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@PawPrints: received notification that you replied to me but I don't see it - was it edited?
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@pinkcupcake: No, I only replied to Anagram, no editing. Weird! Bug?
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@PawPrints: oh weird. I was wondering if I was missing something.
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I think the first half of the article was pointless. Other than making me thinks that she parents a special snowflake, it was useless information and took away from the meat of her post: to not RSVP is super rude.
I agree with the other posters; I would have been wise to have had a backup plan when it was 48 hours out and no one replied (did she send follow-up reminders?).
I feel sad for the boy. It was always my fear when I was younger that people wouldn't show up or they'd have a bad time, so I didn't like to have parties. -
@Mrs. Sketchbook: I really can't understand being "annoyed" by being invited to birthday parties for your child's classmates. If you can't be bothered to go, then don't, but do RSVP. It takes 30 seconds to RSVP. If there are 20 kids in his class, that's a total of 10minutes in a year. It's really not a big inconvenience. You say you don't know anyone. Well, if you don't go to events like this, you never will know anyone. We invited a number of day care families that we didn't know to my daughter's 1st birthday, they came, and we hit it off. Next month we'll be celebrating her 4th birthday with these same families who have become an incredible support system for my kids, my husband, and me. I thank my lucky stars their reaction to my child's birthday party wasn't annoyance.
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@Truth Bombs: this. an invitation is not a summons. If you want to go, awesome. If you don't, cool. Either way it's polite to RSVP.
I do think the article is bizarre though. If I hadn't heard back from anyone I would try to find another way to contact them to confirm, and if I couldn't do that I would assume they were not coming. As far as school policies to invite all or none, from the ones I have experience with simply mean if you want to hand out invitations at school all students in a class must be invited. If you mail them or pass them out at another time you don't have to invite everyone.
Also, maybe this is crazy but I feel like facebook and other online invitations have hurt how people RSVP. For a long time events allowed you to say "maybe" rather then committing either way.
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First, I feel awful for this boy. What a crappy situation.
Second, @anagram: @PawPrints: , I also noticed how she casually says “homeschooling” is the reason for her child never having had friends his same age. It appears they lived in Portland, OR before they moved to this new town. I do not believe that in a city of over half a million people she couldn’t help her child find a single friend to invite to prior parties. Sure, it takes a little effort to get phone numbers and emails and send messages to organize park trips and get-togethers, but come on, it doesn’t take that much to help your child find other children to hang out with! Like you said, every homeschooling family I know goes out of their way to make sure their children have plenty of friends and opportunities to hang out with people their own age. Her child’s experience is not the norm. She shouldn’t be suggesting that it is.
Third, of course it's discourteous and lousy of invitees to not respond to an invitation. I know that some of the invited kids said they'd come, but I feel like with 9 year olds, you still have to check with their parents, since they’re the ones who will be bringing them to the party.
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@Truth Bombs: it is probably the luxury of living in a small town that colors my perceptions. Truthfully, my experience is colored by the fact that I live in a town where college friends, close family, and extended family are close by (hour or less). Many of our work acquaintances have children in the same school (just not in our class), so we would see people from the school socially without making any extra effort outside of our regular social activities. I remember one weekend in September we had a birthday party, 40th birthday, baby shower, and fall festival hosted by a friend's philanthropy all scheduled for the same Saturday. All just family and friends who happened to schedule the same day. Spending my Saturday shuttling from one thing to another totally exhausts me. I feel like our weekends are as structured as our weekdays, and that can't be good for my kids. If we did every kid birthday in our family, church, preschool, daycare, neighborhood, adult friend group, it would be never ending. And considering my kid is with his classmates from 8--5, I don't feel like spending more time with school friends is a priority. In my defense I have stopped having yearly parties and I always say no gift because I don't want people to feel obligated to do my kid's birthday every year. This year we did a big party for my younger LO (1st birthday) and a baseball game/tailgate with only close friends for my older one. I also am a teacher and am myself in school. Oddly the school year on all levels seems to work in waves. Inevitability if my students are taking midterms or are having homecoming, my kid has a million field trips and special days scheduled. In the last two weeks we've had two costume days and conferences for my preschooler, and a bake sale for the daycare kid. At some point I gotta shut the door on school related obligations, and if I don't get to the bottom of the preschool paper pile and an invitation gets missed, I just practice self compassion and remind myself of all the good productive things I did that day to keep us all alive.
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I mean I don't know what life is like parenting a 9-year-old since my kid is only 1.5, but I just can't imagine expecting parents and kids to show up to an event if I hadn't ever personally made a connection with those parents before. If the kid is starting a new school, has no friends from his previous 9 years of life, and has a birthday early in the school year, then mom and dad should be reaching out and making connections to lay the groundwork before sending invitations out cold.
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@PawPrints: My son isn't 9, but he's about to turn 5. We don't have any family nearby, we live in the city and most of my friends don't have kids. I have only met one parent at pick up at my son's school because I'm the mom that picks up last. I invited his entire class for his birthday last year, and it was mostly people I'd never met before!
(Double whammy that my son has a Christmas birthday and working around that obstacle).I'm sure it will be different when he's in kindergarten (more school-centered activities) but I don't know many local parents with kids my son's age at all.
We just don't have that yet and with two working parents it's tough.
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@PawPrints: So far for us, it has been a mix. When we were in private preschool, we received numerous invitations to parties early in the year where none of us knew each other. This year, in public kindergarten, it's November and we haven't received an invite, but I suspect that there are just no parties happening.
I am also surprised at how parents really don't bother to make a connection. I am the room mom and we sent out a "welcome" email to 18 parents. Not a single person responded back at all. Nothing, not a hey I am Jane's mom, how can I help. I was kind of surprised, but getting used to it.
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@Mrs. Sketchbook: I definitely sympathize with the mom and the child here. of course if that were me I would have called people to follow up on the rsvps and not just assume they were coming. LO had a party at age 3 and it was at a party place so i had to follow up on rsvps to get an exact count. Following up also is a good way to find out if people actually got the invite.
On the other hand I do agree that the mom kind of placed to much expectation on a party with brand new friends only a month in to the school year. I would have waited til next year when he knew his classmates so much better and they actually felt invested to go.
I also wanted to add that when LO was 3 we had constant invites to parties and I can grasp the idea of getting abit tired of the hassle but honestly its so worth it because each party is a chance for the kids to bond even more and build great friendships and also they grow so quickly its fun to see them enjoy birthdays when it still is such a big deal to them. I also dont really mind because the parties go by quickly -
@looch: when my son went to a public funded Montessori in a lower income rural area, we got like no invites for a whole year and a half. When we moved and put LO in a private preschool, the invites started pouring in. In fact that could be why I was so overwhelmed with them. I had been in a situation for a while where it wasn't the school culture to do a class invitation.
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While I totally sympathize with the child and feel awful for him, why didn't the mom at least attempt to follow up? I get that they're new-ish and didn't have phone numbers....but cmon. There's a thing called the internet. Her son is 9, so surely he at least knows at least some of the last names of the kids he invited from his class? (My 3 year old knows the last names of his friends!) She could have looked up their last names and their town to find at least a few names, I would think. You can find anything on FB nowadays
Anyway, like I said, totally sucks for the kid. But the mom could have tried SOMETHING when no one RSVPed.
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I think the mom was lulled into a false sense of security since her daughter's party was attended by four classmates and no one RSVP'd. Perhaps she could have written more about how that party was a nail biter too.
We just don't have that yet and with two working parents it's tough.
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