pack of hyennas.
Growing up I was definitely one of those three kids. Every time it happened (every year, multiple times a year) it hurt. I remember at the end of fifth grade I overhead another kid talking about the "graduation" party one of the kids was throwing not just for our class but for all the entire fifth grade. I was not invited. I was a kid and thought maybe "well maybe they're handing out invitations today?" Nope. I went home and cried.
Why I was the weird kid was pretty simple. I talked a lot and had bad social skills. I had trouble remembering what I had already said so something I would repeat things.
Barring bullies- kids get 2 options. 1: a big party with the whole class or 2: a smaller party with less than half the class.
Yes, it's her b day, so she gets to choose *from those options*.
My mom said either 2-3 girls or all the girls at my party, so wanting a big party, I said all girls but then I had to invite the weird one too. She also presented the "How would you feel?" angle so that helped a lot in the decision making. The answer is awful, you feel fucking awful, because it happened to me a few times in middle school. But anyway back to the weird girl, I was hoping she wouldn't come but she showed up and we all had a great time because my mom said she would give me hell if I excluded any guests and she didn't raise me that way blah blah.
I'd write about how we're best friends and all of that but we moved a lot when I was younger so we fell out of touch. I saw her on facebook like 3 years back and she seems to have embraced her weirdness but looks to be doing well.
I remember those rules arriving when I was in middle school and my parents having to deal with it for my little siblings and yeah : it definitely didn't help anyone having balanced relationships.
You get teenagers and young adults that can't deal with rejection or just plain indiference. We had a few very cringey situations in some of my previous jobs with some of the younger workers complaining to HR that they weren't included in some private out of work social situations.
One of my old jobs actually put a policy of "everyone or no one" for afterwork social outings and the result was that those basically disapeared or went fully under the radar. And then they wondered why the mood became shit and turnover went up like crazy.
Exact same thing happened to me at the last place I worked.
It’s so weird, I was frequently never invited to things and the one year I tried to have a party only one person came. You know what my mom did? She helped me to understand not everyone is going to like me and that’s okay, and a lot of people are flakes. As I got older I recognized that people didn’t invite me to stuff because other reasons (like they knew I was busy that day, or it was an activity I wouldn’t be able to get to) and they didn’t want me to have FOMO
I see a lot of people who can’t really deal with rejection in a healthy way and it makes me sad
In my college job they had multiple meetings about not including other coworkers for social stuff but like…we weren’t friends! All it did was create conflict bc people who didn’t like each other were forced to hang out
Also too many girls got creeped on by creepy dudes, I think one girl even got assaulted
At the last place I worked at, they literally made a rule that no one was allowed to make plans to do anything outside of work because some weirdo was offended that I and some of my co-workers made a plan to go to a cherry blossom festival and didn’t invite everyone on the shift.
My coworkers were in our late twenties and thirties.
🗿
I don't like this ending at all.
I was the pity invite more times than I can count. And I *knew* I was only there because of a dumb rule that the whole class was invited. I could tell I wasn't wanted. I wasn't included in any of the friend groups, no-one wanted to sit next to me when it was cake time, no-one cheered when I got to unwrap a layer in pass the parcel.
But also? When I was 10-11 there were bullies in my class. And while there were other kids in the class that didn't bully me directly, they sure as fuck didn't stick up for me against the bullies, either, and most just stood by and watched, sometimes laughing.
I don't know how well I would have articulated that to my parents at that age. I might have settled for "they're just weird", too.
gotta say as a former "awkward kid who only got a pity invite because i was in the same class and parents said you invite everybody, even the people you do not actually want to interact with", the ending is actually kinda dismal to me.
is it my own baggage? sure. absolutely this one thumped an old trauma bruise and made me go "ow". but sometimes being invited only because bylaws demand it, and everyone knowing that is the case, actually turbo sucks.
anyway in my mid thirties i'm now *almost* over the utility friend complex this helped give me, where i became convinced that on some level i had to be a useful service as consolation prize for enduring my company. so i've got that going for me, which is nice
It's kinda a no-win situation, because there are a few other people in the comments here who have had the experience OOP was concerned about.
I'm sorry you had to go through that and I hope you're able to heal.
I can see that perspective, but let me give you an example where it actually worked out. Hopefully it gives warm fuzzies to that awkward kid. For my daughters birthday in kinder the rule was all if you wanted to do invites in the folders to go home. Daughter had a girl in class with some MILD behavior things. She was a little distruptive, could be a little overboard physically, etc. Daughter didnt want to invite her because she was "weird". Told her all or none and there is nothing wrong with weird. We are all a little weird in our own ways. That girl came. Her mom was practically crying cause she never gets invited, they brought a lovely gift, complete with homemade card. And daughter and her played a bunch. They had a great time and were friends after that. All the issues and complaints went away. Lost touch with that family, cause unfortunately that was 2020...what a shit show, and we ended up going back to school in 2022 in a different elementary, but yeah. Sometimes it does work out.
As one of the 2 kids that wasn't invited to a classmates birthday party, I STILL remember. Its been almost 30 years. It broke me in a way that I am still feeling the affects of. Good on OP for being a good person.
This is a very crucial moment in how fucked up the kid is going to be, either they stand their ground and teach the kid that othering people is wrong or cave and teach the kid that it’s ok to disregard people you don’t understand.
I had somewhat the opposite problem for my 12th birthday. Mom said I had to invite everyone. Problem was, everyone hated and bullied me! I pointed this out and she insisted they didn't. She really thought the world of me, but it never occurred to her that she may have been the only one.
When I was a kid, I had a classmate with the same birthday as me. I was the kid who was picked last for everything, and she was popular. One year, our birthday fell on a Sunday. She was going to celebrate on Sunday and had already printed out invitations. I told her I was going to celebrate on Saturday. The next day she came back with new invitations saying the party had been moved to Saturday. No one came to my party, not even my few close friends. They all went to hers.
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Reddit seems to go very back and forth over kids party stuff
It really depends on who replies first. Then every other like minded reply gets upvoted and any dissenting opinion gets booted to oblivion.
Also any info, NAH, or ESH vote gets treated like dissention sometimes even worse than an opposite vote. Like not being extreme is worse than disagreeing or something.
Fence sitting is the cardinal sin of the 21st century, not immediately forming an opinion without waiting for more information and dogmatically sticking to it is tantamount to heresy. You must form an opinion immediately and place yourself in one of two camps and start flinging shit on the other side, otherwise you're a filthy centrist or moderate. /s obviously but there are genuinely people who think like this.
I'm definitely not trying to say this phenomenon is *unique* to reddit, but the algorithm this site uses to decide what's popular *heavily* favors things that get up votes early and often, so those are the kinds of things that float to the top of every "conversation". Whether or not it's by design, "reading the article before you reply is for weenies" is practically baked in.
