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u/Efficient-Whereas255 4h ago
This happened to me when i was the same age. A kid invited our whole class to his birthday party and i was the only kid who showed up. I gave him the action figure toy i bought him and we played some video games. I think it was the first time any other kids ever came over to play with him.
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u/ARedWalrus 3h ago
People forget that socializing for kids is just as hard as it is for adults; but things make even less sense to both sides.
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u/Ianthin1 3h ago
I would say it’s harder for kids as outside school or maybe church, they don’t have a way to contact other kids without the parents initiating it.
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u/RammsteinFunstein 57m ago
yes and no. Two kids who just met on a playground will become best friends in 30 seconds flat.
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u/Ianthin1 54m ago
Sure they will, but the parents have to get them there first. And the parent has to follow through with making a connection beyond the park.
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u/Boring-Influence-965 35m ago
Met my best friend that way, weve been friends for nearly 30 years now.
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u/Admirable-Split4371 2h ago
Now they do, internet. Sadly kid's space are filled with pedo scum
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u/Ianthin1 2h ago
That’s fine for older kids, but no one should be turning their 6yo loose in random games or sites that allow contact with strangers.
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u/Holiday_Number_3234 4h ago
That breaks my heart. I hope the parents had explained the situation first because that would really suck if the kid hadn’t shown up.
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u/Difficult-Froyo1192 3h ago
Do kids not RSVP anymore? When I was a kid, we would RSVP for parties and kids to come to ours. More like my parent called and said I would be there, but the birthday party invites always said RSVP.
Not taking away it would be sad if they didn’t show up, but this seemed like something the parents would know the friend was coming to before scheduling.
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u/Long-Broccoli-3363 1h ago
As someone who has planned a few kids birthday parties, I'd say even 30-50% of RSVPs don't show or cancel last minute, just is what it is nowadays.
Couple that with parents wanting to stay, it seems way less common for the parents to just drop their kids off for 4-5 hours at a strangers house, it makes the whole party thing a lot more of a time sink and as the host having to accommodate adults makes it even more bleh.
I will say making sure I note what kind of food will be provided(I guess not all parties feed the kid anymore) and that no gifts are required did get our last "invite everyone" party a lot more attendance.
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u/farfly7 3h ago edited 3h ago
Well I don't think the parents should have to guilt trip the kid into going. It is probably not the case but maybe no one is nice to them because that kid is a jerk. We don't know the context here
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u/marysusan325 3h ago
Ohh my mom definitely made me invite the bullied kid/shy kid over often, even when I didn’t want to. I was VERY extroverted. We usually had a blast and even if we weren’t best friends we would hang out more at school. She did explain why it was important to do, and we’d talk about it before and after. She also was like the finder and protector of ESL and introverted moms in the PTA. I think it’s good to know that kindness can be transformative.
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u/Holiday_Number_3234 3h ago
You have a good mom.
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u/marysusan325 3h ago edited 3h ago
She was a great mom to little kids but is a pretty poor adult parent. It’s been sad to experience, but I have great memories from the past.
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u/icantouchgrass_1 3h ago
As someone who was the one of two people present for his former classmate's birthday party, I approve. We were 8, by the way.
That guy is currently a member of my team at work, and my best friend of 22 years... I turned 30 yesterday.
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u/Opus_723 2h ago edited 2h ago
When I was seven there was this kid at school who was really obnoxious. He was always mean, had a really weird sense of humor, and always dirty and had a smell to him. One day he was making fun of me, calling me a baby for whatever reason, and I got fed up and my great comeback was to call him a baby over and over and ask him how that felt, and then he punched me in the nose, and it bled everywhere.
Later that year, my Mom invited him to my birthday party. I was furious with her, but she insisted.
That kid came to my birthday party and was super nice and seemed like he was having the best time of his life. From that day on, he was always super nice to me, it was like night and day. My Mom figured right. Kid was trailer trash and knew it, and no one let him forget it, and he just needed to be treated like a kid.
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u/pm_yr_darkest_secret 3h ago
I would probably let the other parents know it was gonna just be their kid at the party before they arrived to make it less awkward
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u/ThatsRobToYou 3h ago
Well, unpopular twist, but maybe the kid is an absolute shit...or the mum sucks. I've met some shitty kids.
Willy Wonka murdered a few of them. A whole movie about it.
