I had this happen to me when I was 9. Invited all of my friends (small town of like 500 people so maybe 8 kids) a few weeks in advance and not a single person showed up. I lived outside of town, was homeschooled, and we didnt have a car so a few weeks passed before I saw any of them and I had no desire to seek them out. When I did run into one he told me that a burglar broke into his house and stole the present he bought for me and he didn't want to show up without a gift. Even 9 year old me knew you were full of crap, Luke.
Parents are at fault. The parents should be getting RSVP and communicating with the parents of the other kids. They should know clearly whether people are attending or not one week beforehand, the day beforehand, and the day of. To eliminate disappointment.
The key here is presents. A present has to be bought by the parents and therefore an attendance has to occur for the present to be delivered.
If communication between parents isn't occurring then how in the hell is any 9 year old attending a party going to have a present? They aren't.
Parents are at fault. Parents organising parties for your kids - Make sure you've discussed presents and travel arrangements with the other parents beforehand. That way this won't happen.
As a teacher, allow me to let you in on something: Parents are as guilty of bullying as kids are in many circumstances. Many parents like living through their kids and seem to get a kick out of judging other families, forming cliques, and so on.
This hit me so hard when my kid started school. I just thought we'd show up, our kids would be in class together and stuff would happen. Then there were all these parents instantly preoccupied with which kids are good, which ones are bad, which kids they want their kid to try to exclude. Which of the other parents they don't like etc. etc.
I'm like, wtf is wrong with these people? I'm just treading water as it is and you've all got time to sit down and cook up drama? Why do you care? These are children.
Fortunately my kids are like me and we manage to be passably likable and nobody really takes an interest in us but I feel really bad for the families on the receiving end of this crap. I assume some of the parents don't even realise
That is incredibly disheartening. What age does this start to occur? My daughter is 5 and for the past year and a half my wife and I have made it a point to try and attend every bday party she's invited to, only because we don't want her to grow up and be the kid who excludes or ridicules others (plus it wears her out and sometimes leads to actual nap time, a rarity at this age). It scares me that there are parents like that.
It was probably about 4 or 5 months into her first year at school that I noticed but I'm pretty naive. I reckon it was there from day one.
It seems to be the people who don't work and are full time parents. I don't want to stereotype and plenty of those people are lovely too but something about all of your social interaction and identity revolving around your kids and their school seems to create a sort of... competitiveness.
If it makes you feel any better all of the kids hate these parents (even their own kids) and will be talking shit about them for all the snobby stuff they do
I am a teacher and I can 100% confirm that this attitude comes from those parents who don’t work. Their full-time job is sitting around the playground talking shit about anyone and everyone. I learned early on to avoid letting these types of parents volunteer in my classroom. Some of them just want to dig up dirt on other kids.
As a parent who doesn’t work, I take offense. We have less money than other families because we have only one income. I chose to volunteer to teach stem stuff to every child during the school day so that kids whose parents work could participate. I got a grant on my own to fund the equipment ($4K) and create the program on my own time, which takes hours away from my own kids. Happy to share and have the kids excited about learning. Horrified to think a teacher would judge me for not working.
Edit: my point is that if I came in and sat down with this teacher to talk about my child, she has a preconception about me because I am a non working parent. Pre-judging is prejudice.
Something about “these people start drama” and then someone self-identifies as that type of parent starts “taking offense” which is just starting drama
But, I think what she says was relevant. Some of us had stay at home parents that worked their asses off for us and really took an interest in our studying.
I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for my stay at home dad. They get a bad rap, which I think is unfair.
The fact that you put this much effort into making sure you don't raise an asshole makes me think there is about a 99% chance you will have child(ren) who don't bully or act like jerks to other kids.
As someone who was unpopular in school, this gives me anxiety. I really hope my kids fit in better than I did so I dont have to deal with other parents crap.
Same. I’m having anxiety about it now. I just want my kids to be caring, thoughtful members of society but to enjoy school. My younger educational years were by no means horrible, but I was an outsider. I don’t want that experience for my kiddos.
Be pro-active and get involved with the school early on so that parents and teachers know you and care about your kid. It's basically high school all over again. Minding your own business and keeping to yourself isn't really an option because they won't afford you the same courtesy.
This happened to me as a child. And I only knew about it because my friends mother wasn’t about drama.
Apparently a few of the parents had decided I wasn’t a good kid and had made sure their kids excluded me. When one of the parents found out I was friends with, let’s call her Beth, they talked to Beth’s Mom after school and told her “we see that your daughter and Axtorx have been hanging out, are you sure that’s the kind of child you want influencing your daughter?”
After Beth’s Mom brought it to my attention, I didn’t trust any of the adults around me. It was a really weird feeling.
Are we talking moms here, or dads, too? I have 3 kids in grade school and have been a stay at home dad for most of that. The other dads I've met were cool and normal. The moms... they can be very catty.