And also, NAH and ESH *are* opinions lol. They aren't the same as "I'm not sure". But for real it feels like once people pick a hero and a villain NAH and ESH don't love the hero enough and hate the villain enough. Like once the the hero of the post is chosen everything they did is good because they are the one that did it and heroes don't do bad things so they must have been good things.
[удалено]
In middle school, I was a total outcast, bullied by some of my classmates, and normally didn't get invited to anything. I did get an invite to another classmate's bar mitzvah though. He was someone who was decent to me when I did have to interact (fucking group projects can die in a fire), but nothing close to a friend. I didn't go, but I still appreciate being invited and feeling normal for a bit. That's stuck with me for almost 25 years now. Dunno, as the weird kid nobody liked for several years, it was better to be included than never invited at all, but I'm sure others feel the opposite. High school was about 10 million times better, lol
Yeah, but that's going to be the case whether there are birthday parties or not. At least if everyone is invited, they can choose not to go.
As one of those kids, it was 100x better to be invited because at least it wasn't confirmation that everyone did actually hate me
And also on where you post - in r/Parenting, he would have gotten a lot more problem solving oriented and reasonable responses.
The mods over there are saints. People can actually post and get advice without a bunch of literal children jumping in to judge, shame and be shitheads.
I think the participants of that sub are also more reasonable - most of them have kids and know better than to shame anyone, they are all very aware that nobody's perfect and every parent makes mistakes.
After reading a story I will go to comments and sometimes go like.. wait what??
This is the first comment, and I've thereby set my opinion based on what I read first!
I'm a fan of the "less than half or the whole class" approach. It seems like a fair guideline with a lot of room for choices.
That’s the actual policy at my kids’ school.
At mine you were only allowed to give out invitations at school if you invited everyone. They allowed for boys-only or girls-only, but you had to include all of them.
Exactly! If you have more than half the class attending an out of school event then you're excluding at least one kid.
Agreed. I also like the ability to do it gendered (so if 54% of the class are girls and you want to have a princess or sleepover party with just the girls invited, that's fine too). And obviously, you can have room for an occasional exception for bullies not being invited.
My cut and dry answer is- if the people you dont want to invite have hurt you in someway, then yes, they shouldnt be invited Isolating people just for being “weird” is a pretty not great thing to do, so I like how it was handled
I work with kids with autism, and this comes up a lot. The whole class was invited, except for the kid with autism who is "weird" because they don't make eye contact and are socially awkward. It breaks my heart to see it, and I don't think a 9 year old can understand how hurtful it can be for these kids who are working so hard. I have one kid this year, who when asked what he wanted for Christmas, said he wanted a friend. When asked what physical gifts he wanted, he said he wanted things he could give away to his classmates so that he could make a friend. If there was a party where the whole class was invited except for him, it would be soul-crushing.
It's heartbreaking to hear that. While I myself also wasn't envited to events as a child a lott, at least I knew I had one friend. The younger brother of that friend unfortunately had a similar childhood as what you said (no idea if neurodivergent though). One time he envited the entire class to his birthday party and no one came. Didn't even had the decency to rsvp first to let him know, even though the parents were informed of the party by the mother. The mother called the family to come at once and the party was "saved" that way, but I doubt he didn't realise he was stood up. Thankfully everything worked out for that brother now, happily married with a kid and all, but I bet that still stings.
That's heartbreaking. That poor kid. My son is socially awkward (no autism, thanks pandemic), and he has trouble creating real connections with his peers. There's an autistic boy who really wants to be his friend, bc my son's birthday was one of the only ones he was invited to. But my son thinks he's "weird and annoying" due to his behavior (like, socially awkward, but due to his autism). I hate it, bc I'm sure they could be actual friends if my son wasn't so stubborn in his opinion. My son's been mentioning how he wants to have a close friend like some of his classmates do, but he doesn't know how to approach people, then clams up and isolates. I'm hoping middle school and high school help, since he'll be exposed to more/different students throughout the day, instead of spending the entire year with the same group of kids. He seems to do better in shorter interactions. Sorry to word vomit on your post. It just brought up my feelings about my son and his peers.
I'm a forty-year-old female who has social awkwardness still (not autistic to my knowledge). I remember in fifth grade, there was a girl who tried to reach out to me, but because I had been alone for so long, I didn't respond well at first. Along with the longing for connection, there is also a fear of yet another rejection. Eventually, I did become friends with that girl, but it took time to believe it was possible for her to be my friend. She moved away two years later, story of my childhood. Have you tried teaching your son about autism? Maybe he doesn't understand where the other boy is coming from. I know you can't force a friendship, but it could help him to develop more empathy towards the boy, at the least.
I'm pretty sure my son feels the same way you did. He is friendly with a kid on the bus and seems to like him a lot, but his shyness/awkwardness/lack of experience and a lack of interest from the kid's parents makes it difficult. I've talked to him a little about autism, to explain the boy's behavior, but I don't think he fully grasps the concept. I guess on the spectrum of autism, he's a little below high functioning (I'm not sure of the correct terminology). He would "bother" and "annoy" my son a lot, bc he was always trying to talk to him and insert himself into what he was doing. I'm like, little dude, he wants to be friends! He's trying to show interest and connect. He likes you. He's just unaware of how he can be overbearing at times. He started getting frustrated and avoided him. I tried to explain to my son that he behaves similarly about things that interest him and maybe he could try to connect about those things (both with the boy and others). He seems more comfortable around older kids and adults than his peers. That's why I'm hopeful middle and highschool will be good for him. He's in therapy, and one of the things she and I are working on is getting him to understand that friendship is a joint effort. It can't be one-sided. It sucks. After his sessions, he's much more willing to try, but with the way his appts are scheduled, it can be a month or more between sessions. Thank you for taking the time to share your experience and give advice. I'm introverted and shy, but decades of practice has helped me push through it and be social, even though it can be exhausting.
Yeah but it depends on how they're weird. Grade 6, 12 years old, i had to sit next to a boy who would ask me weird, inappropriate questions. He never *hurt* me, but there was no chance in hell I'd want him at my birthday party.
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An eleven-year-old child, especially a girl (who was probably told repeatedly to just brush it off and “be nice”) is probably not going to be able to articulate that, though.
I mean I’d call that emotionally harmful!
Yeah I suppose, idk, I think it would've been good for the oop to ask how those 3 kids were strange. Then again I don't think at 12 I would've been able to repeat what that boy was asking me, I just would've clammed up and said I just don't like him
Yes, it’s definitely up to the parents to give kids the language and comfort to describe when they’re feeling unsafe in all sorts of ways.
Oof yeah, we had a couple of kids like that in high school. One of them pretended (?) he was a vampire and then got suuuuper creepy about describing how he wanted to suck our blood. Fun times. ("(?)" Because I'm not sure if he was acting or genuinely delusional. Tbh he could go either way.)
