Inviting Kids without Parents for Dinner

[Anonymous]

Not weird at all -- the kids are 9 for crying out loud. They'll spend the whole time in their room playing Xbox.

[Anonymous]

Don't you have another friend of your DC you could invite, one who's been to your house for play dates sans parents before? Just tell them you're having a party and your DC wants to have a friend over. Since the parents don't socialize with you anyway, it would be fine.

Personally, I'm tired of socializing with my DC's friends parents and I'm glad they're moving beyond that age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The exclusion would be fairly obvious and the parents will smell a rat.
If you really do not want to offend, I would skip it.

Instead why not invite their child out to eat w/your family?
That would be much less offensive.

OP here, I get that it will be fairly obvious that parents are not invited, but it is fairly obvious to me that this family has never reciprocated for several things, outings to events where we pay outings where we supply all the equipment, dinner at our house. Mom acts like a mean girl on the playground, doesn't greet me unless I greet her.

Sadly this is my one of my kid's favorite playmates.

I don't understand why you would have given them the second invitation! She doesn't even acknowledge you???

[Anonymous]

Maybe the other family doesn't enjoy dinner parties. I really don't and don't reciprocate to acquaintances. We go to be polite if we get an invite. At 9 I would have separate events for adults and kids. Your child can have a friend over without their parents. You don't have to be friends with the parents and your child can choose his friends.

[Anonymous]

I can't fathom what would be wrong with this. My parents literally never came inside the house of any of my friends at this age. My best friend's parents would often have parties in Friday and Sairday nights and I'd be invited over to hang out with my friend. We'd hang out in her room while adults did their thing. This seems like a win/win!

[Anonymous]

Of course. We're older than most parents, too, but I don't think this is relevant. Our DS has friends over regularly around dinner time without parents.

[Anonymous]

Why can't you just call it a drop off play date and say you will feed Johnny?

I host lots of play dates that include meals. Parents are rarely present for my 7yo. For my prechooler, play dates always include parents.

[Anonymous]

My kids are younger, but do people seriously still call it a playdate at the age of 9?!

OP, I'm really surprised at the responses here. What you are describing was really common when I was growing up. My parents had a close group of friends, but their kids were all older than me. I was frequently allowed to invite my own friend over when they were hosting...and I'm not aware of any of my friends' parents having an issue with this. I could see this being an issue with younger kids, but not 9 y.o.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids are younger, but do people seriously still call it a playdate at the age of 9?!

OP, I'm really surprised at the responses here. What you are describing was really common when I was growing up. My parents had a close group of friends, but their kids were all older than me. I was frequently allowed to invite my own friend over when they were hosting...and I'm not aware of any of my friends' parents having an issue with this. I could see this being an issue with younger kids, but not 9 y.o.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Totally. My parents would do this when I was a kid. They'd have a party, and I could invite a friend or two. I think I'd only find this weird if the people who invited my son also invited other mutual grown up friends, but not me and DH.

+1.

Even my Bat Mitzvah party was like this -- a formal adult thing, and I had three friends. By the time my brother came along, separate kid parties were a thing, so he got to do something he enjoyed. Not that I'm bitter about this 30 years later or anything