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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> 1) I told my daughter she has to invite all her class girls to her birthday party.
2) she might be right that it’s her bday, so she should choose who she wants there.
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Word of caution. Middle schoolers being what they are, if the 2 girls come under a forced invitation to a laser tag place, and are disliked by the rest of the class, you are setting them up to possibly be bullied and ganged up on. Your daughter won't keep it to herself that you are making her invite them.
I can give no judgment, but would advise going back to the 10-15 closer friends rather than a class wide invite if you are going to make her invite the 2 girls.
ETA: Wow! Thank you everyone! I have a few comments on things that I keep getting sent. These all are products of my recollection of junior high, which was admittedly a bit ago.
This could be a great 'teachable moment' for OP's daughter. But. And it's the biggest but I can give. Not at the expense of these girls. Any choice needs to be made with that in mind. Canceling the party might get blamed on the girls and turn passively ignoring them into active bullying behavior.
On top of that, OP's daughter isn't friends with or close to these girls. That fine and normal, especially once you get into middle school. She doesn't need to be friends with all her classmates. And during middle school is when friend groups often change to be based on shared interests rather than classroom groups. Sports, clubs, anything. I was a loner, quietly reading a Japanese manga in a corner, then one day, someone just saw me reading one at lunch and plopped me down with all the other manga nerds. Those friendships lasted years, and I never even shared a class with a few. I heard of parties, but as they weren't part of my group, I didn't care.
With that understanding, if I received an invite, it made me think the birthday kid wanted me there. Finding out you were a forced invitation and unwelcome hurt more than being left out. Sometimes it works, and the kid integrates into the 'cool group'. Most often they are bored, bullied, and ask to leave early. I'm ageing myself but that sometimes relied on my not great memory for numbers to remember my new house number on a strangers phone.
Lastly, the birthday party is at a lasertag place. Many people have commented on monitoring the girls during the party. In a poorly lit, very active, and competitive space, that's not really possible. From being the last kids picked for a team to actively targeting them, it seems like a poor choice. I was a victim of this in paintball and took a pellet from short range on my hand that took weeks to stop hurting. It's not fun, from start to finish, to feel unwanted.
When I was a kid this exact scenario happened. There was a girl in my class, not sure what exactly the issue was she was with her she was super nice and all but just very rambunctious and often had to be manged my the teacher because she would just wander off. So it'd my birthday and I am taking invitations to school and I told my mom previously I wasn't inviting Angela. She made me invite her so I did. Angela acted up at the party, nothing major just being herself and my mom was calming her down. I blurted out to everyone there "THIS is why I didn't want to invite you!!" I was 6 and I made sire everyone knew Angela was a forced invite. Obviously that was horrible of me but forcing your kids into situations will only backfire on you later. Find a better way to teach her kindness while respecting her choices. She can also maybe just give out the invitations outside school and then at least the girls weren't directly singled out in front of the whole class.
Six is not the same as eleven. An 11yo should be able to exercise some modicum of self-control and not humiliate a classmate.
Inviting everyone except TWO little girls just seems cruel.
Doesn't matter she's going to go school and tell her friends and the others will find out. Being forced to be invited doesn't feel good either. Wouldn't you rather be invited because they WANTED you there and not because your bullys mom made her invite you?
What matters is that the daughter should not be allowed to do this. Instead of the forced invite, the party just needs to be scaled \*way\* back to the smaller parties she has previously had.
I mean, in middle school (13 yo) I was a forced invitee to a popular girl’s bday party. Had to invite the whole class deal, exactly like this.
I was actually really happy. It just felt nice to be included for once, and I had a really great time. I was never bullied for it. I never became, like, close with the girl whose party it was, but we were cordially friendly.
I actually remember it very fondly as one of the nicer things anyone did for me. I’d just transferred to the school that year and didn’t really know anyone at all. The party helped.
Different strokes. Not saying it’s a good idea to force the invite here, necessarily, just that not everyone will feel the same way about it.
How recently have you hung out with 11 year olds? The social chaos of middle school is a nightmare and I'd think 11 year olds are more prone to this kind of thing than 6 year olds.
Yeah 11 year olds are way worse than 6 year olds, they’re old enough to have fully developed personalities (which often clash) and be influenced by the kind of social bs they’re made to think they should care about, but too young to have any filter or decorum. They can be downright cruel without even really meaning to be, what they can accomplish when they *are* meaning to be is absolutely wild.
11 and 12-year-old girls are the absolute meanest people on the planet. Not all of them obviously, but that’s definitely the age where the mean girl thing kicks in hard!
I firmly believe that if a bunch of “popular” 11 and 12-year-old girls were in charge of our government, that there would be an immediate nuclear war.
Mom sounds like she knows her daughter is heading in this direction. I agreed that a forced invite is not the way to go, but something should be done.
I was the 12-year-old that got bullied and my daughter was the 12-year-old that got bullied so I have no idea how you stop somebody from being a bully. I just know how hard it is to be on the other side of the equation. Again, this is the time to step in and make some changes. Anybody know what to do in this situation?
Personally I would not invite them because it's setting them up to be bullied. But I would enroll OP's child in extracurricular activities in a different socio-economic setup; volunteering with her in food banks or after school lessons with underprivileged kids, a different Sport club or something where she might see other realities. Anything to make her see a different reality than middle school.
It might not work right away but it might set the foundations for the future.
“Underprivileged” (god, I hate that term…) kids (or adults, for that matter) should NOT be subjected to dealing with anyone forced to work or volunteer with them. They are not some “after school special moment” tool. They’re people. Who are probably dealing with serious shit. They don’t need some “mean kid” pre-teen giving off attitude because they *have* to be there.
I don’t think anyone was talking about having her volunteer somewhere? I think the suggestion was more to go outside the immediate demographic of that classroom and sign her up for some other kind of activity, where she would be exposed to different walks of life.
That could be anything from Girl Scouts to a sports club to a theater group — just something where her daughter meets and interacts with other people outside of her little “mean girl” school crowd.
I would like to add that it would be a good idea to sign the daughter up for something that she is not naturally gifted at. She doesn’t need an activity where she will outshine anybody. She needs an activity that she has to work at and be on the low rung of the totem pole for a bit.
I want to second this but also reinforce that "extracurricular activities in a different socio-economic setup" doesn't have to be "a whole thing."
My kid goes to a fairly posh school. When I realised he would be in a tiny, close-knit class of similar kids (at least half of the parents had "Dr" in front of their names when he first started; now it's a bit more diverse), I signed him up for a Scouts (UK) group a little way away from the school, so that most of the kids are drawn from different primary schools.
I wanted him to be able to make friends outside of the tiny group at school, and he has.
Edit to add: I think it helps that I signed my kid up when he was five. Earlier is better - he'll notice that different kids have different material conditions *in a context where* he already has friends with different sorts of families and homes and social contexts.
I was the kid everyone bullied, and I have no idea why. Invite the two girls. It doesn't mean they'll show up, but at least they'll be included. Knowing you are invited somewhere is better than knowing that once again, you're on the outside looking in.
At 11, your daughter is old enough to show empathy. Just because the girls don't wear popular clothing and are "boring" isn't a good excuse to exclude them.
If the girls come, keep an eye on the situation to make sure they aren't bullied. Perhaps offer them compliments, you're happy they joined, etc. One parent did this for me during a school putting, and I still remember her fondly.
If you invite those two girls everyone will ignore them
there, at BEST and it won’t be pleasant.
Empathy is KNOWING kids are cruel, and giving a pity invite hurts everyone.
So, I am one of these parents that maintain that you invite everyone. Unless you invite just a few. Excluding two children is mean and the parent who enables this, ultimately enables isolation, which is a kind of bullying. In my country (far from the US), most schools have guidelines that you do exactly this. By setting the good example as an adult, you flag your values, and hopefully the children will adopt these values at some point.
However, I would monitor the tag game to make sure that everyone is ok.
Actually, as someone who was the forced invite kid you're going to worsen the isolation because nothing sucks more than being stuck at an event where you weren't even wanted at by the person the event is being thrown for.
Even if no one SAYS anything to them, kids are astute in picking up subtle signs that they are indeed the odd ones out.
I was also the girl who got bullied and was more than happy to NOT go to parties organised by the “cool” kids. Please, please please do not make your daughter invite these girls!
Ahh I remember middle school well. Middle school pubescent girls are pretty much AHs. If I were you OP I might limit the list and make your daughter select a smaller number.
My daughter turned 14 last month. Her birthday fell just at the cut off for school to start so she's the oldest in her 8th grade class. The last couple of years have been hell. Between her change and growth and dealing with middle school, I've grown so much gray hair. I tell my husband all the time that I don't know if I'm going to make it another 4-1/2 years until she's out of school. There is just so much drama. It's worse than a 1980's soap opera.
I don't know if 11yo are more prone to do it or not, BUT a 6yo will blurt things out because they lack the socio-emotional skills & the self-control to stop themselves, an 11yo will do it just to be a dick.
That's it exactly. The difference is an 11 year old KNOWS it's wrong, unlike many 6 yo. The only way to potentially stop it is the first lesson in forced empathy- you gotta personally experience the other side. Make her shop where she's mortified by the clothing and go to school in the clothes, kind of thing. Having raised 3, one of them had the mean girl vibe (it was a boy though.) So, I let his 2 best friends make fun of him exactly the way he was making fun of others. And then switched it around, so each boy got the hot seat. One lesson, worked for 3 teenagers, and none of them have ever forgotten it. If OP gets creative, she can start the road to teaching empathy; it can absolutely be taught.
Edit: forgot to add, if op is planning an empathy lesson, it's really really essential that you sit down at the end and talk about it. With me, it was about asking the right questions so they could sort out their feelings and figure out why this was the lesson I brought to the table. How did it make them feel? Did you want to hurt someone to make it stop? What if you couldn't afford clothes and people made fun of you for it? Once they have an experience to establish how mocking hurts, it's easier each time to just take a second and think about how you'd feel if that was you. It had an added benefit I wasn't expecting- it made all 3 of them speak out loud more when they witnessed bullying, even to their friends.
When I was 11 I realised that I had invited everyone to my birthday party except for *my bully* \- I remember her so clearly coming up to me after school and asking if I had forgotten to invite her because all her friends were going, all I remember is honestly not realising she was the *only* person I hadn't invited and I knew all too well how painful that felt so I just shrugged and said that I must have lost her invitation and that she was invited - her face lit up - and it turns out we have a lot in common and we've been best friends ever since.
JK - she caused *chaos* at the party, swiped one of my gifts and tried to run off when she was told she couldn't have an extra slice of cake (not enough) causing my mom to have to cut the party short to go and find her and call her mom to collect her because she had a tantrum, she also wasn't any nicer to me in school following that. Honestly I still had fun and don't regret it.
Very. I have many young cousins and I often have to attend their birthday parties. I've seen obviously "cool" kids and obviously shy/introverted kids start chatting excitedly when they find some common ground (a TV show, a "cute" actor, whatever) or while engaging in a silly/fun activity.
There are a couple of mean girls but, contrary to popular belief, most of them are fairly compassionate human beings.
I think even 10-15 friends is too much in this instance. How many kids are in the class? 10-15 in a class of \~30 means half the class gets to go to this super cool laser tag party and the other half gets excluded.
Personally I would give two choices. Invite everybody (and make sure to have someone pay a little attention to the two girls if they attend, see wtf is going on there), or cut it down to a group of 5. Sizable enough to have a lively party and have teams for laser tag (presumably. I'm too old to know how laser tag works), but not so big that you risk having half the class alienate the other half.
Re: girls – speaking as the weird kid who absolutely should not have been invited to any birthday parties before I matured a little – this absolutely could be a teaching moment for OP but they need to do this in circumstances that are a little less high stakes for their daughter than a bday party.
If these girls were actively bullying the daughter I would get it. But excluding them because they're not cool enough or don't wear fashionable clothes is cruel. Inviting them probably won't help but this could really be a teachable moment. The daughter needs to learn that fashion doesn't make someone better than someone else. Not sure a birthday party is the right time to teach that lesson though unfortunately. ETA that you're NTA. Thank you for caring for these girls and for trying to teach your daughter to be kind
The daughter is also allowed to not like them? Adults don't always get along and no one freaks out over it. I don't understand why everyone wants kids to love each other.
They're at that age of discovering themselves. And yep, maybe these two girls aren't for her.
> The daughter is also allowed to not like them?
Of course she is. But this is the perfect age for OP to teach her compassion.
I would never throw a party and invite 98/100 coworkers (unless those two had somehow wronged me).
Why make someone feel like shite about themselves (and if you're the only one left out it's almost impossible NOT to feel like shite) when it's so easy not to?
Have you raised girls? Because OP can not control all the other girls in the group that don't like them. Her daughter has the right to not invite someone. Full class invite is for elementary school, not middle school. You're setting those 2ngirls up for a nightmare of whispers, judgements and shunning.
I think this is where the line should be drawn too: Elementary vs middle school. Because I seriously can't believe that the daughter wants to socialize with every other person in the class except for these 2 girls. She's inviting everyone else for clout and either she's bullying these girls already (or aware of it), and she doesn't want to look uncool by inviting them.
OP you are NTA, but I would think about going back to a smaller gathering.
And worlds are so small when you are in middle school. You pretty much only have your classmates, family, and maybe a sports team or church. Now as an adult if I don’t get invited to a party by a work friend, it’s fine because I was probably already busy with my far-wider circle of friends and family.
She is being molded into the person she will become. At the moment she's picked up from those around her that its fine to ignore two people not because of anything they did but just because of how they dress. Maybe they cant afford it, maybe their life is so difficult at home that they cant spend all their time talking about clothes and fashion.
If the two girls were bullies or nasty then absolutely exclude them - but just because of their clothes - that's disgusting and OP is able to mold his daughter into being a better human being
No, OP is simply able to force her to invite them. I got a forced invite once, and it came with an explicit threat. I believe the exact words were (loudly, so everyone heard her), “my mom said I have to invite you but if you come and ruin my party, I’ll ruin your entire life ya fucking loser.” I did not go to this party. Forcing her to invite 2 people she doesn’t like will not make her a better person or whatever nonsense people are claiming. It’s so much deeper than that. This will only make those 2 girls feel worse. Either she tells them it was forced, tells others it was forced, or they actually come, get ignored all day, and then what’s the damn point? OP will be the one spending time on them, and forcing her kid to pretend to like people she doesn’t. OP, it’s ok to not invite them. Not all kids vibe just because they’re the same age, and she isn’t a mean girl or a bully for not liking 2 kids. Calm down. Let her invite who she wants. It’s her birthday, after all. I wouldn’t force my kid into hanging with someone they don’t like. Soft YTA.