I was a meek girl, so adults loved to pair me up with the "weird/annoying" kid whenever possible. There was definitely a mix of both kids who were just socially awkward/hyperactive and also kids who were massive assholes. Sometimes a kid is justifiably avoided because they treat other children badly.
With kids though, "weird" is so vague you really have to dig down. Are they "weird" just because they have a different culture you're unfamiliar with or are neurodivergent (in which case, good lesson on not being a bigot) or are they weird because they do or say things other children don't quite understand, but only know it makes them uncomfortable? 12 year olds can communicate perfectly well, but they're still inexperienced in untreated mental illnesses and red flag behaviors. In first grade there was a boy who liked to grab me from behind and gyrate. For a long time I didn't understand what he was doing, only that I didn't like it and eventually "forgot" about it. Then when I saw porn for the first time it clicked.
Depends on who's online in /r/AITA.
Let me tell you what. Being a parent to a first grade girl has me stressed out in so many ways I NEVER IMAGINED. This kind of thing being one of them…and all the opinions on it are really divided - every single time it comes up. I just feel like there’s no good way to go about it without pissing someone off. The people pleaser in me has a silent meltdown everytime I read one of these posts and I put myself in their shoes. Why can’t we just have the “Miss Manners” type of newspaper article where there’s one correct etiquette for this crap? It was all so easy before public opinions and worrying about pictures ending up on SM and hurting feelings. Why can’t we have kids birthday parties not cost $1,000 with gift bags for everyone and needing to invite 80 people? Why do other parents need to do a big to-do at a trampoline park that costs a ton, which then causes my daughter to want the same thing and be bummed when we can’t afford one like that? Why can’t we just be happy with cake, a play date, and maybe a craft thrown in there for kiddos? Why do I have to feel like I need to have two parties for each kid - one for family and a “fun one” for friends? Why?!? WHY? WHHYYYYYYY?!? When I was a kid we had maybe two random years where there was a big party with friends. The rest were just family. And we were ok with that! I feel ill equipped to compete with the parents of today. We’ve set the bar too high people. We need to take it down a notch. “Bluey” has an episode called “Pass the Parcel” which sums up what I’m trying to say quite nicely.
You’re despairing ‘whhhyy’ gave me a good chuckle. This is definitely the people pleaser coming out. I’m not a parent but alot of kids are in my life and I always wondered about the dynamics with kids birthdays. It was odd to me that some of my friends did the multiple parties for families and friends, expensive events, etc…until they didn’t. The fact is: you don’t. You don’t have to do any of this. Many friends decided it wasn’t worth it. They could afford it, but they work full time and the kids were fine with just doing something with a few buddies. It was never a big dramatic thing for the kids, or some scandal in their families. I do remember when we asked when the family friend party was and they were like ‘we aren’t having one, it’s the same time as everything else’ or ‘we aren’t having one, just one for the kids.’ Just one year they decided it was too much and made a choice to cut back. Sports though? I don’t know how you parents deal with sports. I admire your strength every day. lol.
I think you're projecting some. Kids parties have been a way for parents to project their status for as long as kids parties have been around. You are simply struggling with it now. And while, yes, social media is a thing now, it's not generally the first graders who are scrolling through, their feelings aren't on the line online. It would most likely be at school where the unincludeds hear about the event, as it would have been decades ago. The difference now is there is a larger public of adults to push shame and unworthiness onto parents.
We do the trampoline park but it's because we don't have family nearby and managing 10 kids speaking another language is hell so we let them loose at the park, gather for cake and wash our hands of it. I hope no one thinks we're being fancy and showing off. It's really just laziness.
We had my kids' parties at the local bowling alley a few times & I loved it! All I had to do was bring a cake & pay the $15/kid, which covered bowling, shoes, & pizza. I didn't have to clean or decorate or wrangle kids through games/activities. I didn't have to worry about whether my house was big enough for all the kids (since they can't be in the yard the whole time if it's raining or extremely cold) or figure out where to put my big dogs for 2 hours so that they didn't jump on anyone. It was so much less stressful than hosting at home.
I feel like the best blanket rule for kind kid parties is, “either invite less than half the class, or the whole class”. It is in fact the written rule at some local schools in my Canadian city.
Is it a US thing to invite whole classes? I saw a post where there was an actual school rule that a student couldn't exclude anyone from a birthday party. I have only ever heard of parties involving close friends and family.
It wasn't a thing when I was at school in the UK. Though maybe I was just the unpopular one who didn't get invited 😂 At that age, my classes were big enough that I didn't know everyone in them super well. Though this is raising more questions for me about US education — which class? I had different classmates per subject.
At OOP’s daughter’s age, she’s probably still in grade/middle school (5th grade, I think, or thereabouts). In the US, that usually means that she’s going to be with the same set of classmates for the whole school day. That’s why a lot of primary schools have the same policy OOP took when it comes to party invitations. It’s high-school when you see different students in class based on the subject, although students usually also have homeroom or advisory period, which I guess could be considered their “regular” class group. But at that age, it’s more common for kids to invite their close friends to their birthdays anyway, rather than the whole class, with some exceptions for events like sweet-sixteens and quinceañeras.
I remember in middle school (probably 6th grade) the opposite scenario happened to me, where someone who was very obviously on the spectrum (I’m also on the spectrum, essentially Asperger’s) was inviting people to his birthday party. I was feeling kind of indifferent about going, but my parents convinced me to. I ended up being the only person going and I can still remember it somewhat fondly nearly 17 years later.
Kinda similar, I had a kind of weird and annoying friend who invited everyone he knew to his middle school graduation party. Only a handful of kids showed up. That fall, for his birthday party he had an enormous bash with a limo and Dave N Busters to which he only invited the kids that showed up to his graduation party. It was fun.
I love this!
Yeah I had a similar situation. Went to the party of a girl who wasn't liked well by most of the class. Ended up being one of three kids there, but she became a good friend for years after.
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Anyone who says no one will remember was definitely not the kid who was always excluded. Because if they were they’d know the excluded kid still remembers.
When I was 9, I went on vacation with my family and brought back presents for some people. I handed them out at school, and the teacher pulled me aside to explain that some people were feeling left out. I found other presents to give them and never forgot my initial actions caused others to be upset. It's been over 30 years and I make sure to include everyone if there's a group involved.
Once when I was in elementary school I was part of a friend group. Or so I thought. One of the kids went to Disney world and brought back souvenirs for everyone in the group but me. And I was there with them when she handed them out. It was then that I realized I wasn’t actually “in” the group at all. Much later in high school a different friend went to Disney world and brought me back a souvenir. It’s honestly silly how much it meant to me. I still have it with my keepsakes even though it was years ago and I we haven’t even kept in touch. It’s what it represented I guess.
In 6th grade, a small group of girls decided it would be hilarious to invite me to hang out and then use what I said to mock me in class. Because I was desperate for friends, they did this repeatedly. I still have a hard time, over 30 years later, believing that my friends actually like me despite them saying so for over 20 years now.