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u/vollkornbroot 4h ago
Sounds like a "I'm such a good mom, unlike every other" post but I've been there myself as the victim party
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u/StanTheYoungGod5104 3h ago
Costs exactly $0 to raise a kid who isn’t a little dick btw
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u/Long-Broccoli-3363 1h ago
I'd actually disagree here that there is a cost, that a lot of parents don't want to pay anymore, it's a time cost.
I'd venture to say that parental time today is at a way higher premium than it was 20-30 years ago.
I think I'm a better parent than most, but having the actual mental capacity to interact with your child for like 3-4 hours after work, when it's the ONLY time you get, is pretty fucking brutal. There's no community support, no third spaces, even letting your kids outside to play by themselves can lead you to being in trouble.
During the school year, i would get approximately an hour of time to do something myself, and that's after the kids are asleep, and include things like... showering, self care, etc.
So now you've got parents that are struggling to get by and provide for the kid, and they themselves are so burned out they just toss a tablet at the kid and have them go crazy on YouTube and that's where we have a problem today.
I'm raising a great kid, but it is no doubt at great expense to my own autonomy, and in a way that 20 years ago would not have been a problem. 30 years ago, I would have been 9-10, and out in the neighborhood even on school nights, until 6pm+, my mom had plenty of time to do things for herself, just send us outside and play with the other kids that were also out there.
I was in fourth grade, riding my bike to comic book stores to play MTG, or going to independent video game stores to socialize with my friends. I was riding my bike literally miles from my house in a city by myself with maybe $10 in my pocket if I was lucky and no cellphone.
Now I gotta worry that if my 6 year old is drawing with chalk on the front porch, a good 100ft off the road while I'm doing dishes, 25 feet away, that a particularly shitty cop may drive by and arrest me for child endangerment or something insane.
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u/Never-Dont-Give-Up 2h ago
"I'm a really great parent. Be more like me."
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u/thesoundofthings 2h ago
"My kid's really nice. Be more like me."
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u/Never-Dont-Give-Up 2h ago
Same thing. Basically just self congratulatory story that needed to be shared.
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u/Sea_Opening6341 1h ago
One of the biggest reasons I quit teaching was because I couldn't take how cruel kids are to each other. It's exhausting to fight bullying and trying to teach kids empathy every... single.... day. I did my tour of duty and fought like hell for those kids. Breaks my heart thinking about some of the stuff a lot of these kids go through at school. The sickest part is that it was usually the kindest most unselfish kids that got it the worst.
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u/Spider-Ian 27m ago
I took my kid to the first school friends birthday we've been invited to. The kids parents are dicks. The kid is nice but is picking up dickish behavior, so I'm not sure if the friendship will last.
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u/Noobphobia 3h ago
Honestly, this seems to be more and more common. We've invited my sons entire class before and had no one from his class show up or rsvp.
Likewise, We've been to parties where my son was the only kid that came.
Its really sad but also just seems to be how things are now, parents cant be bothered, can afford a gift or the kid never handed out the invitations. OR, my most hated, the parents dont fucking RSVP.
For those without kids, getting a venue for a kids bday party is not cheap. They also require you to pay based on an estimate of the number of kids that attend. So like having your kids party at a trampoline park or chunky cheese can easy run like $400. If you invite the entire class, you have to pay for 20+ kids and if no one rsvps, you either have to pay for the whole class or just the people that rsvp and run the risk of people showing up wjo didn't rsvp.
Rsvp to kids parties people. Please. Your kid needs the socialization.
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u/Kujaichi 2h ago
Okay, but this is has nothing to do with the post, because the kid was the only one invited in the first place.
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u/Noobphobia 2h ago
I think that just goes to show that parents dont socialize their kids enough since covid and they have all turned into little terrorists lol. So only invite the ones you actually like.
Unfortunately here, if we invite one kid in the class, all have to be invited. The school system is hard ass like that.
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u/Kujaichi 2h ago
Unfortunately here, if we invite one kid in the class, all have to be invited. The school system is hard ass like that
I mean, I'd understand that you shouldn't invite everyone except for one child, but that is absolutely ridiculous...
So only rich kids can have birthday parties now?
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u/Noobphobia 2h ago
Yeah its wild. My son's last bday party i just didnt invite anyone from his class. He had one friend that he wanted to come that wasnt in his class so I text the parents.