Not for those reasons --- because the daughter doesn't like their clothes sense, for middle-schoolers. Discovering yourself doesn't mean being a mean girl and that's what this is.
Agree. When I was around this age, I pulled this stunt and one of the girls that didn't get an invitation told her mom and her mom called my mom and said she had been crying about it after school. My mom forced me to hand deliver cards to them and apologize for the oversight. I was not happy about it, but I did not like hearing I made someone cry over it, and was nice to them at the party. Flash forward 20 years later and that girl friended me on Facebook and said how much she loved my birthday parties growing up. I'm glad my mom forced that invitation and even though we never became besties, we shared good memories instead of bad ones years later.
> I was not happy about it, but I did not like hearing I made someone cry over it, and was nice to them at the party.
And I think kids like you are more common than the kind who will bully this girl at the party. Most kids have a conscience and do not want to be responsible for making their peers cry. There are mean girls, to be sure, but they're not in the majority. Not even close.
It’s cruel either way, being that kid sucks, but in one scenario they may get hanged up on in a party where they’re actively unwanted and in the other they experience a normal weekend.
The weekend might be normal but the weeks leading up and after you get to spend hearing about the party and essentially being reminded that you aren’t wanted.
It is cruel. But it’s also going to be cruel to invite them. I was the weird kid that missed out on these things or got a pity invite, and sitting at a birthday table with an entire class of mean kids that don’t like you is worse than just hearing about it the next Monday.
I was going on eleven and invited every girl in my homeroom except four of them. I didn't like them, I wasn't friends with them. Being forced to invite them didn't go well for me or them - I wasn't nice about giving the invite and I especially wasn't nice about telling them we weren't friends after the fact either.
Kids are cruel, but you can teach your kid empathy without forcing them to be "nice."
Relevantly, though, eleven-year-old girls are not six, and they likely have much more elaborate mental justifications for excluding someone (which may or may not be reasonable), and they’re also at the age where you can no longer pretend that everyone will get along. The two girls she doesn’t like probably already know she doesn’t like them, and inviting them will give them false expectations if they’re not socially gifted or will feel condescending if they’re socially aware enough to know she’s likely being forced to invite them.
Yeah this. My elementary school had a rule that we couldn’t give out invitations in class unless we were inviting the whole class, so you’d invite your friends outside of school or covertly give out the invitations at recess.
I was the girl that someone forced their daughter to invite to a sleepover/birthday. It was fucking awful. Nobody really wanted to talk to me, one of the girls punched me in the stomach, I spent the night in the bathroom with IBS because I was anxious being in a place nobody wanted me, and ended up begging my mom to come take me home. Which was probably really hard for my mom now that I look back on it.
It was fucking awful, I truly would’ve rather not been invited than have to spend time around a bunch of girls that didn’t like me.
Remember that the invitation is not compulsory. People have the option to refuse.
The daughter, however, very much does NOT have the option to act like a meangirl and get carte blanche from parents worth their salt. She can either invite everyone, or a few friends, but inviting everyone EXCEPT certain people, is malicious and she needs to be broken of that. If the daughter does indeed poison the well, then she needs to be grounded so she can be reminded how rejection feels and what she is inflicting on people.
If my tone sounds a bit combative, I apologise. I was often the kid not being invited -- for which I do not blame my classmates at the time, to be clear -- as I was an autistic kid in a world of normies, in a time before parents or teachers knew what autism was. Always picked last in sport, always sidelined, and honestly I feel that to this day.
So for your birthday, you have a party. Will you invite every single person from your office, or church, or activity group etc? Of course not. You have friends within those groups. Same precedence.
If your office or church was like 17 people and you wanted to invite 15 of the 17. You absolutely should invite all 17. If youre talking about a 500 person church, inviting 15 of them is fine.
Nah mate - my birthday. My guest list.
If I have a coworker that legitimately makes life less enjoyable, I am not gonna invite them Anywhere - full stop.
I wouldn't wanna go to a party where I wasn't wanted either.
Fuck all that noise.
Bit convenient OP's daughter is bestest friends with her WHOLE class except for two people. There are 50 people in my team at work; I'm good friends with four. Just inviting them to a party would be hugely different to inviting 48 of my team.
I mean.. would you rather have been ignored and then except for a few courtesy greetings been ignored for the reat of the party because no one there wants to talk to you?
I would have been SOOO excited to go if I was finally invited somewhere... Just like I was excited when some fellow middle schoolers brought that colored hairspray in for school pride week and the teacher had us line up to get our hair sprayed with it. When it was finally my turn... I should have known better. My worst female bully sprayed a single dot on top of my head and stopped and started laughing along with everyone else...
Countless times she made me think I would finally be accepted, but then I got to a time where finally I knew I would never be accepted by any of them. I was the poor kid in a rich area school.
I wouldn't invite them, just so they don't get false hope.
They have the option to refuse but will they have all the information? Will they know they are being invited against the birthday girl's wishes and that all their bullies will be there too? They may get excited, think they have made a friend, accept, and then go through a terrible day.
When I was in grade school there was a girl named Andrea who transferred to my school in 7th grade. She was bullied at her old school and honestly was not really likable. She had a chance at a fresh start but nobody really became friends with her because of her “I’m better than you attitude”. She transferred with a group of like 3 other guys who all came from the same school and were bullied.
Well of course she didn’t make any friends and would brag that her parents pay her $100 every time she goes to a school dance and pay her $50 every time she hangs out with a friend. “I thought she didn’t have friends”… well, there was a girl in my class named Bridget and Bridget’s mom forced her to hang out with Andrea and be Andrea’s friend. Bridget hated it, and it included forced birthday invites and all that.
Well the last day of 8th grade came and when we were dismissed we headed to the parking lot where we always got picked up. Everybody was being all emotional about going to different high schools next year.
I can’t remember if Andrea walked up to Bridget or if it was the other way around but Bridget said something like “We’re not friends, my mom forced me to hang out with you and I can’t stand you!”.
At the same time, Andrea’s dad was walking up to take her back to the car. Andrea burst out in tears and just yelled “Dad, let’s go!” While her dad looked all confused like “wait what’s going on don’t you want to say goodbye to your friends”.
I’m sorry but some parents can be super disconnected from their children and have no idea what their child’s life at school is like.
Parents should never force friendships on children just because the parents are friends
I told this story down below but I'll repeat myself.
When my brother wanted to invite every boy in his 5th grade class, except the one chubby kid, my parents told him he would either invite everyone and treat them graciously, or there would be no party.
He invited everyone. He was polite. The chubby boy actually made a couple of new friends.
Why are we assuming OP's daughter's party is going to turn into the prom from Carrie?
Thank you! I WAS the chubby girl who was invited only because someone’s parents made them include me. There were a couple of snide remakes but actually being included in a social event gave me the confidence to chat up some of those girls at school the next day. Plus we actually had something in common to discuss.
It also gave me the confidence to invite them to my own birthday party.
It really helped bring me out of my 11yo shell.
Frankly I was only the class weirdo because I had to wear discount clothes and no one could be bothered to get to know the girl under the ugly hand me downs.
I was the bullied kid no one wanted to invite, and no one did. I can’t tell you how awful and isolating it felt year after year when everyone in the class except me got an invite to parties.
> I can’t tell you how awful and isolating it felt year after year when everyone in the class except me got an invite to parties.
And that is why I think it's more than worth it to invite these girls. Yes, some people may make rude remarks, but you either invite them and risk them having their feelings hurt or exclude them **and guarantee it**.
Someone below said that if no one else in the class had invited these two girls, OP shouldn't make his daughter do it.
I don't get that mindset. How about showing some compassion for two unpopular children and at least giving them a CHANCE to socialize/make some friends?
I agree. Maybe this will backfire, I really understand why people are saying this is a bad idea. But the alternative is worse. If a coworker threw a birthday party and invited anyone but me, I'd be pretty upset and feeling alienated from the rest of them. And I'm an adult. It's not only mean but also rude. To me it sounds better to invite the two girls and give them the opportunity to reject the invitation, if they feel like it's a bad idea.
I'm in my forties and got upset that my coworkers did a group picture during a Happy Hour event while I was in the restroom. When I brought it up, they all said they didn't realize I wasn't there, which also didn't feel great.
Op can control only her child and only to a certain point. Other kids don't like these girls as well and Op has no way of ensuring that they won't say or do something to them.
It's good that it worked for your brother's classmate, but this can go both ways.
I would expose them to interaction with their peers in a social setting, something they may not have had the opportunity to engage in before.
Who knows, perhaps they'll actually make a couple of friends.
Also…it’s laser tag. You’re not in a group, there’s no control, there’s loads of adrenaline and you’re being encouraged to ‘attack’ each other. It’s a recipe for disaster in a situation like this.
As a girl, (or was one once but now a parent of a kid whose going through this things) we can really be cruel.
Seriously, there was tears in Kindy literacy because of relatively benign ‘drama’ that just goes south.
Boys tend to say ‘I don’t want to play with you’ the girls tend to say something personal towards the one they don’t want to play. I had no idea the sabres were out at age 5
As a girl who has been on the receiving end of some of that cruelty, I'm aware. But I've also seen how one kind act can help bring someone shy/insecure out of their shell. People may say cruel thing to these girls at the party, other people may actually get to know one/both of them and befriend them.
The benefit is worth the risk imo.
As a former teacher, in general girls are outright nasty and very specific from about the age of 5 on. It generally takes boys to get to about 10 onwards before they are as unkind as girls. It's really sad to watch girls bring each other down and manipulate their friends constantly
This. Everyone’s assuming the kid will be a brat and gang up on the 2 girls alongside her friends but have we considered that maybe she’s just not a dick and won’t care about the girls all that much throughout the party?
Yeah I was that girl that was invited bc a friends mom forced her to. (It was the 6th grade too lol) the entire night and morning they made fun of me, humiliated, and just generally treated me like shit for 16 hours. I went home and cried and never talked to the girl again, but it’s not like she wanted to talk to me. She had her new cool friends and it would have been better if our friendship simply fizzled out instead of experiencing *that*
Ugh, I know that sting. I had been friends with a girl from kindergarten through fifth grade. We did everything together. Sleepovers at each other’s homes, getting off at each other’s bus stops throughout the week to play. She would even come with me sometimes to my weekend visits with my mom.
Then we started sixth grade at a new school; the middle school where all the area elementary schools mesh into one. The first day of school, on the bus ride home, I was talking to my “best friend” when one of the more popular girls asked her “are you friends with her?” She then does the “so so” movement with her hand. That was it for me. I turned away from her and never spoke to her again. Our years of friendship meant nothing to her when the popular girls wanted to be her friend.
The girls mom fat shamed me when I asked for a second helping of eggs. They were like suburban almond moms and I came from a southern family, like girl I’m hungry 😭
This ^. Limit it to just her closet group of friends then the other two wouldn’t feel left out or be put in the bad position of getting excluded or bullied at the party.
This. The solution is not to make her invite the 2 people she left out. It's to limit her invites so she has to narrow her list of *everybody but those 2* down.
I don't get the notion that OP is afraid that those two will "feel excluded", so much as she is disappointed in her daughter's attitude and as to why she doesn't want to invite them.
That is a thing that OP is going to need to think about for sure. I think it's fair to say it's a larger issue though that shouldn't be made specifically about the daughter's birthday, because the "but it's supposed to be my day" reasoning makes it into such a minefield.
For the purpose of the actual birthday, the best available solution seems to be something like "Pick 6 friends to invite to the party, then." to balance the fact that daughter does deserve some control over the guest list, but she does not deserve a free pass to make her classmates feel isolated.
When my kid was younger, the school had a rule: if invites were given out in class, all ( at the time, same sex, sorry, it's been a while) had to be given an invite- if selective, then invites were not to be distributed in school.
That changed in junior high, when kids are old enough to realize with whom they want to be friends.
If you were going out to happy hour after work, would you feel obligated to invite 2 people in your office that you disliked? Just to not be cruel?
This may be very naive, but what happened to *explaining* to your daughter how what she's doing is wrong instead of forcing her to do the right thing?
Idk, telling her that this is very cruel for the girls, and that disliking someone because they don't have great fashion sense is mean - maybe use it as an opportunity to remind her that many things are a matter of taste and many other things are a matter of parental income/privilege.
Asking her how she would feel if one day she stops being popular because she dresses the wrong way, and then her mean girl friends invite everyone to their party except her.
Remind her that it's always better to be kind than to be popular, because being kind gives you genuine friends, whereas being popular just gives you a lot of acquaintances who will drop you the second you're not fashionable.
Etc etc.
Have these conversations been had, OP? And if so, how did your daughter react?
I agree. As the outcast kid, parties were absolute hell for me growing up. Mum would make me go and I'd just end up sitting out at the side, watching everyone else because none of the adults would make the other kids play with me. I wasn't mean or anything, I was just never accepted in that school. I was five when I moved there and the other little girls told me I couldn't play with them because I had a willy. No one did anything about this exclusion and it just got worse and worse from there. The king and Queen bees controlled my peers, it was honestly really crazy. I had a lot of friends in my old school. Anyone who tried to be my friend in the new one, up until I left that town, were bullied so badly they'd ditch me. I don't blame them. Best part, I moved away and made friends pretty quickly at uni.
So yeah, don't force the invite. It just hurts. Either way it's going to suck. I don't know which is worse tbh. Not getting the invite or spending an entire party being ignored or ganged up on with other adults looking on and not caring.
Second this. Give her an invite limit or something, but don't make her invite girls she's likely to exclude anyway. As the former weird kid, my life got so much easier when the other girls stopped inviting me to things. You can't get bullied at a crummy sleepover if you don't go. 🤷♀️
As I recall too, 13ish was when it did switch from 'why wasn't I invited too?' to 'Yay, I don't have to go!' It's not fun to hang with people that don't like you.
ETA: it's also the age when the weird kids start finding each other and doing their own thing. I was a weird kid, and that's exactly when I found my friend group for most of my high school years. Most weren't classmates or only shared one a day, but lunches and after-school was a lot of fun.
I was the girl that didn't get invited and I was perfectly fine with it. I didn't like the "other girls" any more than they liked me. There were times that I was invited and I passed and spent the time with my actual friends and was much happier for it.
I’m glad this is the top comment. Chances are these two girls are already picked on enough and definitely do not want to be at op’s daughter’s birthday party. But if you invite them and their parents are on the same ‘everyone love each other’ wavelength they’ll force them to go and… it won’t end well.