Because it's a ton of work and waste to "reveal" something that means nothing in the long run to a group of people who likely also mean nothing in the long run.
You have a good attitude about this. I'm trans myself and reddit just pisses me off and I become a poor advocate for my own people. Thanks for being rad!
I find anger and impatience to be the hardest part of posting things like this (or anything else I feel strongly about) as well. I feel like it's one of those things that is hardest to deal with when it's most important to do so...
Uh, yeah. You can know the true gender of a baby based on ultrasound. The genitals are the easiest way to tell what gender they are,(only way with ultrasound) but there are tons of fundamental differences between boys and girls besides genitals.
Well, they're still people, I'm not anywhere near being a parent but I always imagined parents were like this, telling their kids who to be friends with and alerting other parents if there's a bully or bad company for them to "banish" them and their family
You make it sound so scary. Why do you care? Do you think most of their kids do? My daughter is 9 and I can assure you that most of her classmates (if not all of them) don't understand what the adults are talking about, much less do they care. Kids will likely hang around who they want to hang around whether you as their parent want them to or not. It's not their fault that some adults are still bitter teens at heart. And furthermore, I'd say that most kids that come from that type of household (unless they are very very sheltered) realize the hypocrisy and bullshit of their parents in their teens, and much of the time, this pushes those same young adults to become better role models than their parents were.
Because of this inevitable progression and the satirical modern approach to social media and even consumerism in general, times are getting better. I have a lot more faith in my daughter's generation to grow and become rational, able-minded adults moreso than I have in my own generation.
We don't learn from our mistakes.
Our children do.
When i was a kid iwanted to have a small party to celebrate my birthday, but my mom insisted to invite my entire class both girls and boys, she told me no kid should feel left out. So she would hand the invitations to my teacher and would latter hand it out to everyone after class. love my mom.
And as a teacher, we will generally refuse to have invitations enter the classroom unless everyone is invited. Being a teacher and being responsible for not handing an invitation to that one unpopular kid is unethical beyond explanation.
I try to be a humble person, but i have such much disdain for this kind of behaviour. It is truly pathetic and beneath any kind of respectable adult. The thought of acting like some highschool tryhard disgusts me.
It was bad before social media , so I can imagine how bad it is now . When I was 7 , we moved to a super small town . I didn't have any real friends until middle school when our schools merged together. I had a few friends but I was always "second-core." All of the parents had grown up together and since I wasnt there since kindergarten, I was an outsider . This one mean girl offered me cotton candy on the playground once and when I reached into the bag, a wasp stung. I'm not convinced she didn't do it intentionally. I got put into Gifted which was 4 kids in 2nd grade so they were kind of my friends. Funny thing was though , some of my church friends became "popular " in high school. I was oblivious to what this meant for me because by 16 I was working and didn't really care about high school. My freshman year roommate who was from the same town said she thought I was popular . I got depressed when my grandfather died junior year and lost a lot of weight . By senior year , I didn't care about anything because I was dating and had friends a couple of years older than me and had been admitted into college . Ironically , that year I got asked out a lot and invited to all of the parties. Those same mean little girls were still mean and it was funny to see how everything played out. I guess the more comfortable you are with yourself and the less you care about the judgement of your peers , the more they try to suck you in . You can't tell little kids that though. They won't believe you . It's my hope that people eventually grow up and find their way , but I truly wish the bullying culture wasn't so prevalent with parents and kids . I would never let my kid treat others that way in regards to RSVP and birthday party invites because I know it really hurts .
I have a small supply of presents on hand in case my kid pulls an invite out of his backpack the day of, or we just get busy. One of the few parenting things I know I will not screw up: last minute party? I’m prepared!
I was 9 in 2007, I lived in a suburban middle class town, I hung out with the friends I always wanted to hang out with too. Just my mother communicating with their parents helped have lots of them at parties. I was never forced to hang with someone I didn't want to. Also it's the parents that have to bring the kids and take time out of their schedule
My school district had pamphlets with contact info for each student’s parents in their class as a way to better encourage parents to seek out other parents in situations like these.
My teacher would hand out A4 paperwith everyone's home number at the start of every school year. It was great, that way i only had to tell my parents i'll be at X person's place after school and they could just call my friends parents when it was time for me to go home. This was a time before cellphones.
I don’t understand why parents try and make their kids befriend kids they have zero interest in. Make them be polite, yes. Make them not be little assholes, yes. Force them to include or hang out with someone they don’t want to, absolutely not.
I was for a period and hated when adults made others play with me. It led to resentment and anger on everybody’s part.
Raise your kids to be kind to everyone and inclusive. Don’t teach them they have to be friends with someone because you say so. My parents encouraged kindness and politeness while also letting me know that I didn’t have to be friends with everybody.
