Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please, please post one of the replies from the mother. I have to know how she defended this craziness.

I can't bring myself to post them verbatim but basically my mom friend fired off an email that said to the effect please don't send out invites to a kids bday party that are really home sale parties. Then went on to talk about how rude, disrespectful and wrong this was. Follow up emails from other parents started and they said how this was a terrible thing and shameful, some said they would never send their kid to such a party, how terrible home party sales were, which companies were really bad and why they were bad and then how terrible the parents were to exploit children.

The host mom then sent an email about how she was just tying to give her DD a fun bday party and no one was obligated to buy anything. This went back and forth with parents pointing out that there would be pressure to buy. Then host mom said she thought it was terrible that everyone was sitting on their "f*ing pedestals" and passing judgement on her and her family and how her sister had fallen on hard times and wouldn't anyone do the same to help a family member by hosting a party to help her start her business, how upset her DD was and was hiding in her room, and how people go to hell for acting this way, and also threw in some more F bombs here and there and then lastly mentioned a couple moms by name who had been pretty mean in their emails that if they had a problem with her that she was free to meet up with her outside at drop off in the morning. So far no showdown has occurred though.

OK, so this seals the deal for me. Clearly, the party host and her sister were hoping to make some money, and NOT just trying to have a fun birthday party.

I almost felt bad for the mom there for a second. Had her intent been just to throw a makeover party, with some goodie bags for sale...bad, but maybe forgivable.

I think the worst part about these parties is that the seller pushes her wares by reminding everybody that the host (your friend, sister, relative) gets extra loot if you buy more, more, more AND even more discounts if one of you agrees to host another party. Don't you want to do that for your good dear friend? AND if you host a party, you get awesome discounts, but wait, if you pressure YOUR friends into buying more, and hosting a party, YOU get even more loot! Isn't this so fun? Ugh. I cannot imagine that type of sale to a bunch of 11 year old girls. I know a 20-year-old who agreed to a stupid jewelry party because she was immature and naive, and felt too guilty to say no. (Her mom is my friend, and was the one who wound up doing most of the work to host the party, just begging people to come so it wouldn't be a total disaster.)

Had you even thought that maybe the mom said this out of frustration after being backed into a corner by the bully moms? The party idea was a bad idea, it was not a crime, it was in poor taste, but that possibly could have been rectified and changed if someone had just been kind and considerate enough to reach out to her. But hey why do that when you can degrade and humiliate the mom at the daughter's expense. WAY TO FUCKING GO!

I agree that it likely could have been handled better and that the host mom did likely end up feeling backed into a corner but a big part of issue was that many of the invitees simply weren't friend's with the birthday girl. They know her from school but they aren't really friends with her. I think too many of the parents who were responding negatively via emails were parents who didn't know the child or the parents and ended up feeling like it was not really a true invitation.

Someone else asked why 11 yr olds would need make up. The goodie bags were mostly made up of skin care products, lotions and lip glosses and nail care stuff so it didn't seem like they would be doing any kind of actual make up. Still my DD is just too young to be really interested in that kind of thing yet so I don't feel she needs a full line of Mary Kay products.My DD aid there was a lot of talk about the party at school and the birthday girl got quite upset and so she felt bad for her and told her that she was going to ask me again in case she might able to go. A lot of girls were saying they wouldn't go and then some boys got in to the picture and started teasing that they were going to go and the poor girl ended up in tears. Just terrible. Hopefully at least the birthday girl's closest friends will still be going to the party so it's not a total bust.

This is ridiculous, all the way around. The aunt shouldn't have been involved in the party and absolutely shouldn't have been trying to sell any of those things to 11 year old girls. The mom should have known better, and if she wanted to host a party to help her sister, aim it at her adult friends and coworkers, not all the 11 year olds in her daughter's school. OP should have called and clarified that yes, it was a sales party and politely given her rsvp as a no, possibly even saying that she didn't appreciate her DD being invited to a sales party in the guise of a birthday. OP was well within expectations to quietly talk to her friend, but should have explained the situation, given that she knows the friend and presumably knows that she would fly off the handle. All the parents that did the nasty emails should definitely not have done so, a single email each to the host mom expressing disgust and stating that their daughter wasn't going to come would have been sufficient. Host mom should have cancelled the sales party when she realized that most people weren't going to come, either had her DD pick a different theme or rescheduled for a different day and arranged to have one item per close friend (and not invited all the girls who weren't friends with her DD). The kids at school shouldn't have been teasing birthday girl, birthday girl should try to make the best of the situation.

There's a lot of blame to go around, but it doesn't fix the situation. Kudos to OP's DD for commiserating with the girl, but just because she asked OP if she can go, doesn't mean she should. Personally, if this kindles a friendship between the two girls, I would offer to take the girls somewhere the Saturday following the party, their choice of destination. If this situation doesn't kindle a friendship, DD could still give the girl a gift at school on Friday before the party.