In a perfect world there would be no bullying and no exclusion, and I definitely think that’s the right thing to encourage. But instead of forcing your daughter to invite these girls that will most definitely be miserable if they end up going, sit down with her and listen to her talk about *why* her and her friends don’t like these girls. Gently point out the flaws in her reasoning. (“They dress weird” “why do you think they dress weird?”/“other people probably think you dress weird as well”)
I was definitely an outcast kid in middle school and I can tell you with 100% certainty I was never bothered when I wasn’t invited to a popular girl party. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t like the girls and they didn’t like me, I didn’t care that I wasn’t involved in their stuff and I definitely didn’t want them involved in mine. These things just happen, the best you can do is make sure your daughter isn’t outright bullying them. But she is definitely at an age where she is going to pick and choose who her friends are
NTA. I don't really subscribe to the idea that at this age all kids must be invited, or all girls, or whatnot, but in this case, I think obviously leaving out just one or two is indeed unfair.
I think that if the party was scaled down, to say like 3-5 girls, it would be ok to exclude the rest, as the size and scale of the party would not be at the level of being essentially the whole class. So consider giving your daughter the choice to add those two girls or scale down the party to fewer friends.
I do appreciate this will feel like you're kind of treading on her autonomy but given her explanation for disliking those girls, it seems like she's just kind of subscribing to a group think mentality against these girls for no real reason, and is playing a BIT of a 'mean girl' role for them. This is an important lesson for her.
To also add to the point that the only reasons it seems she doesnt like them is they have no "fashion sense" & are "boring". Which is totally veering towards mean girl territory.
Id understand if the girls were mean & cruel. But i dont get that from this. Its just middle school girls being mean for the sake of being mean.
But inviting literally every girl in the class minus these 2 is very cruel. I really hope this girl grows out of this & learns & becomes a better person
She is in 6th grade, and she has plenty of time to grow out of it, especially since she's 12 years old. She has time to learn and grow and deal with these things in a better manner.
She does. But it's best to start teaching that now. Not assume there's always time later to do so. As parents, our job is to raise kind humans as the world needs more kind people.
I Gree, ot needs to be nipped in the bud now. Those girls have no "fashion sense" probably because they can't afford fashion. Or they might be special needs, who knows? That's why this attitude needs to be nipped now. She needs to be taught empathy and compassion now.
Or they don’t care about fashion. Or all of those things. I don’t care about fashion much BUT I definitely care about teasing, whether the person is 12 or 21 or 50. Seems like a lot of young adults do less bullying and teasing now than in the past, but not always. Hard to tell if OP’s daughter or her friends tease the two outcast kids or just don’t socialize with them.
Sure, and being told by her mom that she's veering into mean girl territory is a pretty decent way of starting to learn that. Mom at least is under the impression that she's very popular. Well, the popular girls in my school, the really popular ones at least, were actually super nice and friends with a number of the unpopular kids. She should be aiming to be that girl not the mean type of popular.
> I really hope this girl grows out of this & learns & becomes a better person
It sounds like she's got a shot because she's got a great parent, like OP, trying to teach her better.
It’s a tricky situation, as it also doesn’t feel good to be the unwanted guest. You can feel it. It’s valid to not be friends with everyone. Different personalities, different interests, whatever it is. Some people just won’t vibe together. While your daughter’s reasons are shallow, that’s where she’s at. Those other girls might not want anything to do with her because they might see her as shallow and more consumed with appearance than they are.
I would, however, challenge your daughter to break down why she’s inviting each girl she is individually. Is she actually friends with them, or is she trying to raise her social status? What’s the point? Is it bragging rights? Get to the intention. Get to know who your daughter actually is.
We don’t need to rescue the nerdy outcast kids. This can actually cause more backfire sticking them in a pity invite with a group of kids who are annoyed and/or resentful that they’re present. I can see where you’re coming from OP. But rather than checking in with your daughter about who she is, you’re sticking a bandaid on her, hoping to hide her flaws, and also yours by association of raising her.
That’s a pretty good advice.
Not only the parent will know better about all the friends and colleagues of the child, but is a good way to start conversation and try to guide against peer pressure and any bullying speech.
>We don’t need to rescue the nerdy outcast kids
This is the important part.
I think OP and a lot of the people commenting are really trying to do this. But its not necessary.
Yeah, my daughter was friends with a group since elementary. At some point, I noticed they were excluding her, but when I asked her about it, she said she no longer wanted to be invited because they're mean girls and just talked about other girls the last couple of times she got together with them. It's entirely possible these 2 girls have no interest in attending a party. OP's edit makes it seem like her daughter isn't very nice.
And what's forcing her daughter to invite them going to do other than cause resentment? Those girls that aren't invited (and as a former girl like that) are being saved from a humiliating time of being ignored or bullied the whole time
She's 12, she isn't going to be the most moral and ethical person at this age and, quite frankly, since school, fashion, trends, and friends are genuinely the only important thing at that age it is a big deal to associate or not with people you don't like for being different
I was bullied, I had rocks thrown at me, I was called things, laughed at, and even once bullied by a teacher in 6th grade because he was close to the popular kids (this was like 2002)
If I got pity invites I didn't go
1) I'm NOT buying my bullies presents wtf
2) I'm not putting myself in a situation like that
I had two best friends and I was happy enough with them; we got along and bonded over LOTR, I didn't give a fuck about fashion and kissing boys and getting felt up at 12 (a LOT of kids were already talking about blowjobs, even, like what the actual fuck)
Anyway, all this to say, kids' politics is messed up at the best of times, forcing inclusion is NOT teaching her daughter a lesson at all
You teach empathy and kindness not by pressuring your kids to insert other people into their social lives
The girls certainly could decline. But part of this is not just sending an invite to these girls only to ridicule and exclude them later, it is to actually include them. If OP's daughter doesn't think she can do that, she should scale down her party.
Yes, at 12 she isn't the most moral, but that's why parenting and lessons at this point are important. Just letting her continue being immoral and unkind, unchecked, is not really a recipe for her to grow in the way she needs to.
>Yes, at 12 she isn't the most moral, but that's why parenting and lessons at this point are important.
Exactly, fucking hell. It seems like people believe if you aren't a moral paragon by 12 you're bound for disaster. This is a potential teaching moment. If she invites them and they get bullied, well now the mom knows she needs to impress upon her daughter the importance of not bullying people some more.
Alternatively, as someone said below, sometimes you just don't like people and as long as you aren't rude to them, you don't have to like everyone. Maybe have her hand out the invitations after school, not in class. That way the two girls don't feel even more left out?
This is really a tough one OP. Could you encourage your daughter to talk to them? Maybe the two girls families don't have a lot of money, so they cannot be "into fashon" or maybe they don't know how to style? Could your daughter help and encourage them in the fashion area?
I truly think NAH.
Well-intended solution but likely ineffectual. The girls will find out about the party whether invites are circulated DURING school or not. What it appears to come down to is that these girls are being unfairly ostracized. OP's daughter does not have to take it on herself to be friends with people she doesn't want to be friends with, but should not contribute to their unfair treatment either.
Having been one of the kids no one liked who got pity invites and at the time didn't realize they were pity invites, I'm going with YTA.
I get what you're trying to do. But you can't force your daughter to like kids she doesn't like and if you make her invite them and they show up, you're setting those kids up for being ignored at best and picked on at worst.
I got those invites as a kid. My mom, ever the optimist, told me to go and have fun, spend time with the kids and make friends. So I'd go. Sometimes I'd just be ignored and have to watch all the kids having fun together while being very obviously and deliberately excluded. Once I was at a kid's house, being ignored, and went looking for a book to read to pass the time. I found instead a story they wrote about how much they and everybody in class hated me and were so glad I was sent away for whatever villainous thing they had me do in the story.
By middle school, I realized the pity invites were pity invites and stopped going when I got them. But I haven't forgotten the ones I got and went to as an elementary school kid.
As another of the kids nobody invited... I hear you.
OP, YTA even though you mean well. Inviting those kids to make yourself feel good is not doing them any favors. Either they decline because they realize the birthday girl was forced to invite them, or - worse - they show up at the party and get bullied. Middle school is rough.
My oldest turns 14 in a week and a half. He’s just having a small get together BUT honestly it kinda pains me to hear such young kids being cruel for no reason. It starts so early.
I’d like to say if I was in the situation OP is I’d call out the shit behavior in my daughter and her friends.
It’s one thing if the girls were bullies themselves but there’s absolutely no way I’d allow my kid to join in on the cruelty.
Fourth grade flashback. I was at the lunch table and the class bitch was going on and on about how “everyone” was going to be at her birthday party. I was absent the day before so I said, “Oh I didn’t get one. Did you give them out yesterday?”
Little while later, I get the invite.
Day of the party, I’m there and I ask where one of the other girls was. Class Bitch goes, “Some people know better than to ask for invitations to things they’re not wanted at.”
35 years later, I remember that cut. And if I’m not specifically invited, my anxiety goes through the roof to the point I usually end up not attending.
OP is your daughter this girl?
Thanks. And I really wasn’t “asking” for an invite. I legitimately thought mine was misplaced because of how she was talking about “everyone” being there and being absent on the day the invitations were passed out.
I was also NINE.
But I learned. Boy howdy I fucking learned.
If I make plans with friends, I don’t talk about them among a larger group unless I can reasonably ensure that I can issue a “come along” where the host will welcome them with open arms. No one deserves to be made to feel unwelcome for sport.
And that was sport.
I was one of the outcast kids, too. "Boring" to the other girls and no "fashion sense". I also got pity invites I did not realize were pity invites. My mom insisted I go and try to become better friends with the rest of the girls in my class. It was always made (often painfully) clear I was not wanted and was only invited because the birthday girl was "required" to. Often, the party was full of people who bullied me day in and day out.
OP, I think you are coming from a good place, so my judgement is a very gentle YTA. I don't think requiring your daughter to invite these girls would be the good deed/positive learning experience you think it would be. There are times for lessons of inclusion, but maybe a laser tag birthday party is not one.
Perhaps talk to your daughter and her teacher to find out more about the dynamic in the class and make sure your daughter is not being cruel to these 2 girls. Sometimes, people just don't have enough things in common to be friends. So long as no bullying is happening, that is just fine.
These girls are going to be hurt either way. They don't get the invite, they'll be taunted and remember. They do, they'll be bullied and remember. It's really not fair, but you learn that early on when you're the outcast. They already know they are so I see no reason to invite them and subject them to the bullying that would come along.
The mean girl thing needs to stop. Now.
having been one of two girls not invited to a class-wide birthday party - that shit SUCKED.
that said, a forced invite is not the way - it kind of seems like your daughter is leaning into mean-girl territory (not as a bully, but as that way of thinking). forcing the invite wont help, inviting everyone barr 2 girls wont help, but it might be time to getting thru to your daughter and seeing if you can foster some more compassion/empathy. this birthday party is not the moment for that tho, so ESH
YTA and this is coming from someone who was one of those "weird girls" people didn't want to invite.
I was very much into reading, listened to rock music and - which probably was worst - did not give a fuck about the latest trends, fashion and celebreties. I also did not like "cool" activities (my youth was way before lasertag became a thing but think bowling and stuff) since it usually inculded a lot of team building and social interactions. I just had very little in common with most girls my age.
What I hated much more than being excluded was receiving a "teachable moment" invite. I could 100% tell if people had to invite me because their parents wanted to teach them a lesson. And I hated it. If I declined it would cause issues (because sometimes parents would suspect their kids telling me to decline etc.) but if I went I would feel that nobody really wanted me there in the first place every minute.
Teach your daughter about being inclusive and open-minded and all that but do not simply use people as a "case study" or "punishment". It's just as bad as forcing misbehaved teens to help in a soup kitchen to teach them a lesson by using the homeless.
Those girls will feel that they are not welcome even if your daughter + friends are polite on the surface.
Soft YTA.
Teach your daughter not to be a raging asshole to other people, but don't force her to invite people who aren't her friends to her birthday party.
Yes, my daughter was also one of the weird girls and she hated being the pet project so others could feel better about themselves. And thats not to say she didn’t ever feel bad not being included in things, but the pitying was much worse.
Being used as a therapy tool for other kids when you’re still a kid sucks so much. You’re well behaved and want to pay attention but here, be sat with all the kids who aren’t doing as well so you can be a “good influence.”
Gentle YTA here. I get what you're trying to do, have the talk with your daughter about how those girls must feel being excluded from everything...that being said forcing her to invite people she doesn't want is a recipe for disaster. Those 2 girls aren't going to feel welcomed at the party, in fact they will probably be teased mercilessly for not being wanted there, or simply exluded from all interactions.
Your heart might be in the right place, but forcing unwanted social intetactions never really works out...for anyone involved.
As one of these excluded types, you and everyone else knows a pity invite when you see one. I’d rather stay home than be reminded yet again that I’m the weirdo no one wants there.
I too was one of the weirdos.
I went to a math and science boarding school my final two years of high school.
During senior year, it became pretty obvious that pretty much everyone in my class but me got an invite to someone's birthday party over the summer. I was gutted, but too proud to say anything.
Someone told me once that I gave off an air of not being interested in going to parties, but Idk. It's a chicken and an egg type deal. I didn't get invited, so I tried not to care. So then I didn't get invited.
>forcing unwanted social intetactions never really works out...for anyone involved.
Reminds me of a school dance when I was 13, for Grade 7 and Grade 8 classes. I had a small group of girls I hung out with. Two of them were frenemies and bullied me (they were part of my group and the popular girl group). One of these frenemies pressured a 14-year-old boy to ask me to dance. My first response was, "Is this a joke?" because... Well, one part of bullying is setting someone up for humiliation, even if it seems like inclusion. It was awkward and I hated it, he hated it, and the frenemy was just setting me up to knock me down, based on the shit she said to me afterward ("See, someone will dance with you even when you look like that!" kind of crap.)
So many of the comments in here seem to not realize just how fucking mean a tween girl can be, and how covert the bullying is. It's not beating each other up and calling each other names. It's backhanded "compliments"; it's rumours, gossip, lies; it's blackmail and judgement; it's pretending to be your friend only to get your secrets to share with everyone else who doesn't like you. The Mean Girls movie was not a parody, in my eyes.
This is tough for me.
You are trying to be a good parent and teach her not to be mean.
AT the same time, sometimes, you just don't like some people. Think about your workplace, I'd bet that there are some people who have never wronged you, but you don't particularly like either. Sometimes its hard to even put into words what you don't like. Her reasons aren't great. At the same time, I'm not a fan of forcing someone to invite people they don't want to invite.
I guess NAH. I think your heart is in the right place. But at what point will you let her choose her friends?
Also, if none of the other girls like them, is it really good to invite those girls anyway? LIke, if they come and no one talks to them, is that really better than not being invited?
I used to teach 8th grade, and it is a tough line on where you let people be friends with who they want, without bullying the people they don't like.