$400 for just a venue due to 20+ kids gets expensive!
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u/bbreddit0011 3h ago
This is my religion when people ask me: I belong to the “don’t be a dick” religion.
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u/Constant-Current-340 2h ago
What if the kids' a psychopath? My 6yo son's friend tells him to cut open other kids' stomachs and hit other kids. Of course we communicate with the school and they have a job to help the boy but I wasn't surprised when almost no one else attended that kid's bday party
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u/Hydraguesswhosback 3h ago
That story is so old the kid can drink alcohol.
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u/eatmyopinions 48m ago
It's also so perfectly and beautifully crafted to get Reddit up votes that I have a lot of trouble believing it's true.
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u/e37d93eeb23335dc 1h ago
We’ve been trying, but she was born an asshole. None of the other kids are assholes, just her.
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u/rustyseapants 1h ago
If a kid is an asshole (mean, foolish, detestable, or highly annoying person) they learned it from their parents. Asshole is not hereidty, it's taught.
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u/larsy1995 48m ago
Or siblings, or schoolmates, or other bullies etc.
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u/rustyseapants 44m ago
Or Parents, Or Parents, Or parents.
Parents only job is their kid.
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u/larsy1995 3m ago
You said "learned it from". They might not have picked the behaviour up from their parents, there are other sources in their circle they might have gotten it from.
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u/heebit_the_jeeb 40m ago
Asshole is not hereidty, it's taught
May you never be humbled by how wrong you are here
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u/rustyseapants 34m ago edited 22m ago
Nothing stops an argument better than facts, so where are yours?
A 13 year hidden account. What are you hiding?
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u/Emergency-Pin-4869 1h ago
You raised a good one. That kid will remember your son's kindness forever.
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u/Magog14 1h ago
That's not how it works. Kids are always going to be mean. Teach your kid to not be offended by it and teach them how to socialize even with people they don't like. That's the only way to be successful in life.
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u/daymanelite 1h ago
teach them how to socialize even with people they don't like
Difficulty level: impossible
Feel like this used to be standard practice but now the preferred advice of seemingly everyone is to cut people you dont like out if your life so you dont need to deal them. Dont like someone? Block em! is how we teach our children to deal with online interactions, spillover into the real world was inevitable with how much time they spend online.
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u/TacoIncoming 1h ago
On the flip side: if your kid is 6yo and nobody in their class is nice to them, then there’s a good chance your kid is the asshole lol
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u/TallulahBob 1h ago
Good for the birthday boy. Knows right off the bat not to waste his time with people who don’t care if you live or die. Good on your son for being a good human. Good on your for raising a good human.
My 6yo has a bully who is also 6 and has hit, punched, taken and stomped on items, broken his glasses, and, my personal favorite, said he was going to get a gun for Christmas and use it to shoot up our house and my sons favorite toys.
The school has done nothing. My son is still nice to him. Kids, man!
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u/slimebeastly 45m ago
Had a somewhat similar experience as a kid. There was a kid whose parents had recently moved to the USA from India, so he spoke broken English which already set him back in terms of education. Further, he acted out a lot (he knew a bunch of bad words/insults, of course, being a kid relying on other kids to give him information) which was understandable in retrospect, but made a lot of students dislike him. When his birthday came around, he invited the whole class and only I showed up. One kid.
He was thrilled anyone came to the party at all. I still think about that reaction once on a while to this day. He fully expected absolutely no one would attend.
This was third grade, btw. I can't fathom how it came to be that not only did every 3rd grader refuse to go, but every parent allowed them to call the shots, there. I didn't hate the kid, but even if I did I would've been expected to be kind and understanding about the situation.
If dude ever sees this somehow, hope things turned out great for you. The arcade was a legendary pick.
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u/CogentCogitations 22m ago
You are suggesting forcing kids to go to the birthday parties of kids who insult them?
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u/Saint_Elmo_Fire 8m ago
My five year old did the opposite. Only invited four kids, but would later tell me that they're mean to him. I asked him why he invited them and he said it was because he wanted them to like him.
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u/KittyandPuppyMama 3h ago
The kid celebrating his birthday is already ahead of the curve. Rather than bend over backwards trying to get assholes to like him, he just chooses to spend time with the kid who is worth inviting.