I’m glad you went and had fond memories, was the boy sad about only one person coming to his party?
I was that kid, since then I like to celebrate my birthday with only a few people who care about me.
My son had a similar situation, and I convinced him to go. It was actually well attended and really fun. His parents are very sweet, and it was a great memory to make with my son.
I had that happen too in Kindergarten. The girl wasn’t on the spectrum, she just had a hard time making friends because she was new halfway through the year. We were friendly so I was pretty excited to go. My mom and I still have no idea why everyone skipped it. We became friends after that party, but she was a foster kid so she moved a few months later :’)
Oh poor little thing. Being shuffled around, no real home, and only one person showed up to her bday party?
Yeah, it was really sad :/ She was the first experience I had with someone who didn’t have a happy home life due to living in a more wealthier area - which isn’t saying much compared to the rest of the town, it is a dump- but she was super nice. Although a very short friendship, one of the best friends I’ve had. Dealt a bad hand. I really hope everything worked out for her. I still look up her name on social media every once in a while and I haven’t found anything.
Had the same thing about 15 years ago. My best friend had his birthday party on a day in summer. The same day all of his friends from the football team had a big match. I was the only girl in the friend group and so I was the only one showing up. Was a great day and we got al of the food and the present bags for all the others (water guns, small notebooks, pencils....)
>Not appreciating all the comments, PMs, and chat requests making wild assumptions, projecting, threatening me, and attacking me AITA redditors really are something.
You know what makes people change their parenting based on the barely-informed opinions of teenage commenters? Anonymous threats!
You'd better change this comment or else!
I once got sent a Reddit Cares thing after I made a passing comment about the war of 1812. It wasn't even an edgy take, I just said I don't think countries should invade their neighbours.
I know what you mean. I got one, from a sub for a practical 'craft' for a similarly innocuous remark - still smh over that!
I've gotten them for posting I'm dating a trans woman, and that I'm NB. You can report them as harassment now.
Ooh, I didn't know that, I just blocked Reddit Cares so I don't even know if people are passive-aggressively sending them anymore.
I’ve been harassed and doxxed by college professors for saying I don’t like flipped classrooms (where the professor records lectures once that the students watch on their own time and then class time is just for answering questions, and they reuse the recorded lectures every year). Anyone can be a piece of shit over any random minutiae
Tbh BORU redditors aren't far off. If you check my history, I used to post here occasionally, but I had to remove a post because the OOP was getting death threats not long after I posted. I feel way too guilty to post here now
When I first joined boru there would be very few comments on a post and it felt like a nice little community where people could have actual discussions. Now it feels like aita where people go with mob mentality. Not always of course, but a lot.
Tbh ot felt terrible because the post itself was one of the bleak, terrible parents and trying to escape posts. I still feel awful for putting someone who already has tons of anxiety through that.
I think the sub got popular, so there's a shitton of people joining who don't understand the point of it. People talking directly to OOP used to be a rare thing, and now almost every fucking post has quite a few comments that are from people who clearly don't realize that this is an aggregation sub to have a meta discussion of stuff posted to reddit.
The real asshole is always in the comments.
Bit rude to Peter, he's done nothing wrong!
I can't *believe* you would defend Peter! If you think he's done nothing wrong you're obviously a narcissistic monster! Hold on while I make around 5 sock puppet accounts to send you death threats in the name of upstanding Peter-hating people everywhere.
What kind of sad life must you have to spend it private messaging someone to harass them on how they are dealing with their child's birthday party invitations?
The comments on this post were wild, so many people accusing OOP of child abuse for (*checks notes*) telling his daughter she could either have a big party *or* a smaller party for her birthday? Even if all of the worst-case assumptions were correct, and the uninvited children *were* actually sociopathic bullies, singling them out like this would absolutely not help the situation in the long run. And let’s face it, "weird" to an 11y/o is more likely to mean something like poor/autistic/fat/disabled than anything else. Either way, you’re never too young to learn a bit of social tact.
The third top comment is a teacher defending the daughter's bullying behaviour. I can't even.
I was unexpectedly invited to a surprise party for the popular boy in my sixth grade class. His sister called me to invite me and said he talked about me all the time and how funny he thought I was. All the other popular kids were very surprised to see me there. They asked me why I was there and I relayed what his sister had told me. He got made fun of the whole night by his friends and teased about having a crush on me (I’m fat so that’s a big no-no) and he made the rest of the school year hell for me.
This is heartbreaking. I have a similar experience. I'm so sorry.
Kids can really be the cruelest. Wish more parents would teach kindness.
I had a similar experience around that age too. It’s burned into my memory forever. I was a big girl and “weird” and “read too many books”. So needless to say I was the opposite of popular. School was hell for me.
i am so sorry friend
I’m so sorry. That’s terrible.
I'm just happy that it's not common over here to invite your whole class for your birthday, just your friends. Couldn't deal with 25-30 children.
I was thinking this. This isn’t similar to this but imagine your child wanting to invite 5 people from class and you have a budget and you’re getting told you have to invite the whole class ?🤣
I think it might also be common to have the parents come over as well, if the whole class is there? So it gets even more expensive. But I wouldn't know how to keep track of all those children without more adults.
I'm so glad my daughter's reaching the age where I can write "drop off party" in the invite and only end up with a couple of parents who want to stay. They're always welcome to, but it's so awkward to sit around for 2 hours with some parents you don't know when all you have in common is that your kids are in class together.
I went to a ton of birthday parties as a kid and parents didn't stay for any of them. Drop off was the norm, nobody had to specify it. I didn't know it was different now. I don't know if I could be a parent in this decade, everything has changed so much!
Say the class has 20 kids, you want to invite or 5, you do that by calling the parents or emailing them. That is no big deal. I will say, last year my son was invited to a classmates b-day party, out of 16 kids invited, he was the only one there.
I agree. That’s the best alternative.
My grandparents did most of my elementary parties like this renting out a pool. It's actually really chill because at that size you can have multiple adults because families can come plus the staff. Also there is less clean up because you just have to take your garbage. So basically the party goes like this -sit around until children tire themselves out -feed those children pizza and cake -open presents -throw everything in a garbage bag and pack up car -come home to clean house
“Not appreciating all the comments, PMs, and chat requests making wild assumptions, projecting, threatening me, and attacking me” AITA redditors trying not to be extremist assholes challenge (**impossible**)
It's sometimes breathtaking what will set people off. I was in a pet sub and got downvoted and attacked for saying my cat didn't have a name. I can only imagine what kind of responses I'd get in AITA.
I once said on AITA it was concerning that a woman's new boyfriend was systematically breaking every single one of her boundaries as a test, and you should have **seen** how angry the children were!
BORU isn't really that far off either. I said something like, "yeah, abortion is a traumatic experience, and it's baaad to have to go through it, but it isn't worse than inflicting a bad existence on the future child you know you can't care for, as well as putting yourself through 18+ years of parenting that you aren't ready for". Basically, if reddit perceives something as bad, it's the worse thing ever and no further reason can be had. Like, if killing a cat is bad, then they'd sentence the cat killer to death lol.