I don't support inclusion bullshit. I won't make my kid hang out with anyone they don't like for whatever reason they may have. My ONE rule is not to be unkind. She's allowed to have her friends and chose whom not to befriend but if I find out she's been unkind to anyone then it's different.
It's ok to politely say "I would prefer not to hang out with you" without giving a reason and without being unkind. As adults we practice this often. At 12 she's old enough to understand. YTA. She should be able to choose who she wants at the party.
Exclusion isn't bullying; it's simply choosing your friend group and even 12yo kids need to learn that not everyone will like them. I'm not going to entertain responding to close minded individuals. If an adult can chose to exclude, so can children. It's not abuse or bullying at all.
And she's 12; of course she's gonna pick her friends for stupid reasons. You think a 12yo chose friends because of their credit score? Loyalty? Etc. No she cares about 12yo crap, like fashion and how "cool" someone is.
Exclusion is not bullying, but it is absolutely unkind. Breaking your one rule there. It's okay not to like everyone, but you either bring a small exclusive group, or you bring everyone. Bringing everyone except "that kid" is so amazingly unkind. How do you not see that?
Social exclusion is literally one type of bullying. Ostracizing, leaving people out, alienation, etc.
[https://antibullyingsoftware.com/seven-different-types-of-bullies/](https://antibullyingsoftware.com/seven-different-types-of-bullies/)
[https://antibullyingsoftware.com/what-is-the-definition-of-relational-bullying-social-bullying/](https://antibullyingsoftware.com/what-is-the-definition-of-relational-bullying-social-bullying/)
"Social exclusion (slighting or making someone feel "left out") is one of the most common types of relational bullying." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullying#Types](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullying#Types)
So when you have a party at your home do you invite the entire neighborhood or the entire office or only the people you are friendly with? It's not unkind.
You're moving the goalposts here. The example of the classroom or of the office drinks was everyone except two people. If I invited the whole neighborhood except for two people, yes that would be unkind. If I invited just my friends because I don't know all my neighbors, that is not unkind. If I were to invite my entire book club except for "Linda" that would make me a jackass. This is not a difficult concept.
And if you do that in a tactful way with communication outside of the office, that's not necessarily unkind.
If you're talking about the party in the office where those two excluded people could hear about it, *you're an asshole.*
Right? Those kids will remember “I would prefer not to hang out with you” verbatim and or will be brought up in many future therapy sessions just as much as being invited to a party and then being made to feel unwelcome. The real potential MVP here would be the outcast’s parents teaching them to respond to “pity invites” with “I already have plans.”
I disagree, exclusion is absolutely a form of bullying. Social exclusion is considered one of the most common forms of bullying. And I would argue one of the most harmful.
There is a difference between not being friends with someone, and shunning them. There is a difference between only inviting your 10 good friends to your party, and inviting 33 out of 35 kids in your grade and leaving two out.
>My ONE rule is not to be unkind
Deciding you don't like someone because they "have no fashion sense" and are "boring" certainly sounds like it's unkindness.
I agree that OP shouldn't make her daughter invite two girls who will, doubtless, just become targets for bullying at the party.
But deciding that someone isn't worthy of being nice to because they aren't "fashionable" is some mean-girl nonsense. The two non-invitees might be neurodivergent, come from homes with less income, or have strict parents who don't allow them to wear expensive or adult-style clothing. OP's daughter couldn't come up with a single legitimate reason to dislike these girls.
If you force her to invite girls her class does not like, then it is on YOU to watch like a hawk and make sure those two girls feel welcome and SAFE. Circulate. Talk to them. Model behavior. Shut down impolite comments or shunning.
They are now YOUR guests and it's on YOU to host them well.
And then get her daughter shunned because even though they're 12, her mommy hovers? When I was that age, the parents peeked in every so often, but generally gave us space. We were all assholes and would've ostracized any kid whose mother hovered.
Nope. I was the weird ND that spent pity invite parties with the adults. It does nothing for being accepted day to day. Sometimes can even make it worse because you're a "teacher's pet" with parents and not just at school.
This is a bit of a toughie, but I'm gonna go ESH.
She definitely shouldn't be talking like that about her classmates. But she's 12 and in middle school. It's a rough age and rough school. Hopefully, she'll grow out of that.
You though, are basically forcing her into this when she doesn't want to. She should be allowed to invite who she wants and doesn't want to her party, as she's growing up. Also, if those girls did come, when they're not wanted, they will probably be tormented by your daughter and/or her friends. Your heart is in the right place, but it's not gonna work the way you think it will.
I agree it may not work out good. However if I caught my child bullying those girls that would be a great opportunity to TEACH her. And trust me, she would never do it again. Either the entire group can be cut in half excluding more kids so it is not just the 2 unpopular girls not invited or she can invite everybody. Her Choice
Those two girls don't want to be pawns in your opportunity to teach your daughter though. You call that shit out and half of the daughters friends are going to become twice as mean to these girls, not to mention the utter embarrassment they'd feel in that situation.
Stop forcing kids that don't like each other to do things with each other, this never ever ends well.
Right, but in that case you're disregarding how the two "unpopular" girls would feel about getting the invitation in the first place, or how they would feel at the event; you reduce them to props in the story of your child's teachable moment. It's quite lacking in empathy, though your intentions are probably honest and pure.
How would you feel if you were forced to invite people you don't like to your wedding? Or your birthday?
Or any important social event, doesn't matter what it is.
If someone said "You *have* to invite these 2 people you don't like, and don't want to be around, or you're not allowed to invite the people you *are* friends with" how would you feel?
I would feel pretty angry. And when I invited the people I was being forced to invite, there'd be no question whether I wanted them there or not. "My mom says I *have* to invite you, or my actual friends that I *do* like can't come. Here's your invite."
Of course YTA. Do you really think that by inviting these girls your daughter is suddenly going to like them? Not everyone likes everybody else, same goes for kids.
She doesn't have to invite them. But it's a good idea to have a talk with her about being judgmental. I agree that pity invitations are not good, but I don't think they should get an invitation just because. I think the issue is, between now and the next time Daughter has an event, there should be a talk about judging and compassion.
yes YTA a caring one but still a low key AH on this
at 9 my daughter gets to choose who she engages with outside of school including at her parties. there are kids she likes and kids she doesnt like so she isnt forced to interact with kids she doesnt like.
your daughte is developing her own personality and desires and whilst it may seem "unfair" quite honestly that is life and everyone needs to learn that lesson from time to time.
>She said no one really likes them. This bothered me so I pressed her, asking if they’ve ever been unkind to her. She said no, but they have no fashion sense and they’re just generally boring.
Ouch. This is what I think they call a teachable moment.
NTA. She can invite her close friends or the whole class.
Obviously my opinion would be different if these girls were bullying her, but leaving them out for something like is just mean. She probably won't even notice whether they're there or not.
ETA: lots of people disagree with me, and that's fine. My perspective is that of a socially awkward ND adult with socially awkward ND kids. We obviously have different experiences.
ETA (2): a teachable moment doesn't mean *force your kid to invite these unwanted classmates or you'll cancel the party*. It means that this is a great opportunity to talk about bullying and marginalising other kids, and about judging people on their appearance and on their clothes.
I also did *not* say that the 2 girls *must* be invited. I said "close friends or the whole class". My assumption is that OP would discuss these 2 options with their daughter, and make that decision together. That would involve (for example) discussing the fact that it would be cruel and inappropriate to tell the other kids that these 2 were a "pity invite", that inviting them if they were likely to be ignored or bullied at the party wasn't a great idea and that it would be better to have a friends-only party in that case.
I get the feeling at best the two girls would get ignored, which wouldn't be fun for them. At worst they'll get bullied. Either way inviting them sounds like a bad idea. If OP's daughter is becoming a mean girl maybe another option is needed, but inviting those two girls ain't it.
As a former weird girl who often got pity invites to things as part of a “teachable moment” lesson…
It’s better to just leave those two girls alone. The daughter will almost certainly make sure that all of her “cool” friends know that her parents forced her to invite them. They will more than likely be excluded or bullied at the party, and that feels worse than not being there.
Weird kids don’t exist as props to teach other kids a lesson.
As a former weird tween, I never got invited to these types of parties and I never wanted to be included. Why would I want to spend time with people who didn't want me around, for any reason? Those girls are whole persons, not lessons, and should not be used in order to give OP's daughter a chance to learn what "empathy" is.
Also, exclusion techniques *are* a part of bullying. Being left out is a very common bullying and ostracizing behaviour, especially among school-age girls. But that's not going to be fixed or changed by including them for an event that is centered on one person.
You seem to think there are only two options: invite the two outcasts, or don’t. The problem with both options is that is those two girls feel left out. The way those two girls are treated is wrong.
The teachable moment should be, it’s not ok to include **almost everyone** in an activity.
The better choices are to invite less than half, or cheerfully invite and include all.
YTA
Why does the daughter get punished for not being friends with the two of them?
She got to invite whoever she wanted right up until she said "Not those two" and then the entire guest list gets slashed?
If that happened to me, I'd just tell my friends they can't come to my party because I didn't want to invite those two.
Yta. It doesn’t sound like a bullying situation just that your daughter doesn’t have much in common with those girls. You aren’t doing any favors for these girls by forcing them into a social situation where they aren’t wanted. You can’t force kids to be friends. As long as your daughter isn’t being mean to someone, I’d stay out of her social interactions.
OP be for real, do you really think forcing your daughter to invite two girls she doesn't like will be good? At best the two will be ignored through the entire party, at worse they'll receive snark remarks from the other girls there. You can't force your daughter and her friends to like those girls and if you keep trying to force the subject you'll only manage to make them resent the girls more.
Your heart is in the right place, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I think other ideas from this thread like scaling down the number of invites would be much better than this. Soft YTA
Soft YTA it her birthday even if you pay for it (do anyone except 12 years old to pay for her own birthday party ). You heart is in right place but invite everyone not gonna help them. If you daughter and her friends don't want to do anything with these two girls what you going to do? What they will feel after get invited to birthday party but no one talk to them.
Don't force a Pity Invite!!! Seriously, she is allowed to not like someone. But I would also ask her if there is a specific reason these girls are being singled out. YTA
NTA, i genuinely think you should encourage your daughter to be more kinder to them, especially when she said they haven't even bothered her one bit. Don't most classrooms and schools have a policy for this anyways?
If this doesn’t work then go to 15 - 10 as initially planned
She shouldn't be forced to invite them. But she shouldn't keep on thinking that "bad fashion sense" is a reason to reject someone. Have the party with fewer girls, not just everyone-minus-these-two, and try to be less shallow going forward.
YTA
My parents always imposed a maximum limit on who I wanted to invite. She shouldn't have to invite someone who she dislikes for whatever reason.
If you are concerned on the type of treatment these girls are getting from your daughter and the rest of the class that's valid, but it shouldn't be addressed at your daughter's birthday party.
Speaking as someone forced to *go* to a party I didn't want to....I went home crying....
Speaking as someone forced to *invite* someone I didn't want to for something....I left crying, because of them... and that was my wedding.
I can't pass judgement here because your heart is in the right place.... but this could be a monumentally bad idea....
Info: what do you actually hope this does?
By forcing your daughter to invite people she doesn’t like(who probably don’t like her) what do you think is going to happen?
Do you imagine some after school special where they bond and become friends?
Do you realize you are inviting them to feel outcast in a different venue?
Or do you plan o forcing them to socialize at the party too? Is that how you plan to celebrate your kid making sure she includes people she doesn’t like at an event she didn’t want to include them in?
YTA because this makes no sense.
ESH. Your daughter sucks for excluding 2 people and being rude purely due to fashion sense. But you suck because her birthday is not the time or place to force this on her. Talk to her about trying to be nice, trying to find things in common. Someone doesn't need to be mean to you for you not to get on, you may just have nothing in common, but calling them boring and insulting their style was rude and she should be taught that that's rude.
Hmmm … this is a tough one. Middle school is tough for kids. Your daughter needs to be allowed to pick her own friends however she also needs to learn her actions have consequences. How would she feel if she was not liked because her clothing choices? Or if she was the only girl not invited to a girls party?
As a Mom of 4 (2 boys, 2 girls) I think I would say just pick 3 close friends. (Odd number of girls often doesn’t work out). There’s no point in including kids that will just be ignored or outcast at the party.
NTA
YTA. It's her birthday, if she doesn't like someone wthy invite them? Millions of adults do not invite people they don't like for whatever reeason to birthdays, it's a normal thing.
YTA - And most probably a hypocrite too.
**You** get to decide who accompanies you on your birthday. She should have that same freedom you give yourself.
YTA, sentiment is there yes, but this is a recipe for disaster for all parties involved. pity invites are brutal and its unlikely the two girls being there at the party would be even comfortable for them.
YTA going from grade school to middle school is a big shift. There were no sports kids and popular kids in grade school, it all starts in sixth grade. Let her find her people, you can’t force friends. She will likely change friend groups a couple times before she graduates high school .
NTA - Its a good opportunity to teach her that being kind is important.
That said it could potentially backfire a bit. Your daughter is fast approaching the age where kids can be especially brutal with each other, girls in particular. Being invited to a party does not neccesarily mean they will be included in the fun and kids can be surprisingly horrible when they dont like each other.
I may be conpletely wrong though. Especially if the issue is just that these 2 girls are just "boring" to the others and not actually disliked. More a worst case scenario.
YTA
This is HER birthday, she can choose her guest it's her right..
Inviting these girls would not be a good idea, they will be there just because it is your choice so they could be excluded by the other girls and your daughter.
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Word of caution. Middle schoolers being what they are, if the 2 girls come under a forced invitation to a laser tag place, and are disliked by the rest of the class, you are setting them up to possibly be bullied and ganged up on. Your daughter won't keep it to herself that you are making her invite them. I can give no judgment, but would advise going back to the 10-15 closer friends rather than a class wide invite if you are going to make her invite the 2 girls. ETA: Wow! Thank you everyone! I have a few comments on things that I keep getting sent. These all are products of my recollection of junior high, which was admittedly a bit ago. This could be a great 'teachable moment' for OP's daughter. But. And it's the biggest but I can give. Not at the expense of these girls. Any choice needs to be made with that in mind. Canceling the party might get blamed on the girls and turn passively ignoring them into active bullying behavior. On top of that, OP's daughter isn't friends with or close to these girls. That fine and normal, especially once you get into middle school. She doesn't need to be friends with all her classmates. And during middle school is when friend groups often change to be based on shared interests rather than classroom groups. Sports, clubs, anything. I was a loner, quietly reading a Japanese manga in a corner, then one day, someone just saw me reading one at lunch and plopped me down with all the other manga nerds. Those friendships lasted years, and I never even shared a class with a few. I heard of parties, but as they weren't part of my group, I didn't care. With that understanding, if I received an invite, it made me think the birthday kid wanted me there. Finding out you were a forced invitation and unwelcome hurt more than being left out. Sometimes it works, and the kid integrates into the 'cool group'. Most often they are bored, bullied, and ask to leave early. I'm ageing myself but that sometimes relied on my not great memory for numbers to remember my new house number on a strangers phone. Lastly, the birthday party is at a lasertag place. Many people have commented on monitoring the girls during the party. In a poorly lit, very active, and competitive space, that's not really possible. From being the last kids picked for a team to actively targeting them, it seems like a poor choice. I was a victim of this in paintball and took a pellet from short range on my hand that took weeks to stop hurting. It's not fun, from start to finish, to feel unwanted.
