How to Deal With Birthday Party Drama – All guilt and no fun

Dealing with birthday party invitations in pre-school was such a breeze compared to the nightmare in elementary school.  At our pre-school, the “policy” was to invite the entire class and most parents adhered to the rule. I was one of those parents who invited everyone in the class. Why, because I don’t like to hurt people’s feelings especially children and I follow the rules.

My daughter had some pretty cool parties in pre-school. One year, she played the lead in the Where the Wild Things Are at the Manhattan Children’s Theatre while her classmates played the animals from the story. Another year, we held the party at the fire museum. Of course, I did try to save money, one year by having the  party in the park but I had to wait until May to do it. You trying telling a March birthday girl to wait 2 months to hold their birthday party. Not good.

So when we hit kindergarten, I was done with the all-inclusive  birthday parties. And so it seemed had the other parents. In two years, we received a smattering of invitations and I was happy.

As for me, I scaled down the birthday party madness and only invited my daughter’s two BFFs from pre-school and called it a day.

As  I happily led a non-drama second grade existence, then one day, my daughter received a birthday party invite from one of  her classmates. As I perused the cc list, I saw that the mother had only invited four girls from the class. Now I will agree that the girl has every right to invite whomever she wants and  lack of space precludes (unless you are ibanker with a 4 bedroom apartment) inviting all the girls from the class or it was monetary or maybe they just didn’t want 10 girls in their two bedroom apartment. It doesn’t matter. You can only invite so many girls, I know that  but seeing the list, I instantly thought this is going create a shit storm at school and I was right.  The girls started talking about the party and all the activities so much so  that the teacher finally had to put the kibosh on it because it was obviously hurting the other girls feelings.

Now I have no idea if the mother knew but I knew this would happen. But the story doesn’t end.

Two weeks later, there was another invitation sent out by another girl in the class. Now wouldn’t you know that this family only invited three girls from the class. No biggie right except the birthday girl told a girl from the class that she was NOT invited because she was mean to one of the invited girls. Now how did the girl know this because she overheard the two moms talking. Yikes! Of course, you guessed, did the three girls talk about it in class, yes.  Again, hurt feelings.

By the time the third invitation came around, the teacher had told the mom, when you send the invite out please communicate to the parents NOT to tell the girls about the party until the last minute.  Good Grief!! You could argue that it wasn’t the teacher’s place to dictate but I am glad she intervened because its obvious these moms have no idea how girls act and she is the one who has soothe hurt feelings all day when these things happen.

So what did I do for my daughter’s birthday party, I invited the entire class. Kidding, I wish.  I reciprocated invites to the girls who had invited my daughter, her pre-school BFF and friends kids.  11 girls in all. Help!!

Rejection is a part of life, that is true but our kids have to learn that they will not always be invited to parties but I wish parents had the common sense to coach their children that even though not every one can be invited, you need to be aware that you can’t brag about it.

Just wondering, do parents of boys have to deal with this type of drama.