When you don’t get invited to a 1st grade party –

Put out a hit?
Naw, but consider it for a moment so you feel better.
As a way of background, at our public school the Kindergarten class parents who can, stay and read with their children for the first 15 minutes for the 1st seven months of school. This in itself is completely ridiculous as 99% of the kids have been to pre-k and this is a huge setback in separation procedure during morning drop-offs. Needless to say the parents get to bond as a group and even though the teacher was awful, the parents developed a bond that I feel will last for many years to come and I am grateful for that.
OK, so we are all friends. This year, we moved with 3 of our best friends to 1st grade and we were thrilled. At least I thought they were 3 best friends. Turns out the one is having a birthday party tomorrow and we were not invited. I only found out because several parents asked if we were going. (I love kids parties cause I get to hang out with adults and have adult conversations (I do not get that at home!)).

I did not know how to proceed. In the old days I could become the surpreme bitch and cut you down with a look and a sneer but now my son is inviolved and has to be in class with this kid. I knew what the right thing to do was and I had to pray (yes, GAY people pray, but to whom you might ask!) to be able to become mature enough to proceed properly. I had decided to approach the situation in a friendly manner as I was friends with the boys parents, even having weekly email contact with the mom and sometimes walks to work after drop-off (BUT NO MORE!). I asked if we were forgotten (and just for the record both my son and I are never forgotten) or if there was a problem with the kids, I wanted to help settle it. Now, I dont care if we don’t get to go but I do care if my son were to find out almost everyone from his group was invited and he wasn’t and when I say group I don’t mean this years class of strangers as the mom tried to falsely compare it too, I mean the group from last year with whom we all had remained friends.

It was the dad who did drop off that day and even though I was short of breathe from the run up the stairs I got out my question. The answer was quite shocking. 2 people were not invited and there was a reason for the 1 but no reason for my son except “they don’t play together” and the father made a point to say his son was adamant. We shook hands and that was it. The polite facade you see, I am still maintaining it even though inside I am the bitch queen from hell when it comes to my child’s protection.
Now, as a stay at home dad, I see the boys every day in the playground together and they do play, and while I can see they are not best friends, they do play together at some part of every day. And I am not in denial about my son being a tough kid but I have yet to see it with this boy. NOW I am angry when the other boy happily plays with my son as this contradicts what he “ADAMANTLY” told his parents. AND this is a boy that we would pass during last summer a few times a week on the way to our respective summer camps and the boys were very friendly.

Luckily I ran into a dear friend from last years class who gave me some good advice which I was able to use as I ran into the mom before class and no one else was around. I told her that I was disappointed that as a friend she could not speak to me directly and I had to hear about this from third parties. Again, we had a friendly relationship beyond just the drop off chatter. She apologized and hoped we could be friends and I said of course (the new mature me). I also said that when I had a similar experience with my son, I felt that letting him exclude other children was not behavior I would allow. (I really needed to get that one out).
So there you have it, I handled this super maturely for the first time in my 50 years. Truthfully the friendship is now dying (it seems the emails have stopped) but we can be cordial because I can let go. I will NEVER forget the slight done to my child and I will never forgive, this is not how I operate but for my sake I behaved more maturely than I ever have (in college I had a fight with a female housemate over cutting some lettuce and w didn’t talk for 6 months!)

I needed to state how I felt as theses people were not starngers and I thought their son was a friend. I found out I was wrong and I have had a great learning experience. I am happy that 20 years in a 12 step fellowship has enabled me to finally grow up at the age of 50 and handle things head on instead of passive aggresively. YAY ME, BOO THEM!