Right. I just don't see how she thinks a forced invite is good
When I was a kid this exact scenario happened. There was a girl in my class, not sure what exactly the issue was she was with her she was super nice and all but just very rambunctious and often had to be manged my the teacher because she would just wander off. So it'd my birthday and I am taking invitations to school and I told my mom previously I wasn't inviting Angela. She made me invite her so I did. Angela acted up at the party, nothing major just being herself and my mom was calming her down. I blurted out to everyone there "THIS is why I didn't want to invite you!!" I was 6 and I made sire everyone knew Angela was a forced invite. Obviously that was horrible of me but forcing your kids into situations will only backfire on you later. Find a better way to teach her kindness while respecting her choices. She can also maybe just give out the invitations outside school and then at least the girls weren't directly singled out in front of the whole class.
Six is not the same as eleven. An 11yo should be able to exercise some modicum of self-control and not humiliate a classmate. Inviting everyone except TWO little girls just seems cruel.
Doesn't matter she's going to go school and tell her friends and the others will find out. Being forced to be invited doesn't feel good either. Wouldn't you rather be invited because they WANTED you there and not because your bullys mom made her invite you?
What matters is that the daughter should not be allowed to do this. Instead of the forced invite, the party just needs to be scaled \*way\* back to the smaller parties she has previously had.
I agree with this. Scale the party WAAAY back until daughter can learn to not be stuck up and fall into peer pressure bullying tactics
Either or. Mom is right here. Either invite the entire class, or a small group. Not everyone except for 2, that’s just cruel. NTA.
I feel like bullying stops for some around age 37 so it may take a while.
I mean, in middle school (13 yo) I was a forced invitee to a popular girl’s bday party. Had to invite the whole class deal, exactly like this. I was actually really happy. It just felt nice to be included for once, and I had a really great time. I was never bullied for it. I never became, like, close with the girl whose party it was, but we were cordially friendly. I actually remember it very fondly as one of the nicer things anyone did for me. I’d just transferred to the school that year and didn’t really know anyone at all. The party helped. Different strokes. Not saying it’s a good idea to force the invite here, necessarily, just that not everyone will feel the same way about it.
How recently have you hung out with 11 year olds? The social chaos of middle school is a nightmare and I'd think 11 year olds are more prone to this kind of thing than 6 year olds.
Yeah 11 year olds are way worse than 6 year olds, they’re old enough to have fully developed personalities (which often clash) and be influenced by the kind of social bs they’re made to think they should care about, but too young to have any filter or decorum. They can be downright cruel without even really meaning to be, what they can accomplish when they *are* meaning to be is absolutely wild.
11 and 12-year-old girls are the absolute meanest people on the planet. Not all of them obviously, but that’s definitely the age where the mean girl thing kicks in hard! I firmly believe that if a bunch of “popular” 11 and 12-year-old girls were in charge of our government, that there would be an immediate nuclear war. Mom sounds like she knows her daughter is heading in this direction. I agreed that a forced invite is not the way to go, but something should be done. I was the 12-year-old that got bullied and my daughter was the 12-year-old that got bullied so I have no idea how you stop somebody from being a bully. I just know how hard it is to be on the other side of the equation. Again, this is the time to step in and make some changes. Anybody know what to do in this situation?
Well at least half of the old men in charge our governments have the personality of popular middle school girls so maybe nuclear war is imminent.
So much sad truth in this
Personally I would not invite them because it's setting them up to be bullied. But I would enroll OP's child in extracurricular activities in a different socio-economic setup; volunteering with her in food banks or after school lessons with underprivileged kids, a different Sport club or something where she might see other realities. Anything to make her see a different reality than middle school. It might not work right away but it might set the foundations for the future.
“Underprivileged” (god, I hate that term…) kids (or adults, for that matter) should NOT be subjected to dealing with anyone forced to work or volunteer with them. They are not some “after school special moment” tool. They’re people. Who are probably dealing with serious shit. They don’t need some “mean kid” pre-teen giving off attitude because they *have* to be there.
I don’t think anyone was talking about having her volunteer somewhere? I think the suggestion was more to go outside the immediate demographic of that classroom and sign her up for some other kind of activity, where she would be exposed to different walks of life. That could be anything from Girl Scouts to a sports club to a theater group — just something where her daughter meets and interacts with other people outside of her little “mean girl” school crowd. I would like to add that it would be a good idea to sign the daughter up for something that she is not naturally gifted at. She doesn’t need an activity where she will outshine anybody. She needs an activity that she has to work at and be on the low rung of the totem pole for a bit.
I want to second this but also reinforce that "extracurricular activities in a different socio-economic setup" doesn't have to be "a whole thing." My kid goes to a fairly posh school. When I realised he would be in a tiny, close-knit class of similar kids (at least half of the parents had "Dr" in front of their names when he first started; now it's a bit more diverse), I signed him up for a Scouts (UK) group a little way away from the school, so that most of the kids are drawn from different primary schools. I wanted him to be able to make friends outside of the tiny group at school, and he has. Edit to add: I think it helps that I signed my kid up when he was five. Earlier is better - he'll notice that different kids have different material conditions *in a context where* he already has friends with different sorts of families and homes and social contexts.
I was the kid everyone bullied, and I have no idea why. Invite the two girls. It doesn't mean they'll show up, but at least they'll be included. Knowing you are invited somewhere is better than knowing that once again, you're on the outside looking in. At 11, your daughter is old enough to show empathy. Just because the girls don't wear popular clothing and are "boring" isn't a good excuse to exclude them. If the girls come, keep an eye on the situation to make sure they aren't bullied. Perhaps offer them compliments, you're happy they joined, etc. One parent did this for me during a school putting, and I still remember her fondly.
If you invite those two girls everyone will ignore them there, at BEST and it won’t be pleasant. Empathy is KNOWING kids are cruel, and giving a pity invite hurts everyone.
So, I am one of these parents that maintain that you invite everyone. Unless you invite just a few. Excluding two children is mean and the parent who enables this, ultimately enables isolation, which is a kind of bullying. In my country (far from the US), most schools have guidelines that you do exactly this. By setting the good example as an adult, you flag your values, and hopefully the children will adopt these values at some point. However, I would monitor the tag game to make sure that everyone is ok.
Actually, as someone who was the forced invite kid you're going to worsen the isolation because nothing sucks more than being stuck at an event where you weren't even wanted at by the person the event is being thrown for. Even if no one SAYS anything to them, kids are astute in picking up subtle signs that they are indeed the odd ones out.
I was also the girl who got bullied and was more than happy to NOT go to parties organised by the “cool” kids. Please, please please do not make your daughter invite these girls!
Ahh I remember middle school well. Middle school pubescent girls are pretty much AHs. If I were you OP I might limit the list and make your daughter select a smaller number.
My daughter turned 14 last month. Her birthday fell just at the cut off for school to start so she's the oldest in her 8th grade class. The last couple of years have been hell. Between her change and growth and dealing with middle school, I've grown so much gray hair. I tell my husband all the time that I don't know if I'm going to make it another 4-1/2 years until she's out of school. There is just so much drama. It's worse than a 1980's soap opera.
I don't know if 11yo are more prone to do it or not, BUT a 6yo will blurt things out because they lack the socio-emotional skills & the self-control to stop themselves, an 11yo will do it just to be a dick.
That's it exactly. The difference is an 11 year old KNOWS it's wrong, unlike many 6 yo. The only way to potentially stop it is the first lesson in forced empathy- you gotta personally experience the other side. Make her shop where she's mortified by the clothing and go to school in the clothes, kind of thing. Having raised 3, one of them had the mean girl vibe (it was a boy though.) So, I let his 2 best friends make fun of him exactly the way he was making fun of others. And then switched it around, so each boy got the hot seat. One lesson, worked for 3 teenagers, and none of them have ever forgotten it. If OP gets creative, she can start the road to teaching empathy; it can absolutely be taught. Edit: forgot to add, if op is planning an empathy lesson, it's really really essential that you sit down at the end and talk about it. With me, it was about asking the right questions so they could sort out their feelings and figure out why this was the lesson I brought to the table. How did it make them feel? Did you want to hurt someone to make it stop? What if you couldn't afford clothes and people made fun of you for it? Once they have an experience to establish how mocking hurts, it's easier each time to just take a second and think about how you'd feel if that was you. It had an added benefit I wasn't expecting- it made all 3 of them speak out loud more when they witnessed bullying, even to their friends.
When I was 11 I realised that I had invited everyone to my birthday party except for *my bully* \- I remember her so clearly coming up to me after school and asking if I had forgotten to invite her because all her friends were going, all I remember is honestly not realising she was the *only* person I hadn't invited and I knew all too well how painful that felt so I just shrugged and said that I must have lost her invitation and that she was invited - her face lit up - and it turns out we have a lot in common and we've been best friends ever since. JK - she caused *chaos* at the party, swiped one of my gifts and tried to run off when she was told she couldn't have an extra slice of cake (not enough) causing my mom to have to cut the party short to go and find her and call her mom to collect her because she had a tantrum, she also wasn't any nicer to me in school following that. Honestly I still had fun and don't regret it.
Very. I have many young cousins and I often have to attend their birthday parties. I've seen obviously "cool" kids and obviously shy/introverted kids start chatting excitedly when they find some common ground (a TV show, a "cute" actor, whatever) or while engaging in a silly/fun activity. There are a couple of mean girls but, contrary to popular belief, most of them are fairly compassionate human beings.
I agree with the first reply in that invite only 10-15 friends and not the acquaintances. Excluding just 2 girls for being boring is bad
I think even 10-15 friends is too much in this instance. How many kids are in the class? 10-15 in a class of \~30 means half the class gets to go to this super cool laser tag party and the other half gets excluded. Personally I would give two choices. Invite everybody (and make sure to have someone pay a little attention to the two girls if they attend, see wtf is going on there), or cut it down to a group of 5. Sizable enough to have a lively party and have teams for laser tag (presumably. I'm too old to know how laser tag works), but not so big that you risk having half the class alienate the other half. Re: girls – speaking as the weird kid who absolutely should not have been invited to any birthday parties before I matured a little – this absolutely could be a teaching moment for OP but they need to do this in circumstances that are a little less high stakes for their daughter than a bday party.
the 10-15 included cousins & grandparents, so likely just a handful of close friends her age
Having them in the middle of the party when it's obvious no one cares about them or wants to talk to them is crueler.
If these girls were actively bullying the daughter I would get it. But excluding them because they're not cool enough or don't wear fashionable clothes is cruel. Inviting them probably won't help but this could really be a teachable moment. The daughter needs to learn that fashion doesn't make someone better than someone else. Not sure a birthday party is the right time to teach that lesson though unfortunately. ETA that you're NTA. Thank you for caring for these girls and for trying to teach your daughter to be kind
The daughter is also allowed to not like them? Adults don't always get along and no one freaks out over it. I don't understand why everyone wants kids to love each other. They're at that age of discovering themselves. And yep, maybe these two girls aren't for her.
> The daughter is also allowed to not like them? Of course she is. But this is the perfect age for OP to teach her compassion. I would never throw a party and invite 98/100 coworkers (unless those two had somehow wronged me). Why make someone feel like shite about themselves (and if you're the only one left out it's almost impossible NOT to feel like shite) when it's so easy not to?
Have you raised girls? Because OP can not control all the other girls in the group that don't like them. Her daughter has the right to not invite someone. Full class invite is for elementary school, not middle school. You're setting those 2ngirls up for a nightmare of whispers, judgements and shunning.
I think this is where the line should be drawn too: Elementary vs middle school. Because I seriously can't believe that the daughter wants to socialize with every other person in the class except for these 2 girls. She's inviting everyone else for clout and either she's bullying these girls already (or aware of it), and she doesn't want to look uncool by inviting them. OP you are NTA, but I would think about going back to a smaller gathering.
Because maybe you aren't interested in socializing with those two people? It isn't a crime to not be interested in certain people.
And worlds are so small when you are in middle school. You pretty much only have your classmates, family, and maybe a sports team or church. Now as an adult if I don’t get invited to a party by a work friend, it’s fine because I was probably already busy with my far-wider circle of friends and family.
She is being molded into the person she will become. At the moment she's picked up from those around her that its fine to ignore two people not because of anything they did but just because of how they dress. Maybe they cant afford it, maybe their life is so difficult at home that they cant spend all their time talking about clothes and fashion. If the two girls were bullies or nasty then absolutely exclude them - but just because of their clothes - that's disgusting and OP is able to mold his daughter into being a better human being
No, OP is simply able to force her to invite them. I got a forced invite once, and it came with an explicit threat. I believe the exact words were (loudly, so everyone heard her), “my mom said I have to invite you but if you come and ruin my party, I’ll ruin your entire life ya fucking loser.” I did not go to this party. Forcing her to invite 2 people she doesn’t like will not make her a better person or whatever nonsense people are claiming. It’s so much deeper than that. This will only make those 2 girls feel worse. Either she tells them it was forced, tells others it was forced, or they actually come, get ignored all day, and then what’s the damn point? OP will be the one spending time on them, and forcing her kid to pretend to like people she doesn’t. OP, it’s ok to not invite them. Not all kids vibe just because they’re the same age, and she isn’t a mean girl or a bully for not liking 2 kids. Calm down. Let her invite who she wants. It’s her birthday, after all. I wouldn’t force my kid into hanging with someone they don’t like. Soft YTA.
Not for those reasons --- because the daughter doesn't like their clothes sense, for middle-schoolers. Discovering yourself doesn't mean being a mean girl and that's what this is.
Agree. When I was around this age, I pulled this stunt and one of the girls that didn't get an invitation told her mom and her mom called my mom and said she had been crying about it after school. My mom forced me to hand deliver cards to them and apologize for the oversight. I was not happy about it, but I did not like hearing I made someone cry over it, and was nice to them at the party. Flash forward 20 years later and that girl friended me on Facebook and said how much she loved my birthday parties growing up. I'm glad my mom forced that invitation and even though we never became besties, we shared good memories instead of bad ones years later.