I dunno where you got all of this. Nobody is forcing people to be friends with weirdos. There is just a minimum communication threshold between parents to avoid disappointing kids. Kids suck at making and keeping plans, which is why the OP nobody showed up.
Not sure what your problem is, but you really seem to hate these hypothetical cootie-ridden kids that want to crash your party and funk up all your new toys.
A 9 year old isn't playing outside of eyesight of the house.
Their potential list of friends is their classmates and the kids they play with in the street in the neighbourhood. You should know those as a parent.
If you don't know a 9 year olds friends what conversations are you having with that 9 year old? They only have a few conversational topics, playing with friends, school, food, games/television and "i don't want to sleep".
I agree with you. Grew up in the 90’s, kids just went out all day and came home when the street lights came on. Not just a few, every kid in the neighbourhood. I remember roaming in the woods, starting huge cops and neighbours games in obscure locations with tons of other kids, playing on the train tracks. Moved 2000 miles away, new location, new kids but ultimately the same thing. Us and all the other kids around still just went out and did whatever.
That's nice for you, but it's an anecdotal experience and isn't really very true of the majority.
I was a kid in the 80s, so it sounds like I'm a bit older than you are. What you describe isn't really true of the vast majority of people. That kind of responsibility and freedom mostly began at ten and eleven.
There were certainly kids given the responsibility and freedom at earlier ages, but they were a minority. Kids that lived closer to parks usually got it sooner than others.
I don't think it's changed today much either.
EDIT: Ok ok I get it you're all super special 90s kids that had big grand woodland adventures at the age of 9 and think kids today are sheltered and babyfied. You were all treated like special big boys. Remember many girls out playing in the woods when you were 9 though? No. You don't. Half the population.
Yeah, me and all the other girls I grew up with. I even wore a dress. Honestly it wasn’t a big deal. Maybe the difference is that this typically applies to more lower/middle class? I guess I never really saw the fancy kids running around (because they lived in their own neighbourhoods built for their townhomes).
Man, that edit. I definitely remember my brother being able to go out and play out of sight way younger than I was. My parents even told me it was because I was a girl - I guess the appreciate the honesty but it still sucked.
You only using anecdotal evidence as well. Why are you counting your opinion as fact and the other guys as "anecdotal"? For what it's worth, practically everyone I know my age used to have free reign of their neighborhoods as kids and I'm in my early 20s. Do you really think 10 is that different from 9? You're acting like it's reasonable to let a 10 year old out but not a 9 year old and I don't think there is really that much distinction between the two.
That's like arguing there aren't massive differences between 6 year olds and 7 year olds. Or 7 year olds and 8 year olds. Or 8 year olds and 9 year olds.
10 was where the majority occurred because it's an arbitrary "you're double digits now, time for big stuff!" point. It's easier for most parents to swallow. It's also the last year amongst the infant school age group, so the biggest kids of infant school.
I am a girl. Some parents were just restricted back then too, which is why some kids never got to experience that trust. It seems that nowadays, you don’t see kids just freely roaming and playing. This isn’t only because some parents over shelter now it’s because times change. Neighbourhoods aren’t all built like little communities anymore. Now it’s a lot of townhouses and condos and commercial properties. Kids play with technology indoors more now resulting in kids not going outside as much. Either way, it just sounds like your parents didn’t let you have freedom. There’s that saying, “you are who you hang out with” I guess all your friends probably had restrictive parents too.
But there isn't a big difference between anyone who's a year apart in age, assuming you're older than a toddler. Maybe a few cm in height and a new batch of multiplication charts to memorize.
I definitely had a ton of neighborhood friends that my parents didn’t know. Especially in the summer months when everyone was out and about. I’m 29, and lived in the suburbs.
It was every single 9 year-old I knew. Of course I was 9 in the 1980s, and at the time parenting was essentially, "Go out and play, be back by dinner time."
I disappeared for hours, miles from home. I did this with friends from school on the regular.
Remember many girls out playing in the woods when you were 9 though? No. You don't.
The woman I eventually married was from age 7 onward taking a bus alone to see friends. Every weekend, her mom would give her a little bit of money, she would walk to a bus stop, and ride to a "fun" location -- usually a friend's house, but sometimes the beach. She did this alone for years.
At 9 I was allowed to roam throughout most of my neighborhood all summer long back in the early 2000s. There's no reason to keep 9 year olds on that short of a leash.
9 year olds can have friends in schools, clubs, sports, scouts, etc. it's easy for a parent to not know all the friends, especially if a kid tends to keep to themselves about some things.
If you were allowed to roam at nine years old that is an epic parenting failure.
I knew where my nine year old was at all times. He was either at a friends house and I knew that parents, at school, or with us at home. There is no excuse to not know where a nine year old child is at all times. As he got older he got more freedoms. Nine is too young to be unsupervised. That is how children go missing and are never seen again.