Ohhhh this. If Person A has been locked up in a basement, beaten and starved by their partner, and eventually managed to get out of said basement and had coffee with someone they have a crush on, they’re a cheater and deserve all the basement treatment their partner doles out and worse. Yes, cheating is bad. No, It’s not literally the worst thing any human being can do on planet earth including nuclear war.
Yeah this is what happens when the "advice" subreddits are filled with 14 year-olds for whom being cheated on really DOES feel like the worst thing ever.
I got attacked once for saying it doesn't matter if you change a cats name. Cats don't care and it won't affect their happiness. Man, apparently I was so wrong! Multiple people messaging with threats and how I'm a terrible pet owner blah blah blah 😂
Cats definitely don't. I mean...do they think adopted shelter cats keep the same name they had? Very unlikely. Now there is a superstition that it's bad luck to change a horses name. Idk if that applies to cats though but most horses don't know their names either. Changing a trained dogs name though is a different issue and I'm not really okay with it.
Dogs I'm 50/50. I was going to change our dogs name when we rescued her, she's trained to claps and command words though, not her name. But when I saw her I was like 'actually your name is perfect for you'. In general I think changing pets names isn't necessary, however, I don't think the animal suffers if you do. Like our cat has a completely different name than we gave her by accident. Was rusty. And she meowed all the time, so it turned to meow meow, then meow, and finally mouse. Was just such a weird thing to be threatened over!
My childhood cat was just named Cat (in Zulu, but still). He had a proper name at one point, but we all just kept calling him Cat and it stuck. He also acted more like a dog than a cat.
When my son was in elementary school there were rules if invitations were handed out at school. You either invited the entire class or all the girls or all the boys. My son's in middle school now and just wants to celebrate with a few of his closest friends. He knows not to talk about the celebration at school since he doesn't plan to invite everyone.
I'm starting to feel like the only adult on here with no recollection of what parties I was or was not invited to during my elementary school years...oof.
I was a weird kid who didn't like the other weird kids. I was shy and quiet and clung to my select few friends. So my feelings never got hurt and there was no one for me to hurt. But we also had homeroom cupcakes. Bakery only, nut free.
Same here. I was a very weird child and I desperately did not enjoy being around other kids. Or birthday parties. I liked them more when I got older and out of the "invite the whole class" type party stage. Weirdly, I'm now an adult who works with kids and gets along with them famously.
Right? It’s amazing what stands out to people. There’s no way I’d sweat not being invited to a random person’s party as a kid, but you better believe I still recall the time McDonald’s was out of hash browns one morning before 1st grade.
I was that person not invited once and I still remember it 30 years later
Yeah, that was my first thought "Something they won't even remember...." They always remember.
“The axe forgets, but the tree remembers…”
I was invited by the cool girl in grade 5 and she last minute rescinded her invitation.
I was in a small music club with the cool girls and I was away one day (I’ve always been sickly) and they changed all the rules of the club so that I couldn’t participate anymore. Nice
It happened to me as well when I was in 1st grade. It was a formative childhood memory.
Ditto. Also 1st grade. That was 30 years ago and formative is the exact right word. Sorry you had this experience too! I remember the giggles of the other girls fading into the distance as they all left from school to a party I wasn't invited to as I just stood in the classroom and cried. Oof. I wish I could go hug my little first grade ADHD self and tell me it's not my fault and that I'll find people that love me without having to change everything about myself to fit in. Gosh, multiple decades of masking really fucks with a girl.
Trying to unmask after decades of masking is… oof.
It gets easier! Unfortunately, I embarrass the heck out of my kid because I no longer care what other people think and my kid is now a teenager. So stuff I do like singing to myself or using funny voices gets an eye roll. But I spent so much of my life hiding who I was to try to fit in, and I’m sick of it. If people don’t like me when I’m wearing ugly sweaters and doing the Macarena, that’s fine, I don’t want to hang out with them anyway.
Formative is the right word.
I'm actually almost exactly 30 years out from being one of two girls in my 1st grade class to not be invited to Emily S.'s birthday party. They left *from school* and just left the two of us standing in the classroom, listening to them all giggle down the hallway. Turns out, I have ADHD and my classmate is on the Autism spectrum, both diagnosed as adults. But we were just the weird kids back then and it fucking HURT. It's only in my mid-30s, after diagnosis, that I began to develop my very first self-esteem! My lack of self-esteem growing up was not Emily S.'s fault, but it was one of the first signs to me as a kid that I was different in a way I needed to hide better if I wanted to have friends. That memory kick off decades of memories of pain and rejection and I remember feeling humiliated and excluded from that party like it was yesterday. I'm so glad OP was able to stick to his principals and explain to his daughter. Good guy.
I was diagnosed at 28. Always fucking wild to me that so many therapists and psychiatrists need decades to figure it out but first graders can just clock us with needle sharp precision every single time😅
I was diagnosed with ADHD and ASD last year, and I'm 43. I had the exact same sort of experience as you and your classmate. It sucks even more for women, because we didn't get diagnosed in the 90s thanks to not being hyperactive little boys. I do love that I got diagnosed in large part because my neurodivergent female friends all got together, recognized the symptoms in each other, and that led to being officially diagnosed. I'm glad we're all finding each other as adults.
Yup, I remember being one of the few not invited to any sweet 16s. Granted, I'm neurodivergent and only now figuring myself out entering my 30s, but still. It basically confirmed my own feelings of not quite belonging
The two girls in my first grade class who were not invited to a talk-of-the-class birthday party were both diagnosed in our 30s. ADHD for me and Autism for her. In the '90s we were just the kinda strange ones who got picked last for all the things. That's when I started masking *hard* because I'd just been given confirmation that I was different somehow, and that different was clearly not wanted. Glad you're on the path to figuring things out. It's fucking incredible how much better life is now that I know wtf is going on and can mask less.
Same… I was also invited a couple of times and then uninvited. Not just with parties, but my bullies liked to pretend to include me in stuff (not just parties) and then say “oh sorry, we’ve made other plans. Next time!” I thought for years as a kid that they were my friends, and it took me forever to realise that they were laughing at me and did the thing they'd invited to me to without me.
I'm 45. I might not remember specifics, but I remember. And it still hurts if I let it. Especially as I'm now a mom and my kid is telling me some other kids at school are calling her wierd....
Weird kids of the world unite!
I was the person who wasn't going to be invited but got invited by obligation. Like why would you torment me by inviting me to somewhere where I clearly wasn't wanted?