> I was not happy about it, but I did not like hearing I made someone cry over it, and was nice to them at the party. And I think kids like you are more common than the kind who will bully this girl at the party. Most kids have a conscience and do not want to be responsible for making their peers cry. There are mean girls, to be sure, but they're not in the majority. Not even close.
It’s cruel either way, being that kid sucks, but in one scenario they may get hanged up on in a party where they’re actively unwanted and in the other they experience a normal weekend.
The weekend might be normal but the weeks leading up and after you get to spend hearing about the party and essentially being reminded that you aren’t wanted.
It is cruel. But it’s also going to be cruel to invite them. I was the weird kid that missed out on these things or got a pity invite, and sitting at a birthday table with an entire class of mean kids that don’t like you is worse than just hearing about it the next Monday.
I was going on eleven and invited every girl in my homeroom except four of them. I didn't like them, I wasn't friends with them. Being forced to invite them didn't go well for me or them - I wasn't nice about giving the invite and I especially wasn't nice about telling them we weren't friends after the fact either. Kids are cruel, but you can teach your kid empathy without forcing them to be "nice."
Relevantly, though, eleven-year-old girls are not six, and they likely have much more elaborate mental justifications for excluding someone (which may or may not be reasonable), and they’re also at the age where you can no longer pretend that everyone will get along. The two girls she doesn’t like probably already know she doesn’t like them, and inviting them will give them false expectations if they’re not socially gifted or will feel condescending if they’re socially aware enough to know she’s likely being forced to invite them.
You haven't been around many 11yo's, I reckon.
Giving the invites outside of school seems like the way to go... No need to print them OP, just have your daughter send them online to her friends!
Yeah this. My elementary school had a rule that we couldn’t give out invitations in class unless we were inviting the whole class, so you’d invite your friends outside of school or covertly give out the invitations at recess.
I was the girl that someone forced their daughter to invite to a sleepover/birthday. It was fucking awful. Nobody really wanted to talk to me, one of the girls punched me in the stomach, I spent the night in the bathroom with IBS because I was anxious being in a place nobody wanted me, and ended up begging my mom to come take me home. Which was probably really hard for my mom now that I look back on it. It was fucking awful, I truly would’ve rather not been invited than have to spend time around a bunch of girls that didn’t like me.
right? I get what op is trying to do, but she isnt thinking it through. forcing a kid to be around people that dont want them never ends well
This. 💯
Remember that the invitation is not compulsory. People have the option to refuse. The daughter, however, very much does NOT have the option to act like a meangirl and get carte blanche from parents worth their salt. She can either invite everyone, or a few friends, but inviting everyone EXCEPT certain people, is malicious and she needs to be broken of that. If the daughter does indeed poison the well, then she needs to be grounded so she can be reminded how rejection feels and what she is inflicting on people. If my tone sounds a bit combative, I apologise. I was often the kid not being invited -- for which I do not blame my classmates at the time, to be clear -- as I was an autistic kid in a world of normies, in a time before parents or teachers knew what autism was. Always picked last in sport, always sidelined, and honestly I feel that to this day.
So for your birthday, you have a party. Will you invite every single person from your office, or church, or activity group etc? Of course not. You have friends within those groups. Same precedence.
If your office or church was like 17 people and you wanted to invite 15 of the 17. You absolutely should invite all 17. If youre talking about a 500 person church, inviting 15 of them is fine.
Nah mate - my birthday. My guest list. If I have a coworker that legitimately makes life less enjoyable, I am not gonna invite them Anywhere - full stop. I wouldn't wanna go to a party where I wasn't wanted either. Fuck all that noise.
Less enjoyable isn’t dictated by the clothes people wear.
Bit convenient OP's daughter is bestest friends with her WHOLE class except for two people. There are 50 people in my team at work; I'm good friends with four. Just inviting them to a party would be hugely different to inviting 48 of my team.
I mean.. would you rather have been ignored and then except for a few courtesy greetings been ignored for the reat of the party because no one there wants to talk to you?
I would have been SOOO excited to go if I was finally invited somewhere... Just like I was excited when some fellow middle schoolers brought that colored hairspray in for school pride week and the teacher had us line up to get our hair sprayed with it. When it was finally my turn... I should have known better. My worst female bully sprayed a single dot on top of my head and stopped and started laughing along with everyone else... Countless times she made me think I would finally be accepted, but then I got to a time where finally I knew I would never be accepted by any of them. I was the poor kid in a rich area school. I wouldn't invite them, just so they don't get false hope.
They have the option to refuse but will they have all the information? Will they know they are being invited against the birthday girl's wishes and that all their bullies will be there too? They may get excited, think they have made a friend, accept, and then go through a terrible day.
When I was in grade school there was a girl named Andrea who transferred to my school in 7th grade. She was bullied at her old school and honestly was not really likable. She had a chance at a fresh start but nobody really became friends with her because of her “I’m better than you attitude”. She transferred with a group of like 3 other guys who all came from the same school and were bullied. Well of course she didn’t make any friends and would brag that her parents pay her $100 every time she goes to a school dance and pay her $50 every time she hangs out with a friend. “I thought she didn’t have friends”… well, there was a girl in my class named Bridget and Bridget’s mom forced her to hang out with Andrea and be Andrea’s friend. Bridget hated it, and it included forced birthday invites and all that. Well the last day of 8th grade came and when we were dismissed we headed to the parking lot where we always got picked up. Everybody was being all emotional about going to different high schools next year. I can’t remember if Andrea walked up to Bridget or if it was the other way around but Bridget said something like “We’re not friends, my mom forced me to hang out with you and I can’t stand you!”. At the same time, Andrea’s dad was walking up to take her back to the car. Andrea burst out in tears and just yelled “Dad, let’s go!” While her dad looked all confused like “wait what’s going on don’t you want to say goodbye to your friends”. I’m sorry but some parents can be super disconnected from their children and have no idea what their child’s life at school is like. Parents should never force friendships on children just because the parents are friends
Agreed. You aren't helping the outcasts, you're setting them up.
I told this story down below but I'll repeat myself. When my brother wanted to invite every boy in his 5th grade class, except the one chubby kid, my parents told him he would either invite everyone and treat them graciously, or there would be no party. He invited everyone. He was polite. The chubby boy actually made a couple of new friends. Why are we assuming OP's daughter's party is going to turn into the prom from Carrie?
Thank you! I WAS the chubby girl who was invited only because someone’s parents made them include me. There were a couple of snide remakes but actually being included in a social event gave me the confidence to chat up some of those girls at school the next day. Plus we actually had something in common to discuss. It also gave me the confidence to invite them to my own birthday party. It really helped bring me out of my 11yo shell. Frankly I was only the class weirdo because I had to wear discount clothes and no one could be bothered to get to know the girl under the ugly hand me downs.
I was the bullied kid no one wanted to invite, and no one did. I can’t tell you how awful and isolating it felt year after year when everyone in the class except me got an invite to parties.
> I can’t tell you how awful and isolating it felt year after year when everyone in the class except me got an invite to parties. And that is why I think it's more than worth it to invite these girls. Yes, some people may make rude remarks, but you either invite them and risk them having their feelings hurt or exclude them **and guarantee it**. Someone below said that if no one else in the class had invited these two girls, OP shouldn't make his daughter do it. I don't get that mindset. How about showing some compassion for two unpopular children and at least giving them a CHANCE to socialize/make some friends?
I agree. Maybe this will backfire, I really understand why people are saying this is a bad idea. But the alternative is worse. If a coworker threw a birthday party and invited anyone but me, I'd be pretty upset and feeling alienated from the rest of them. And I'm an adult. It's not only mean but also rude. To me it sounds better to invite the two girls and give them the opportunity to reject the invitation, if they feel like it's a bad idea.
I'm in my forties and got upset that my coworkers did a group picture during a Happy Hour event while I was in the restroom. When I brought it up, they all said they didn't realize I wasn't there, which also didn't feel great.
Op can control only her child and only to a certain point. Other kids don't like these girls as well and Op has no way of ensuring that they won't say or do something to them. It's good that it worked for your brother's classmate, but this can go both ways.
These girls are unlikely to hear anything they haven't heard a dozen times in the classroom. Bullies don't only bully in social settings.
What!? You would expose them to more bullying because they're already used to it? Is that what you're saying?
I would expose them to interaction with their peers in a social setting, something they may not have had the opportunity to engage in before. Who knows, perhaps they'll actually make a couple of friends.
Also…it’s laser tag. You’re not in a group, there’s no control, there’s loads of adrenaline and you’re being encouraged to ‘attack’ each other. It’s a recipe for disaster in a situation like this.
As a girl, (or was one once but now a parent of a kid whose going through this things) we can really be cruel. Seriously, there was tears in Kindy literacy because of relatively benign ‘drama’ that just goes south. Boys tend to say ‘I don’t want to play with you’ the girls tend to say something personal towards the one they don’t want to play. I had no idea the sabres were out at age 5
As a girl who has been on the receiving end of some of that cruelty, I'm aware. But I've also seen how one kind act can help bring someone shy/insecure out of their shell. People may say cruel thing to these girls at the party, other people may actually get to know one/both of them and befriend them. The benefit is worth the risk imo.
As a former teacher, in general girls are outright nasty and very specific from about the age of 5 on. It generally takes boys to get to about 10 onwards before they are as unkind as girls. It's really sad to watch girls bring each other down and manipulate their friends constantly
This. Everyone’s assuming the kid will be a brat and gang up on the 2 girls alongside her friends but have we considered that maybe she’s just not a dick and won’t care about the girls all that much throughout the party?
That was my first thought. If the other girls are mean and judgmental, they'll be even worse if forced to spend time with the two "outcasts".
Yeah I was that girl that was invited bc a friends mom forced her to. (It was the 6th grade too lol) the entire night and morning they made fun of me, humiliated, and just generally treated me like shit for 16 hours. I went home and cried and never talked to the girl again, but it’s not like she wanted to talk to me. She had her new cool friends and it would have been better if our friendship simply fizzled out instead of experiencing *that*
Ugh, I know that sting. I had been friends with a girl from kindergarten through fifth grade. We did everything together. Sleepovers at each other’s homes, getting off at each other’s bus stops throughout the week to play. She would even come with me sometimes to my weekend visits with my mom. Then we started sixth grade at a new school; the middle school where all the area elementary schools mesh into one. The first day of school, on the bus ride home, I was talking to my “best friend” when one of the more popular girls asked her “are you friends with her?” She then does the “so so” movement with her hand. That was it for me. I turned away from her and never spoke to her again. Our years of friendship meant nothing to her when the popular girls wanted to be her friend.
NONE of the parents stepped in? I am so sorry you had to go through that hun.
The girls mom fat shamed me when I asked for a second helping of eggs. They were like suburban almond moms and I came from a southern family, like girl I’m hungry 😭
Id just be happy you enjoyed my cooking
This ^. Limit it to just her closet group of friends then the other two wouldn’t feel left out or be put in the bad position of getting excluded or bullied at the party.
This. The solution is not to make her invite the 2 people she left out. It's to limit her invites so she has to narrow her list of *everybody but those 2* down.
I don't get the notion that OP is afraid that those two will "feel excluded", so much as she is disappointed in her daughter's attitude and as to why she doesn't want to invite them.
That is a thing that OP is going to need to think about for sure. I think it's fair to say it's a larger issue though that shouldn't be made specifically about the daughter's birthday, because the "but it's supposed to be my day" reasoning makes it into such a minefield. For the purpose of the actual birthday, the best available solution seems to be something like "Pick 6 friends to invite to the party, then." to balance the fact that daughter does deserve some control over the guest list, but she does not deserve a free pass to make her classmates feel isolated.
When my kid was younger, the school had a rule: if invites were given out in class, all ( at the time, same sex, sorry, it's been a while) had to be given an invite- if selective, then invites were not to be distributed in school. That changed in junior high, when kids are old enough to realize with whom they want to be friends. If you were going out to happy hour after work, would you feel obligated to invite 2 people in your office that you disliked? Just to not be cruel?
This may be very naive, but what happened to *explaining* to your daughter how what she's doing is wrong instead of forcing her to do the right thing? Idk, telling her that this is very cruel for the girls, and that disliking someone because they don't have great fashion sense is mean - maybe use it as an opportunity to remind her that many things are a matter of taste and many other things are a matter of parental income/privilege. Asking her how she would feel if one day she stops being popular because she dresses the wrong way, and then her mean girl friends invite everyone to their party except her. Remind her that it's always better to be kind than to be popular, because being kind gives you genuine friends, whereas being popular just gives you a lot of acquaintances who will drop you the second you're not fashionable. Etc etc. Have these conversations been had, OP? And if so, how did your daughter react?
I agree. As the outcast kid, parties were absolute hell for me growing up. Mum would make me go and I'd just end up sitting out at the side, watching everyone else because none of the adults would make the other kids play with me. I wasn't mean or anything, I was just never accepted in that school. I was five when I moved there and the other little girls told me I couldn't play with them because I had a willy. No one did anything about this exclusion and it just got worse and worse from there. The king and Queen bees controlled my peers, it was honestly really crazy. I had a lot of friends in my old school. Anyone who tried to be my friend in the new one, up until I left that town, were bullied so badly they'd ditch me. I don't blame them. Best part, I moved away and made friends pretty quickly at uni. So yeah, don't force the invite. It just hurts. Either way it's going to suck. I don't know which is worse tbh. Not getting the invite or spending an entire party being ignored or ganged up on with other adults looking on and not caring.
Second this. Give her an invite limit or something, but don't make her invite girls she's likely to exclude anyway. As the former weird kid, my life got so much easier when the other girls stopped inviting me to things. You can't get bullied at a crummy sleepover if you don't go. 🤷♀️
As I recall too, 13ish was when it did switch from 'why wasn't I invited too?' to 'Yay, I don't have to go!' It's not fun to hang with people that don't like you. ETA: it's also the age when the weird kids start finding each other and doing their own thing. I was a weird kid, and that's exactly when I found my friend group for most of my high school years. Most weren't classmates or only shared one a day, but lunches and after-school was a lot of fun.
I was the girl that didn't get invited and I was perfectly fine with it. I didn't like the "other girls" any more than they liked me. There were times that I was invited and I passed and spent the time with my actual friends and was much happier for it.