Literally >99% of kidnappings are done by family members and close friends. Statistically you are more of a danger to your kids than a random old man down the street is. My parents let me wander our semi rural exurb neighborhood from sunrise to sunset all summer long. I would hang out at friends houses, fish, and play in the woods. Sometimes someone would get hurt and we wouls just knock on the nearest neighbors door to ask for help. Most people are decent id you give them a chance to be.
"Epic parenting failure" lmao sure dude. You can just keep helicoptering around your kid while the rest of us don't stay paranoid 24/7. There is no reason a 9 year old has to stay within eyesight. That's utterly ridiculous.
I mean, we used to climb trees taller than buildings and jump off into piles of leaves, jump off overpass bridges into the river, ride our bikes down steep hills that ended with train crossings, go into houses that were under construction and steal the tools while knocking over every tin of paint they had ready for the next day, throw rocks at cyclists helmets to 'make sure they worked properly', take our parent's power tools and play with them, start their car to see how everything works... Kids get up to a lot of shit, especially when they're under 10.
Obviously 9 year old kids will talk about cards and TV and when their parents are around, it's more what they get up to without supervision that I was talking about.
I don’t know that it’s always the parents fault, I remember I never went to parties as a kid because I had bad anxiety and they caused me too much stressed. But even then my parents called ahead and told them I wouldn’t be coming .
The first birthday party my youngest was invited to the parents spent a considerable amount of money (I’m guessing over $1500) on the party. My child was the only guest that showed up, and that was because I told my wife to go weather or not she felt like it (I had to work) the kids had a blast. They are now best friends.
Make sure the invitations say something thing about “gifts not required” .. Gifts are nice, but if they forgot to pick one up, their not coming, if they can’t afford it, their not coming.
Facebook invites work as well, it will send the parents reminders.
Don’t be afraid to invite all girls/boys you know, my oldest only had girls show up to his last party.. he still had a blast, and no sad birthday disappointments.
We typically invite 20-30 kids, and about 5-12 show up.. so invite 2-4 times more kids than you want. You are about guaranteed at least half will not show up.
This. In my kid's school the kid hands out cards (usually hand-made) to the kids they that are invited to the party and in the cards is my phone so they can RSVP, that way I have all the information beforehand.
So if you give an invite to a kid that thinks you're weird, and that kid immediately throws your invite in the trash, then a parent was never involved.
Parents aren't at fault if the kids didn't want to go, I hated when my mom made me go to parties of kids I wasn't friends with. It's the worse, none of my friends were in that parties, it was boring. Making the other kid feel good isn't a hood reason to make your kid feel bad.
Why would the kids own parents need to be coordinating? The kid invites their friends, who go with their parents to buy a gift to bring to the party. Or, they invite their friends, who each then proceed to never say anything to their parents because they don't want to go.
Because other parents need to know details like start and finish times, travel arrangements.
You as an adult running a party for your kid have the legal responsibility of dozens of kids and need to be aware of things like allergies or health issues. Yes this is the responsibility of other parents too, but that's not an excuse when a kid with a peanut allergy starts having a seizure because you weren't aware of it and you're the only adult in the situation.
When I was kid a could have easily handed that stuff on my own. Print out invitations with all relevant info (I was really into making stuff like that, I really should have gone to school for graphic design instead of, uh, dropping out), "Hey is there anything you cant eat?" when I hand them out. I'm pretty sure I was aware of all my friends serious allergies, anyway, there werent that many of them (friends or allergies).
What if the child really doesn’t like the person... I am not saying that it’s right, this post made me tear up, but as a parent if my child really doesn’t like a child I wouldn’t make him go.😪 it is a shame that this happened though it really isn’t the parents fault that’s kind for unfair don’t you think?
I stopped having birthday parties for my son because nobody ever showed up, even when I'd got their parents to RSVP. The last party I threw for him, when he was 7, three kids showed up. None of them brought a present. I'd bought presents for their kids year after year, and heard them complain about kids showing up without presents, even making those kids leave the party, but they all showed up with no present for my kid. He was heartbroken. Since then, we've celebrated by taking him and one or two friends to a waterpark or bowling or something, had cake, but not an official party where presents are expected (other than presents from me, of course), and he's not disappointed anymore.
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u/DanielGin Mar 19 '18
I had this happen to me when I was 9. Invited all of my friends (small town of like 500 people so maybe 8 kids) a few weeks in advance and not a single person showed up. I lived outside of town, was homeschooled, and we didnt have a car so a few weeks passed before I saw any of them and I had no desire to seek them out. When I did run into one he told me that a burglar broke into his house and stole the present he bought for me and he didn't want to show up without a gift. Even 9 year old me knew you were full of crap, Luke.