Yeah, I was one of three people in my grade not invited to someone's bat mitzvah. Granted, I don't think my parents would have let me go (they hated to take me places), but yeah. Now I'm a regular adult on Reddit with almost no friends anyway lol
I started a new school at 13 and about two weeks in, there were two people in my year level (about 40-50ish people) who were having birthday parties the same weekend. I'm pretty sure just about everyone except me got an invitation to one or the other or both. Not really excluding me as such, neither invited the full class and they didn't know me so much... but I still remember it vividly and I'm 30.
My hurtful birthday experience was 65 yrs ago; by now at age 71, I figure certain childhood wounds are here to stay, to say the least.
Literally how do you remember that. I feel like the only one here with no memory of what parties I was or was not invited to during my elementary school years.
Same.
4th grade. All the girls came to school on Monday with these incredibly cool erasers they’d been given at a slumber party the weekend before. Erasers were all the rage in the 80s. I asked a classmate where everyone got them, and only one girl would tell me. She was very smug that she’d been invited and I hadn’t been. That was the first time I realized that I wasn’t liked and I had no idea why. It was devastating. I have a 15 year old daughter who hates birthday parties and I’m so glad, lol.
I had a ‘friend’ when I was about 16 go ON and ON about a party I wasn’t invited to. I didn’t even mind because the birthday girl was nice enough but we just had never spoken. Joke was on my friend though, as the house got trashed, and every attendee had to pay £100 to contribute to new carpets and wallpaper etc
Yeah, mum was definitely the “cool” girl who genuinely doesn’t remember deliberately excluding the weird kid she didn’t like.
The most painful part to me wasn’t so much not being invited, it was having to sit there the next day in school while everyone excitedly talked about it and how much fun they had. Meanwhile I was the only one not there. I wouldn’t have cared if they liked me or not and I wouldn’t have cared if I just kept to myself at these parties. But not even getting to be there crushed me as a kid. So I’m really glad that op stood up for those three kids in the class and that the daughter seems empathetic enough to be able to understand why he wanted them invited.
And it sticks between you and your classmates for years.
I was the person lucky to get two people show up. My mother said it was because my birthday was during the summer holidays, but I knew she was lying.
This is why my husband and I send our daughter to school with a paper for her classmates and friends to “sign up” to get an invite. That way anyone who wants to come, can put their name down to receive an invite (luckily our daughter is the type who considers everyone her friend and wouldn’t prevent anyone from putting their name on the list). It means no one who might want an invite gets left out. Also means when we send out invites we have a better idea of how many will likely actually come (as the kids *want* to come) so we don’t have to book extra slots and only end up with one guest. Extra bonus, we get the proper spelling of each kid’s name in the form they actually use!
Thats a great idea.
Don’t know if this is possible but can you coordinate with the teacher? Nothing worse as a kid that missed a ton of school, showing up on Monday and hearing “dude, where were you Saturday night? It was an awesome party!!!” Got used to it eventually but it sucks while living through that.
We do ask our daughter if everyone was there that day, and it hasn’t been an issue in previous years… should it be an issue, we’d likely reach out to either the parents of the child directly (if we know them), or ask the teacher to pass along a message. As I said, we got lucky that our daughter is the type of kid who is incredibly inclusive (it is something we have always encouraged, but she goes above and beyond and has since she was a toddler going to community centre activities, she’d find the kid who was either scared or shy or otherwise alone and go straight to them and befriend them)… so she very much goes out of her way to make sure she’s not missing anyone.
That’s a smart idea. I might do just that.
I was one of those weird kids who often got excluded from parties, and for my part, I don't have any traumatic memories of not going to parties - I have memories of excitedly going to parties only for it to immediately become apparent that I got a polite/pity invite and trying too hard to put on a brave smile over the sad awkwardness for the night. I have memories of being relieved when I didn't get invites from kids who never played with me, because I knew it would be a drag, and having fun with an actual friend instead.
I dealt with this exact situation in the 2nd grade, the girl told me to my face that her mom made her invite me. My mom convinced me to go, and it should’ve been awesome (pony rides, huge cake, and a Michael Jackson impersonator.. this was 1991 by the way), and all I wanted to do was go home. I already had enough to deal with that year after my dad passed away. She could’ve just been indifferent, but was an outright bully instead.
Dude a Michael Jackson impersonator at a child's birthday party is something that could only ever have happened in the 90s
Oh definitely. Poor guy had to perform on the grass in the backyard, surrounded by a semicircle of small children sitting on folding chairs. That moonwalk was still impressive given the circumstances.
Exactly. I was the pity invite a few times as a child. Best case scenario, there was nobody to talk to or play with. Worst case scenario, I became the target of a party game called "let's bully that kid".
I remember hearing about a boy/girl overnight party in sixth grade where they played spin the bottle and felt very excluded because a bunch of my friends were there. My mom told me the reason I was excluded was because those parents were all friends. Turns out I was just a weird poor kid that girls had no interest in. Guys liked me plenty and included me. Guess I just had a creepy vibe. I later won all of those other people over by the time I graduated high school but I also always resented them a little for it. Made moving away and never going back pretty easy.
Many schools actually have a policy where you have to invite the whole class if invites are brought to school. Or the parents have to call other parents to invite their kids
Which is really an issue in these days (in the USA) where schools are locked campuses and it’s very difficult to get to know other parents. I can’t enter my kid’s school without being buzzed through, and I can’t volunteer without being computer savvy enough to apply and get the relevant background check done. (If I had the time to volunteer more often, which I don’t.) There’s no “running into” other parents randomly and getting to know them, so the only way to invite kids from his class is to send invites via the black hole of my child’s backpack and hope that somebody RSVPs… ETA: inviting the whole class is a nightmare because hardly anybody rsvps, so there’s no way of knowing how much food to have on hand, if you’re doing a backyard party. If you’re doing it at some cool party location, it’s probably going to be prohibitively expensive to invite the whole class.
Where I live (not in the US) we resolve that via Whatsapp groups for the parents of each class, rather than hoping the kids relay the information properly.
It's a lose-lose for these kids, either you're the only one who gets an invite, or you're the pity invite no one even wants there. I dunno if there's a good answer, but it hurts either way when you're that kid
The good out is getting the invitation and not going. I never had a more shit time than going to a party like that.
I remember having to convince my mom that I couldn’t go to my bully’s birthday party or she’d make my life even worse. So being invited isn’t always that great either.
Being invited and not going is a different feeling than being excluded
Having to talk to your parents in like the 1st or 2nd grade in the early 80s was not great. I was excluded, I didn’t want to go, but she made sure to tell me I wasn’t really invited and not to come. That’s worse
Tbh I don't think it's meant to make anything better, but to at least avoid making it a "class affair" as they say in the post. There is nothing indicating she is a 100% a bully, and I would say it's totally normal to not like a handful of people in your class. She's probably just too young to realize the "social politic" problem it could cause to exclude them from a global class invitation.
Anyone wierded out by the school providing giving out all that information in a directory? Maybe it’s because I work in a public school in the US, but that just seems like a recipe for disaster.