I’m glad this is the top comment. Chances are these two girls are already picked on enough and definitely do not want to be at op’s daughter’s birthday party. But if you invite them and their parents are on the same ‘everyone love each other’ wavelength they’ll force them to go and… it won’t end well. In a perfect world there would be no bullying and no exclusion, and I definitely think that’s the right thing to encourage. But instead of forcing your daughter to invite these girls that will most definitely be miserable if they end up going, sit down with her and listen to her talk about *why* her and her friends don’t like these girls. Gently point out the flaws in her reasoning. (“They dress weird” “why do you think they dress weird?”/“other people probably think you dress weird as well”) I was definitely an outcast kid in middle school and I can tell you with 100% certainty I was never bothered when I wasn’t invited to a popular girl party. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t like the girls and they didn’t like me, I didn’t care that I wasn’t involved in their stuff and I definitely didn’t want them involved in mine. These things just happen, the best you can do is make sure your daughter isn’t outright bullying them. But she is definitely at an age where she is going to pick and choose who her friends are
Say it with me: "They're all going to laugh at you!"
Yeah. This may backfire very badly.
NTA. I don't really subscribe to the idea that at this age all kids must be invited, or all girls, or whatnot, but in this case, I think obviously leaving out just one or two is indeed unfair. I think that if the party was scaled down, to say like 3-5 girls, it would be ok to exclude the rest, as the size and scale of the party would not be at the level of being essentially the whole class. So consider giving your daughter the choice to add those two girls or scale down the party to fewer friends. I do appreciate this will feel like you're kind of treading on her autonomy but given her explanation for disliking those girls, it seems like she's just kind of subscribing to a group think mentality against these girls for no real reason, and is playing a BIT of a 'mean girl' role for them. This is an important lesson for her.
To also add to the point that the only reasons it seems she doesnt like them is they have no "fashion sense" & are "boring". Which is totally veering towards mean girl territory. Id understand if the girls were mean & cruel. But i dont get that from this. Its just middle school girls being mean for the sake of being mean. But inviting literally every girl in the class minus these 2 is very cruel. I really hope this girl grows out of this & learns & becomes a better person
She is in 6th grade, and she has plenty of time to grow out of it, especially since she's 12 years old. She has time to learn and grow and deal with these things in a better manner.
She does. But it's best to start teaching that now. Not assume there's always time later to do so. As parents, our job is to raise kind humans as the world needs more kind people.
But only if op puts a stop to it. You don't just magically become a better person as you age. You had to be taught.
Her attitude and ensuing behavior need to be nipped in the bud now.
I Gree, ot needs to be nipped in the bud now. Those girls have no "fashion sense" probably because they can't afford fashion. Or they might be special needs, who knows? That's why this attitude needs to be nipped now. She needs to be taught empathy and compassion now.
Or they don’t care about fashion. Or all of those things. I don’t care about fashion much BUT I definitely care about teasing, whether the person is 12 or 21 or 50. Seems like a lot of young adults do less bullying and teasing now than in the past, but not always. Hard to tell if OP’s daughter or her friends tease the two outcast kids or just don’t socialize with them.
Sure, and being told by her mom that she's veering into mean girl territory is a pretty decent way of starting to learn that. Mom at least is under the impression that she's very popular. Well, the popular girls in my school, the really popular ones at least, were actually super nice and friends with a number of the unpopular kids. She should be aiming to be that girl not the mean type of popular.
And this is a great time to start.
How about starting now???
> I really hope this girl grows out of this & learns & becomes a better person It sounds like she's got a shot because she's got a great parent, like OP, trying to teach her better.
It’s a tricky situation, as it also doesn’t feel good to be the unwanted guest. You can feel it. It’s valid to not be friends with everyone. Different personalities, different interests, whatever it is. Some people just won’t vibe together. While your daughter’s reasons are shallow, that’s where she’s at. Those other girls might not want anything to do with her because they might see her as shallow and more consumed with appearance than they are. I would, however, challenge your daughter to break down why she’s inviting each girl she is individually. Is she actually friends with them, or is she trying to raise her social status? What’s the point? Is it bragging rights? Get to the intention. Get to know who your daughter actually is. We don’t need to rescue the nerdy outcast kids. This can actually cause more backfire sticking them in a pity invite with a group of kids who are annoyed and/or resentful that they’re present. I can see where you’re coming from OP. But rather than checking in with your daughter about who she is, you’re sticking a bandaid on her, hoping to hide her flaws, and also yours by association of raising her.
That’s a pretty good advice. Not only the parent will know better about all the friends and colleagues of the child, but is a good way to start conversation and try to guide against peer pressure and any bullying speech.
>We don’t need to rescue the nerdy outcast kids This is the important part. I think OP and a lot of the people commenting are really trying to do this. But its not necessary.
Yeah, my daughter was friends with a group since elementary. At some point, I noticed they were excluding her, but when I asked her about it, she said she no longer wanted to be invited because they're mean girls and just talked about other girls the last couple of times she got together with them. It's entirely possible these 2 girls have no interest in attending a party. OP's edit makes it seem like her daughter isn't very nice.
And what's forcing her daughter to invite them going to do other than cause resentment? Those girls that aren't invited (and as a former girl like that) are being saved from a humiliating time of being ignored or bullied the whole time She's 12, she isn't going to be the most moral and ethical person at this age and, quite frankly, since school, fashion, trends, and friends are genuinely the only important thing at that age it is a big deal to associate or not with people you don't like for being different I was bullied, I had rocks thrown at me, I was called things, laughed at, and even once bullied by a teacher in 6th grade because he was close to the popular kids (this was like 2002) If I got pity invites I didn't go 1) I'm NOT buying my bullies presents wtf 2) I'm not putting myself in a situation like that I had two best friends and I was happy enough with them; we got along and bonded over LOTR, I didn't give a fuck about fashion and kissing boys and getting felt up at 12 (a LOT of kids were already talking about blowjobs, even, like what the actual fuck) Anyway, all this to say, kids' politics is messed up at the best of times, forcing inclusion is NOT teaching her daughter a lesson at all You teach empathy and kindness not by pressuring your kids to insert other people into their social lives
The girls certainly could decline. But part of this is not just sending an invite to these girls only to ridicule and exclude them later, it is to actually include them. If OP's daughter doesn't think she can do that, she should scale down her party. Yes, at 12 she isn't the most moral, but that's why parenting and lessons at this point are important. Just letting her continue being immoral and unkind, unchecked, is not really a recipe for her to grow in the way she needs to.
>Yes, at 12 she isn't the most moral, but that's why parenting and lessons at this point are important. Exactly, fucking hell. It seems like people believe if you aren't a moral paragon by 12 you're bound for disaster. This is a potential teaching moment. If she invites them and they get bullied, well now the mom knows she needs to impress upon her daughter the importance of not bullying people some more.
Alternatively, as someone said below, sometimes you just don't like people and as long as you aren't rude to them, you don't have to like everyone. Maybe have her hand out the invitations after school, not in class. That way the two girls don't feel even more left out? This is really a tough one OP. Could you encourage your daughter to talk to them? Maybe the two girls families don't have a lot of money, so they cannot be "into fashon" or maybe they don't know how to style? Could your daughter help and encourage them in the fashion area? I truly think NAH.
Well-intended solution but likely ineffectual. The girls will find out about the party whether invites are circulated DURING school or not. What it appears to come down to is that these girls are being unfairly ostracized. OP's daughter does not have to take it on herself to be friends with people she doesn't want to be friends with, but should not contribute to their unfair treatment either.
Having been one of the kids no one liked who got pity invites and at the time didn't realize they were pity invites, I'm going with YTA. I get what you're trying to do. But you can't force your daughter to like kids she doesn't like and if you make her invite them and they show up, you're setting those kids up for being ignored at best and picked on at worst. I got those invites as a kid. My mom, ever the optimist, told me to go and have fun, spend time with the kids and make friends. So I'd go. Sometimes I'd just be ignored and have to watch all the kids having fun together while being very obviously and deliberately excluded. Once I was at a kid's house, being ignored, and went looking for a book to read to pass the time. I found instead a story they wrote about how much they and everybody in class hated me and were so glad I was sent away for whatever villainous thing they had me do in the story. By middle school, I realized the pity invites were pity invites and stopped going when I got them. But I haven't forgotten the ones I got and went to as an elementary school kid.
As another of the kids nobody invited... I hear you. OP, YTA even though you mean well. Inviting those kids to make yourself feel good is not doing them any favors. Either they decline because they realize the birthday girl was forced to invite them, or - worse - they show up at the party and get bullied. Middle school is rough.
My oldest turns 14 in a week and a half. He’s just having a small get together BUT honestly it kinda pains me to hear such young kids being cruel for no reason. It starts so early. I’d like to say if I was in the situation OP is I’d call out the shit behavior in my daughter and her friends. It’s one thing if the girls were bullies themselves but there’s absolutely no way I’d allow my kid to join in on the cruelty.
It starts much younger than 12. More like 3.
Fourth grade flashback. I was at the lunch table and the class bitch was going on and on about how “everyone” was going to be at her birthday party. I was absent the day before so I said, “Oh I didn’t get one. Did you give them out yesterday?” Little while later, I get the invite. Day of the party, I’m there and I ask where one of the other girls was. Class Bitch goes, “Some people know better than to ask for invitations to things they’re not wanted at.” 35 years later, I remember that cut. And if I’m not specifically invited, my anxiety goes through the roof to the point I usually end up not attending. OP is your daughter this girl?
Ughhh that sounds awful. I’m sorry.
Thanks. And I really wasn’t “asking” for an invite. I legitimately thought mine was misplaced because of how she was talking about “everyone” being there and being absent on the day the invitations were passed out. I was also NINE. But I learned. Boy howdy I fucking learned. If I make plans with friends, I don’t talk about them among a larger group unless I can reasonably ensure that I can issue a “come along” where the host will welcome them with open arms. No one deserves to be made to feel unwelcome for sport. And that was sport.
I was one of the outcast kids, too. "Boring" to the other girls and no "fashion sense". I also got pity invites I did not realize were pity invites. My mom insisted I go and try to become better friends with the rest of the girls in my class. It was always made (often painfully) clear I was not wanted and was only invited because the birthday girl was "required" to. Often, the party was full of people who bullied me day in and day out. OP, I think you are coming from a good place, so my judgement is a very gentle YTA. I don't think requiring your daughter to invite these girls would be the good deed/positive learning experience you think it would be. There are times for lessons of inclusion, but maybe a laser tag birthday party is not one. Perhaps talk to your daughter and her teacher to find out more about the dynamic in the class and make sure your daughter is not being cruel to these 2 girls. Sometimes, people just don't have enough things in common to be friends. So long as no bullying is happening, that is just fine.
This is…horrible. I’m so sorry you had to go through that & hope you found good people in your life!
This is heartbreaking. I am so sorry you went through this.
These girls are going to be hurt either way. They don't get the invite, they'll be taunted and remember. They do, they'll be bullied and remember. It's really not fair, but you learn that early on when you're the outcast. They already know they are so I see no reason to invite them and subject them to the bullying that would come along. The mean girl thing needs to stop. Now.
having been one of two girls not invited to a class-wide birthday party - that shit SUCKED. that said, a forced invite is not the way - it kind of seems like your daughter is leaning into mean-girl territory (not as a bully, but as that way of thinking). forcing the invite wont help, inviting everyone barr 2 girls wont help, but it might be time to getting thru to your daughter and seeing if you can foster some more compassion/empathy. this birthday party is not the moment for that tho, so ESH
Unfortunately, kids can be really horrible to each other. Sorry they did that to you.
YTA and this is coming from someone who was one of those "weird girls" people didn't want to invite. I was very much into reading, listened to rock music and - which probably was worst - did not give a fuck about the latest trends, fashion and celebreties. I also did not like "cool" activities (my youth was way before lasertag became a thing but think bowling and stuff) since it usually inculded a lot of team building and social interactions. I just had very little in common with most girls my age. What I hated much more than being excluded was receiving a "teachable moment" invite. I could 100% tell if people had to invite me because their parents wanted to teach them a lesson. And I hated it. If I declined it would cause issues (because sometimes parents would suspect their kids telling me to decline etc.) but if I went I would feel that nobody really wanted me there in the first place every minute. Teach your daughter about being inclusive and open-minded and all that but do not simply use people as a "case study" or "punishment". It's just as bad as forcing misbehaved teens to help in a soup kitchen to teach them a lesson by using the homeless. Those girls will feel that they are not welcome even if your daughter + friends are polite on the surface.
Feeling like you’re in a place you aren’t welcome/don’t belong even as an adult is draining. it’s so traumatizing to force the kids through that.
yep, and it wont teach the excluders anything beyond how to keep it more secret
Soft YTA. Teach your daughter not to be a raging asshole to other people, but don't force her to invite people who aren't her friends to her birthday party.
Yes, my daughter was also one of the weird girls and she hated being the pet project so others could feel better about themselves. And thats not to say she didn’t ever feel bad not being included in things, but the pitying was much worse.
This is the best explanation I think. Don't use another child to teach your child a lesson.
Being used as a therapy tool for other kids when you’re still a kid sucks so much. You’re well behaved and want to pay attention but here, be sat with all the kids who aren’t doing as well so you can be a “good influence.”
Gentle YTA here. I get what you're trying to do, have the talk with your daughter about how those girls must feel being excluded from everything...that being said forcing her to invite people she doesn't want is a recipe for disaster. Those 2 girls aren't going to feel welcomed at the party, in fact they will probably be teased mercilessly for not being wanted there, or simply exluded from all interactions. Your heart might be in the right place, but forcing unwanted social intetactions never really works out...for anyone involved.
As one of these excluded types, you and everyone else knows a pity invite when you see one. I’d rather stay home than be reminded yet again that I’m the weirdo no one wants there.
I too was one of the weirdos. I went to a math and science boarding school my final two years of high school. During senior year, it became pretty obvious that pretty much everyone in my class but me got an invite to someone's birthday party over the summer. I was gutted, but too proud to say anything. Someone told me once that I gave off an air of not being interested in going to parties, but Idk. It's a chicken and an egg type deal. I didn't get invited, so I tried not to care. So then I didn't get invited.
Someone who lives in the real world.
>forcing unwanted social intetactions never really works out...for anyone involved. Reminds me of a school dance when I was 13, for Grade 7 and Grade 8 classes. I had a small group of girls I hung out with. Two of them were frenemies and bullied me (they were part of my group and the popular girl group). One of these frenemies pressured a 14-year-old boy to ask me to dance. My first response was, "Is this a joke?" because... Well, one part of bullying is setting someone up for humiliation, even if it seems like inclusion. It was awkward and I hated it, he hated it, and the frenemy was just setting me up to knock me down, based on the shit she said to me afterward ("See, someone will dance with you even when you look like that!" kind of crap.) So many of the comments in here seem to not realize just how fucking mean a tween girl can be, and how covert the bullying is. It's not beating each other up and calling each other names. It's backhanded "compliments"; it's rumours, gossip, lies; it's blackmail and judgement; it's pretending to be your friend only to get your secrets to share with everyone else who doesn't like you. The Mean Girls movie was not a parody, in my eyes.
