No One Came to Her Son’s Party
 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/f...bfcL&ocid=iehp

http://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/t...=f&x=224&y=228

I thought this story was really sad. No little kid deserves to be crushed like that. But at the same time I can't help but feel that the parents aren't partly to blame in this. Assuming the kids classmates are showing up just because "kids loves parties" was a mistake. I tend to take no response to an invite as "not coming", not the other way around. Also I hate to say this, but I think it should be considered that maybe the kid's classmates did not want to come, not that their parent's were remiss in properly RSVPing.

The article mentions he was home schooled until recently, maybe his classmates did not know him well enough to want to go. Any way this was really sad. That poor kid, I can't think of anything more devastating to a child than to plan a fun party for himself and his classmates, expecting them to show up and have a blast, and sitting there surrounded by your party decorations waiting for everyone one to come and no one does.

Of course the obvious answer is to exploit his sadness for attention on the internet.

People who don't RSVP to things with an RSVP requested on the invite are terrible people.

Sh*t, next time something sucky happens to me can I get on the news?

The only thing that keeps me from being one of those terrible people is my wife. And now, this story.

Poor kid.

It's weird, I used to be much better at this "emotional labor" stuff when I was coordinating stuff for both me and my roommate. Now that my living situation has changed...it's way harder.

My wife is the Clara to my 12th Doctor. She's my carer.

Right? This is about as newsworthy as "Man Standing in Front of Best Buy Has a Bad Day."

So some kid doesn't have friends, oh well. It happens.

basically as the great Peter Venkman once said **** happens and who you gonna call? Welcome to the real world kid not everybody will be your friend

Poor kid. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy.

Lame
 

Sucks for the kid, but who the heck is this broad to get this stuff publicized? This stuff happens to people more often than you think. Deal with it. Be an adult and move on. but i guess it's better this way than "No one shows up to sons birthday; Mother goes on shooting rampage"

Well, atleast he has his family.

Why didn't the parents invite other family members?

I can see a modern day version of the mom from Everybody Loves Raymond pulling this kinda crap! Yea it sucks when nobody comes to your birthday party, but hey that stuff happens. Maybe if the kid wasn't such a mama's boy he'd be more popular!

Meanwhile in other news:

http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...44/247/297.png

How many people showed up to your parties, Jeph?

I can relate to that kid, never had much friends in school to begin with so no large parties for me either lol. It's really sad to see someone go through like that.

This was clearly the wrong reasoning:
If not even a low percentage of the total invitations were responded to (at least 20-25%), that should be a clear sign that no one will be coming at all. At least the expectations wouldn't have been high.

Now as to why no one attended? That's a whole different matter altogether.

Haven't we all experienced that at one time during our childhood? The boring, disappointing birthday that was, at most, only with family members and no friends due to being on vacation, just moved to a new neighborhood, friends were all at summer camp except you, was unpopular, etc.? ...That's why family members are important for this aspect of child rearing; to help children deal with, and properly process, the unexpected whimsical blows from society.

I don't like to make a connection to these things but I can't help but wonder if the fact he was home schooled and possibly not exposed to other kids his age was a real factor. I don't want to stereotype home school kids but what if this poor kid just did not have the same social skills or awareness as his peers because he was not exposed to that because he was home schooled. I don't want to offend anyone here who was/is home schooled or home schools their kids themselves, but the article paints a picture of social awkwardness in him that I can't but feel this kids classmates did not like.

The article even mentioned this kid's favorite book was "Diary of a wimpy kid." Before anyone says it I know that just because a kid likes a book series like "Diary of a Wimpy kid" does not mean they are socially awkward or wimpy, but the way this article presents the "picture" it implies a certain social ineptness that may have caused non of the kids he invited to not show up. Just read between the lines. I think the mother is barking up the wrong tree complaining about parent courtesy when it's likely not the whole reason for this ****** situation .

And I just want to say that I know not all kids who are home schooled are going to be socially awkward, but some how I get an overly protective vibe off this boy's mother, that i feel might to have contributed to this boy's current situation he is in.. Some one mentioned "maybe, if he was not such a mama's boy, he would have friends." As harsh and down right dick headed that sentiment is, I feel that it is at least partially accurate here.

To be fair, I probably wouldn't have gone to his birthday party.

It seems to me the mom was more upset with the lack of RSVP from the other parents than she was with the kids for not wanting to attend the party.

In which case it's those parents who are the ones lacking in social skills and awareness.

To be fair, it would have been creepy if you did go to his birthday party.

I know some parents that make it a requirement that kids parents are present during a birthday party. I had a friend whose daughter was born during the summer, so she would through backyard pool parties for her, but she made a requirement that the parents of her daughters friends had to be there.

I always thought it was a bad idea since I think some parent's look forward to dropping their child off to enjoy themselves, and would rather not be tied down around a bunch of kids for two to three hours. I noticed the kids with the that did show up only stuck around for an hour at best, not the whole party time.

Agree.

Saw and shared this on FB yesterday. Thirty years ago when I was a kid RSVPing was a thing people did and it wasn't hard. It still shouldn't be. In fact it should be easier. It takes a matter of seconds now to simply shoot someone a message saying that sorry, you won't be able to make it. When did it become okay to brush off giving others at least that much simple courtesy... If the parents were given some kind of idea that few to none would make it then it would have saved them the trouble and expense and they could have made other plans.

To quote part of my comment about it on FB:
Now, I was not trying to shoehorn political crap in there, that really wasn't the point, but it just struck me how much people think the same and don't even realize it, and the kind of things that mentality can affect. No one is quite the unique snowflake they think they are, there are many who have thought or done much like they have... But there are also cases where no one and their actions are as insignificant as they think. (Hell, even just working in retail makes that massively apparent. "If I just mess up this part of this table or change my mind and drop this crap in the most random, annoying place, it's no big deal"... and then the next 20 or 50 people do the same and collectively make it a big problem.)


Sure, they shouldn't have assumed people were coming if no one said they were, but still... I have found that even when your RSVP is made easy by being "regrets only," people still fail. That was done for the "meet the baby" party my sister had for my nephew back in August; "regrets only" on the invitations. An old friend of mine that I've known since age 10 was invited to it. If work didn't make it possible or if she simply didn't want to come... that's okay, I wouldn't hold it against her at all. But I'm still vaguely annoyed that she never said a word. I spent much of the time watching for her because I thought she was going to come to it, even if it was just to stop in to make an appearance for five minutes.