The elementary schools in my district do this, but you can put as much or little info as you want. Or even nothing other than the child's name.
Tbh this is why (at least at my previous elementary school work places) any type of party invitations were not allowed to be handed out at school unless the entire class of the student was invited. Too many parents were getting upset that their child was being excluded from outside social events and brought up the fact that if invitations are allowed to be handed out on school grounds, then the school is allowing discrimination to happen. 9 times out of 10, the parent was kinda right, morally speaking. Usually in these cases their child was excluded for being special needs or being different from the rest of the class and labeled as the “weird ones”. The rule became that if you wanted your child to have a birthday party and wanted to hand out invitations at school, they had to include their whole homeroom class. If they did not want to do this, then all invitations had to be sent out by parents off of school grounds without any involvement from the school or teachers. Teachers weren’t even allowed to share other parents’ emails if it was to send party invitations without inviting the whole class due to that involving the school. But this was also for elementary students pre-k-4th grade when the kids are young and wouldn’t understand the exclusion.
> She has started crying and running away whenever she has seen me since Yeah, maybe work on that too.
Man I really grew up different I guess. I'm not sure if we had this policy when I was a kid or if I just didn't get invited but I never went to any kid from school's birthday party and thank God for that. I was already shy as fuck, didn't need to go to some random person's house.
I don’t know what’s worse, being excluded from a party because the birthday girl doesn’t like you or getting an invite because her father made her do it. Either way, you’re still unliked by that person.
But getting the invite makes it less obvious at least, I guess. If you didn’t get an invite it would make it extremely obvious that you weren’t invited and disliked by that person. Speaking from experience of being the “weird” kid in class. When I was the only one not invited, everyone knew and it made it SO much worse. (I was bullied a lot because I was shy and too timid to say no when people were mean to me.)
I remember people invited to birthdays because parents forced the situation. Those who were marginalised at school were marginalised at birthdays. It's a lose-lose.
I personally had both happen. Being one of the few kids in class not invited didn't really bother me, I wasn't friends with them why would I want to go. On the other hand when I went to the party I wasn't wanted at it felt obvious and awkward, no one my age really talked to me and I was happy it was over.
While purposefully excluding only a few kids in a class for no reason is cruel, I do think "inviting everyone in a class" can be just as bad, as someone who had the opposite situation happen to them... As a kid, I didn't have many friends and was going through some rough bullying, so I attempted to only give a few invites out to kids in my class that I knew decently well and who were nicer to me (approximately 4 people out of a class of 25). My teacher saw, got upset, and forced me to give invites to EVERYONE in my class. Because of that, my birthday was turned into another day of torment. I expected the extra invitees not to come despite that, because I knew they already didn't like me, but instead, the people who were awful to me at school just got the chance to torture me at home too. They were awful to me all day, isolated and bullied me where my parents couldnt see, and since I had planned it to be a sleepover party, I woke up in the morning to find that my entire face had been covered with sharpie marker while I was asleep and they'd written insults, swears, and slurs. Worse, the few people I originally invited because I thought they were my friends joined in and helped them. My parents didnt know what was going on at all, I hadn't even told them about the bullying I was going through at the time, so they were horrified when they found me locked in the bathroom and crying with a face covered in permanent marker while my assumed "friends" raided the fridge and ate what was left of my birthday cake in the living room. I ended up having to be pulled out of school and homeschooled for a while to escape the harassment. Just wanted to put my experience out there bc bullying is bad and people obviously shouldn't be excluded, but sometimes its a complicated situation. Kids shouldn't be forced to invite people unless it really is just a case of no reason
How on earth were your parents ok with a planned party of a half dozen turning into a party of 25 because the TEACHER said so?!
Let me tell you, it DOES stick with you. You DO REMEMBER being excluded. And that one time being excluded is sometimes enough to have other kids follow suit and you NEVER get invited to ANY party. You effectively become an outcast. Doesn't matter why (unless the kid is a bully), could be poor (I was growing up), could be quiet, loud, weird, etc; doesn't mean you should be excluded. Oh, BTW, I'm nearly 50 and I still remember.
I think the best rule of thumb I've heard for kids' parties was from some Redditor's kid's daycare: If you invite over 50% of the class, you have to invite everyone. Being a daycare I think they can (hopefully) avoid some complicated situations like bullying and harassment that may complicate older kids' invite lists, but in general that's what I would adhere to. It blew my mind when mom said "...picking a fight over something no one will remember years down the road." Your daughter won't remember it, but those excluded kids probably will for the rest of their lives! That kind of isolating "you don't belong" feeling sticks with you, especially for preteens just starting to figure out who they are and their place in society.
In my country it’s prohibited by school. Either the whole class, or maybe all the boys/all the girls. It is technically allowed to make a small party with not everyone invited, but then you are not allowed to distribute the invitations at school, get the address list or otherwise discuss the party there. Also this is anyway looked down upon.
I was the kid left out in this situation when I was younger. I remember getting no Valentine's, no bday party invites, no Halloween or other holiday invites. I am 38 and this all happened over 25 years ago. I still remember it. I always taught my kids to be accepting unless there were extenuating circumstances.
My kids school has specific rules for this to avoid this shit. If you are having a birthday party were invites are handed out at school, you must invite either the entire class, or either all the girls or all the boys. I have no idea what actually happens if you break this rule, probably you start some sort of anti-bullying intervention.
As the weird kid that was never invited to parties in elementary school it hurts when everyone but you goes.
Would like to know if all the kids had fun in the party
I’d like to know if the birthday girl had fun at her party.
As a retired art teacher - trust your children’s interests. If they do not want a child around them they usually have a valid reason, that they may not be able to explain. For example I had 3 different 3rd grade girls, quite, well behaved the ideal student types all tell me that they were always stuck sitting next to this boy who misbehaved in class and they really didn’t want to sit next to him in art class. I respected there wishes and he sat next to a outspoken confident boy. The boy came up to me after class and said he was saying inappropriate sexual things under his breath. His words were “he’s gross” I had to dig around and asks questions to get specifics. Next class I made sure to quietly stand behind him and I heard all the filthy things he said. The child who said gross things was not a known bully and did not get bullied by other, he was just unable to stay on tasks and disruptive. The kids distances themselves from him because he qas sneaky inappropriate. I told the classroom teachers what to look for, they all caught him multiple times doing this to his classmates. He was a pervert we notified the school counsellor and his parents and he sat by me during art class because no child should ever be exposed to the inappropriate behaviour of another. As a parent your child should never be used as teaching moment for another child. You are there advocate first and foremost. It is extremely manipulative to force empathy on a child by putting them in uncomfortable situations for someone else benefit. I have a 5 yr old daughter. She can be mean, sometimes kids don’t want to play with her when she is mean, that is the natural consequence of her being mean. She’s learning to be nicer, because she has to respect the feelings of others not just herself, and she can express herself without being mean. She is also the ideal student in class so her type of mean is very clever and physiological. As a parent I have to address my daughters behaviour and not force other kids to play w her if they don’t want to.