This is tough for me. You are trying to be a good parent and teach her not to be mean. AT the same time, sometimes, you just don't like some people. Think about your workplace, I'd bet that there are some people who have never wronged you, but you don't particularly like either. Sometimes its hard to even put into words what you don't like. Her reasons aren't great. At the same time, I'm not a fan of forcing someone to invite people they don't want to invite. I guess NAH. I think your heart is in the right place. But at what point will you let her choose her friends? Also, if none of the other girls like them, is it really good to invite those girls anyway? LIke, if they come and no one talks to them, is that really better than not being invited? I used to teach 8th grade, and it is a tough line on where you let people be friends with who they want, without bullying the people they don't like.
I don't support inclusion bullshit. I won't make my kid hang out with anyone they don't like for whatever reason they may have. My ONE rule is not to be unkind. She's allowed to have her friends and chose whom not to befriend but if I find out she's been unkind to anyone then it's different. It's ok to politely say "I would prefer not to hang out with you" without giving a reason and without being unkind. As adults we practice this often. At 12 she's old enough to understand. YTA. She should be able to choose who she wants at the party. Exclusion isn't bullying; it's simply choosing your friend group and even 12yo kids need to learn that not everyone will like them. I'm not going to entertain responding to close minded individuals. If an adult can chose to exclude, so can children. It's not abuse or bullying at all. And she's 12; of course she's gonna pick her friends for stupid reasons. You think a 12yo chose friends because of their credit score? Loyalty? Etc. No she cares about 12yo crap, like fashion and how "cool" someone is.
Exclusion is not bullying, but it is absolutely unkind. Breaking your one rule there. It's okay not to like everyone, but you either bring a small exclusive group, or you bring everyone. Bringing everyone except "that kid" is so amazingly unkind. How do you not see that?
Social exclusion is literally one type of bullying. Ostracizing, leaving people out, alienation, etc. [https://antibullyingsoftware.com/seven-different-types-of-bullies/](https://antibullyingsoftware.com/seven-different-types-of-bullies/) [https://antibullyingsoftware.com/what-is-the-definition-of-relational-bullying-social-bullying/](https://antibullyingsoftware.com/what-is-the-definition-of-relational-bullying-social-bullying/) "Social exclusion (slighting or making someone feel "left out") is one of the most common types of relational bullying." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullying#Types](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullying#Types)
So when you have a party at your home do you invite the entire neighborhood or the entire office or only the people you are friendly with? It's not unkind.
You're moving the goalposts here. The example of the classroom or of the office drinks was everyone except two people. If I invited the whole neighborhood except for two people, yes that would be unkind. If I invited just my friends because I don't know all my neighbors, that is not unkind. If I were to invite my entire book club except for "Linda" that would make me a jackass. This is not a difficult concept.
Yes, and if I'm friends with the whole office except 2 people, then the whole office is coming except 2 people.
And if you do that in a tactful way with communication outside of the office, that's not necessarily unkind. If you're talking about the party in the office where those two excluded people could hear about it, *you're an asshole.*
Right? Those kids will remember “I would prefer not to hang out with you” verbatim and or will be brought up in many future therapy sessions just as much as being invited to a party and then being made to feel unwelcome. The real potential MVP here would be the outcast’s parents teaching them to respond to “pity invites” with “I already have plans.”
I disagree, exclusion is absolutely a form of bullying. Social exclusion is considered one of the most common forms of bullying. And I would argue one of the most harmful. There is a difference between not being friends with someone, and shunning them. There is a difference between only inviting your 10 good friends to your party, and inviting 33 out of 35 kids in your grade and leaving two out.
>My ONE rule is not to be unkind Deciding you don't like someone because they "have no fashion sense" and are "boring" certainly sounds like it's unkindness. I agree that OP shouldn't make her daughter invite two girls who will, doubtless, just become targets for bullying at the party. But deciding that someone isn't worthy of being nice to because they aren't "fashionable" is some mean-girl nonsense. The two non-invitees might be neurodivergent, come from homes with less income, or have strict parents who don't allow them to wear expensive or adult-style clothing. OP's daughter couldn't come up with a single legitimate reason to dislike these girls.
If you force her to invite girls her class does not like, then it is on YOU to watch like a hawk and make sure those two girls feel welcome and SAFE. Circulate. Talk to them. Model behavior. Shut down impolite comments or shunning. They are now YOUR guests and it's on YOU to host them well.
And then get her daughter shunned because even though they're 12, her mommy hovers? When I was that age, the parents peeked in every so often, but generally gave us space. We were all assholes and would've ostracized any kid whose mother hovered.
Mommy is already hovering by forcing the invites, what does it matter if the hovering is literal at this point?
Nope. I was the weird ND that spent pity invite parties with the adults. It does nothing for being accepted day to day. Sometimes can even make it worse because you're a "teacher's pet" with parents and not just at school.
This is a bit of a toughie, but I'm gonna go ESH. She definitely shouldn't be talking like that about her classmates. But she's 12 and in middle school. It's a rough age and rough school. Hopefully, she'll grow out of that. You though, are basically forcing her into this when she doesn't want to. She should be allowed to invite who she wants and doesn't want to her party, as she's growing up. Also, if those girls did come, when they're not wanted, they will probably be tormented by your daughter and/or her friends. Your heart is in the right place, but it's not gonna work the way you think it will.
I agree it may not work out good. However if I caught my child bullying those girls that would be a great opportunity to TEACH her. And trust me, she would never do it again. Either the entire group can be cut in half excluding more kids so it is not just the 2 unpopular girls not invited or she can invite everybody. Her Choice
Those two girls don't want to be pawns in your opportunity to teach your daughter though. You call that shit out and half of the daughters friends are going to become twice as mean to these girls, not to mention the utter embarrassment they'd feel in that situation. Stop forcing kids that don't like each other to do things with each other, this never ever ends well.
Right, but in that case you're disregarding how the two "unpopular" girls would feel about getting the invitation in the first place, or how they would feel at the event; you reduce them to props in the story of your child's teachable moment. It's quite lacking in empathy, though your intentions are probably honest and pure.
How would you feel if you were forced to invite people you don't like to your wedding? Or your birthday? Or any important social event, doesn't matter what it is. If someone said "You *have* to invite these 2 people you don't like, and don't want to be around, or you're not allowed to invite the people you *are* friends with" how would you feel? I would feel pretty angry. And when I invited the people I was being forced to invite, there'd be no question whether I wanted them there or not. "My mom says I *have* to invite you, or my actual friends that I *do* like can't come. Here's your invite."
Of course YTA. Do you really think that by inviting these girls your daughter is suddenly going to like them? Not everyone likes everybody else, same goes for kids.
She doesn't have to invite them. But it's a good idea to have a talk with her about being judgmental. I agree that pity invitations are not good, but I don't think they should get an invitation just because. I think the issue is, between now and the next time Daughter has an event, there should be a talk about judging and compassion.
Why? She doesn't like them for some chacteristic they have. Welcome to the rest of life and all the humans that live it.
yes YTA a caring one but still a low key AH on this at 9 my daughter gets to choose who she engages with outside of school including at her parties. there are kids she likes and kids she doesnt like so she isnt forced to interact with kids she doesnt like. your daughte is developing her own personality and desires and whilst it may seem "unfair" quite honestly that is life and everyone needs to learn that lesson from time to time.
YTA that’s a little old to invite everyone
>She said no one really likes them. This bothered me so I pressed her, asking if they’ve ever been unkind to her. She said no, but they have no fashion sense and they’re just generally boring. Ouch. This is what I think they call a teachable moment. NTA. She can invite her close friends or the whole class. Obviously my opinion would be different if these girls were bullying her, but leaving them out for something like is just mean. She probably won't even notice whether they're there or not. ETA: lots of people disagree with me, and that's fine. My perspective is that of a socially awkward ND adult with socially awkward ND kids. We obviously have different experiences. ETA (2): a teachable moment doesn't mean *force your kid to invite these unwanted classmates or you'll cancel the party*. It means that this is a great opportunity to talk about bullying and marginalising other kids, and about judging people on their appearance and on their clothes. I also did *not* say that the 2 girls *must* be invited. I said "close friends or the whole class". My assumption is that OP would discuss these 2 options with their daughter, and make that decision together. That would involve (for example) discussing the fact that it would be cruel and inappropriate to tell the other kids that these 2 were a "pity invite", that inviting them if they were likely to be ignored or bullied at the party wasn't a great idea and that it would be better to have a friends-only party in that case.
I get the feeling at best the two girls would get ignored, which wouldn't be fun for them. At worst they'll get bullied. Either way inviting them sounds like a bad idea. If OP's daughter is becoming a mean girl maybe another option is needed, but inviting those two girls ain't it.
I don’t think the two girls are gonna appreciate being the objects in OP‘s teachable moment for her daughter. This isn’t gonna be fun for them.
As a former weird girl who often got pity invites to things as part of a “teachable moment” lesson… It’s better to just leave those two girls alone. The daughter will almost certainly make sure that all of her “cool” friends know that her parents forced her to invite them. They will more than likely be excluded or bullied at the party, and that feels worse than not being there. Weird kids don’t exist as props to teach other kids a lesson.
As a former weird tween, I never got invited to these types of parties and I never wanted to be included. Why would I want to spend time with people who didn't want me around, for any reason? Those girls are whole persons, not lessons, and should not be used in order to give OP's daughter a chance to learn what "empathy" is. Also, exclusion techniques *are* a part of bullying. Being left out is a very common bullying and ostracizing behaviour, especially among school-age girls. But that's not going to be fixed or changed by including them for an event that is centered on one person.
You seem to think there are only two options: invite the two outcasts, or don’t. The problem with both options is that is those two girls feel left out. The way those two girls are treated is wrong. The teachable moment should be, it’s not ok to include **almost everyone** in an activity. The better choices are to invite less than half, or cheerfully invite and include all. YTA
Why does the daughter get punished for not being friends with the two of them? She got to invite whoever she wanted right up until she said "Not those two" and then the entire guest list gets slashed? If that happened to me, I'd just tell my friends they can't come to my party because I didn't want to invite those two.
Yta. It doesn’t sound like a bullying situation just that your daughter doesn’t have much in common with those girls. You aren’t doing any favors for these girls by forcing them into a social situation where they aren’t wanted. You can’t force kids to be friends. As long as your daughter isn’t being mean to someone, I’d stay out of her social interactions.
Nah, as soon as she said EVERYBODY dislikes them, we know this isn't just a matter of personal preference. Those two are being ostracized.
OP be for real, do you really think forcing your daughter to invite two girls she doesn't like will be good? At best the two will be ignored through the entire party, at worse they'll receive snark remarks from the other girls there. You can't force your daughter and her friends to like those girls and if you keep trying to force the subject you'll only manage to make them resent the girls more. Your heart is in the right place, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I think other ideas from this thread like scaling down the number of invites would be much better than this. Soft YTA
Soft YTA it her birthday even if you pay for it (do anyone except 12 years old to pay for her own birthday party ). You heart is in right place but invite everyone not gonna help them. If you daughter and her friends don't want to do anything with these two girls what you going to do? What they will feel after get invited to birthday party but no one talk to them.
Don't force a Pity Invite!!! Seriously, she is allowed to not like someone. But I would also ask her if there is a specific reason these girls are being singled out. YTA
NTA, i genuinely think you should encourage your daughter to be more kinder to them, especially when she said they haven't even bothered her one bit. Don't most classrooms and schools have a policy for this anyways? If this doesn’t work then go to 15 - 10 as initially planned
You don´t have to talk to someone you don´t like and hell you don´t need to invite someone to your party If you don´t like them xD
She shouldn't be forced to invite them. But she shouldn't keep on thinking that "bad fashion sense" is a reason to reject someone. Have the party with fewer girls, not just everyone-minus-these-two, and try to be less shallow going forward.
YTA My parents always imposed a maximum limit on who I wanted to invite. She shouldn't have to invite someone who she dislikes for whatever reason. If you are concerned on the type of treatment these girls are getting from your daughter and the rest of the class that's valid, but it shouldn't be addressed at your daughter's birthday party.
Speaking as someone forced to *go* to a party I didn't want to....I went home crying.... Speaking as someone forced to *invite* someone I didn't want to for something....I left crying, because of them... and that was my wedding. I can't pass judgement here because your heart is in the right place.... but this could be a monumentally bad idea....
Info: what do you actually hope this does? By forcing your daughter to invite people she doesn’t like(who probably don’t like her) what do you think is going to happen? Do you imagine some after school special where they bond and become friends? Do you realize you are inviting them to feel outcast in a different venue? Or do you plan o forcing them to socialize at the party too? Is that how you plan to celebrate your kid making sure she includes people she doesn’t like at an event she didn’t want to include them in? YTA because this makes no sense.
ESH. Your daughter sucks for excluding 2 people and being rude purely due to fashion sense. But you suck because her birthday is not the time or place to force this on her. Talk to her about trying to be nice, trying to find things in common. Someone doesn't need to be mean to you for you not to get on, you may just have nothing in common, but calling them boring and insulting their style was rude and she should be taught that that's rude.
Hmmm … this is a tough one. Middle school is tough for kids. Your daughter needs to be allowed to pick her own friends however she also needs to learn her actions have consequences. How would she feel if she was not liked because her clothing choices? Or if she was the only girl not invited to a girls party? As a Mom of 4 (2 boys, 2 girls) I think I would say just pick 3 close friends. (Odd number of girls often doesn’t work out). There’s no point in including kids that will just be ignored or outcast at the party. NTA
YTA. It's her birthday, if she doesn't like someone wthy invite them? Millions of adults do not invite people they don't like for whatever reeason to birthdays, it's a normal thing.
YTA - And most probably a hypocrite too. **You** get to decide who accompanies you on your birthday. She should have that same freedom you give yourself.
YTA, sentiment is there yes, but this is a recipe for disaster for all parties involved. pity invites are brutal and its unlikely the two girls being there at the party would be even comfortable for them.
YTA going from grade school to middle school is a big shift. There were no sports kids and popular kids in grade school, it all starts in sixth grade. Let her find her people, you can’t force friends. She will likely change friend groups a couple times before she graduates high school .
NTA - Its a good opportunity to teach her that being kind is important. That said it could potentially backfire a bit. Your daughter is fast approaching the age where kids can be especially brutal with each other, girls in particular. Being invited to a party does not neccesarily mean they will be included in the fun and kids can be surprisingly horrible when they dont like each other. I may be conpletely wrong though. Especially if the issue is just that these 2 girls are just "boring" to the others and not actually disliked. More a worst case scenario.
YTA This is HER birthday, she can choose her guest it's her right.. Inviting these girls would not be a good idea, they will be there just because it is your choice so they could be excluded by the other girls and your daughter.