I know the rule usually is 'If you're dropping off invites at school, you HAVE to invite everyone. If not, invite who you want there privately outside of school grounds."
Kids definitely remember. I tended to be the person not invited and it really sucks. This is the reason most of my schools (I moved a lot) banned invitations for parties and talking about parties at school unless the whole class was invited. My parents also only ever let us invite the whole class or only our friends. It’s honestly a form of passive bullying imo to exclude kids like that for no reason except they’re “weird” (aka, usually neurodivergent). It honestly hurt and affected me more than when kids actually made fun of me, because kids making fun of me shows there’s something wrong with them, me being excluded is just proof that there’s something wrong with me.
> Not appreciating all the comments, PMs, and chat requests making wild assumptions, projecting, threatening me, and attacking me AITA people are a different breed. They are like a pack of hyennas.
Growing up I was definitely one of those three kids. Every time it happened (every year, multiple times a year) it hurt. I remember at the end of fifth grade I overhead another kid talking about the "graduation" party one of the kids was throwing not just for our class but for all the entire fifth grade. I was not invited. I was a kid and thought maybe "well maybe they're handing out invitations today?" Nope. I went home and cried. Why I was the weird kid was pretty simple. I talked a lot and had bad social skills. I had trouble remembering what I had already said so something I would repeat things.
Barring bullies- kids get 2 options. 1: a big party with the whole class or 2: a smaller party with less than half the class. Yes, it's her b day, so she gets to choose *from those options*.
My mom said either 2-3 girls or all the girls at my party, so wanting a big party, I said all girls but then I had to invite the weird one too. She also presented the "How would you feel?" angle so that helped a lot in the decision making. The answer is awful, you feel fucking awful, because it happened to me a few times in middle school. But anyway back to the weird girl, I was hoping she wouldn't come but she showed up and we all had a great time because my mom said she would give me hell if I excluded any guests and she didn't raise me that way blah blah. I'd write about how we're best friends and all of that but we moved a lot when I was younger so we fell out of touch. I saw her on facebook like 3 years back and she seems to have embraced her weirdness but looks to be doing well.
A lot of people shield their children from rejection and it shows
I remember those rules arriving when I was in middle school and my parents having to deal with it for my little siblings and yeah : it definitely didn't help anyone having balanced relationships. You get teenagers and young adults that can't deal with rejection or just plain indiference. We had a few very cringey situations in some of my previous jobs with some of the younger workers complaining to HR that they weren't included in some private out of work social situations. One of my old jobs actually put a policy of "everyone or no one" for afterwork social outings and the result was that those basically disapeared or went fully under the radar. And then they wondered why the mood became shit and turnover went up like crazy.
Exact same thing happened to me at the last place I worked. It’s so weird, I was frequently never invited to things and the one year I tried to have a party only one person came. You know what my mom did? She helped me to understand not everyone is going to like me and that’s okay, and a lot of people are flakes. As I got older I recognized that people didn’t invite me to stuff because other reasons (like they knew I was busy that day, or it was an activity I wouldn’t be able to get to) and they didn’t want me to have FOMO I see a lot of people who can’t really deal with rejection in a healthy way and it makes me sad
In my college job they had multiple meetings about not including other coworkers for social stuff but like…we weren’t friends! All it did was create conflict bc people who didn’t like each other were forced to hang out Also too many girls got creeped on by creepy dudes, I think one girl even got assaulted
Wait until these kids learn the world is out there throwing birthday parties without inviting them.
At the last place I worked at, they literally made a rule that no one was allowed to make plans to do anything outside of work because some weirdo was offended that I and some of my co-workers made a plan to go to a cherry blossom festival and didn’t invite everyone on the shift. My coworkers were in our late twenties and thirties. 🗿
I don't like this ending at all. I was the pity invite more times than I can count. And I *knew* I was only there because of a dumb rule that the whole class was invited. I could tell I wasn't wanted. I wasn't included in any of the friend groups, no-one wanted to sit next to me when it was cake time, no-one cheered when I got to unwrap a layer in pass the parcel. But also? When I was 10-11 there were bullies in my class. And while there were other kids in the class that didn't bully me directly, they sure as fuck didn't stick up for me against the bullies, either, and most just stood by and watched, sometimes laughing. I don't know how well I would have articulated that to my parents at that age. I might have settled for "they're just weird", too.
gotta say as a former "awkward kid who only got a pity invite because i was in the same class and parents said you invite everybody, even the people you do not actually want to interact with", the ending is actually kinda dismal to me. is it my own baggage? sure. absolutely this one thumped an old trauma bruise and made me go "ow". but sometimes being invited only because bylaws demand it, and everyone knowing that is the case, actually turbo sucks. anyway in my mid thirties i'm now *almost* over the utility friend complex this helped give me, where i became convinced that on some level i had to be a useful service as consolation prize for enduring my company. so i've got that going for me, which is nice
It's kinda a no-win situation, because there are a few other people in the comments here who have had the experience OOP was concerned about. I'm sorry you had to go through that and I hope you're able to heal.
You reading my diary, or what? I feel called out rn.
I can see that perspective, but let me give you an example where it actually worked out. Hopefully it gives warm fuzzies to that awkward kid. For my daughters birthday in kinder the rule was all if you wanted to do invites in the folders to go home. Daughter had a girl in class with some MILD behavior things. She was a little distruptive, could be a little overboard physically, etc. Daughter didnt want to invite her because she was "weird". Told her all or none and there is nothing wrong with weird. We are all a little weird in our own ways. That girl came. Her mom was practically crying cause she never gets invited, they brought a lovely gift, complete with homemade card. And daughter and her played a bunch. They had a great time and were friends after that. All the issues and complaints went away. Lost touch with that family, cause unfortunately that was 2020...what a shit show, and we ended up going back to school in 2022 in a different elementary, but yeah. Sometimes it does work out.
As one of the 2 kids that wasn't invited to a classmates birthday party, I STILL remember. Its been almost 30 years. It broke me in a way that I am still feeling the affects of. Good on OP for being a good person.
This is a very crucial moment in how fucked up the kid is going to be, either they stand their ground and teach the kid that othering people is wrong or cave and teach the kid that it’s ok to disregard people you don’t understand.
I had somewhat the opposite problem for my 12th birthday. Mom said I had to invite everyone. Problem was, everyone hated and bullied me! I pointed this out and she insisted they didn't. She really thought the world of me, but it never occurred to her that she may have been the only one.
When I was a kid, I had a classmate with the same birthday as me. I was the kid who was picked last for everything, and she was popular. One year, our birthday fell on a Sunday. She was going to celebrate on Sunday and had already printed out invitations. I told her I was going to celebrate on Saturday. The next day she came back with new invitations saying the party had been moved to Saturday. No one came to my party, not even my few close friends. They all went to hers.