Please give me real & honest advice on this.
My son’s 5th bday is coming up and I am really anxious and sad about it. Long story short my kid has never been in daycare pre k or anything so he doesn’t have consistent friends like that. The only “friends” he really has are the children of the parents we (his dad and I) have tried to bond with the past few yrs since moving to a new state. Unfortunately some things happened this summer & we’ve had to distance ourselves from this group because of those incidences. Naturally that means our kids are not playing together anymore because we are not having play dates & house parties like we used to (5 couples, 9 children in total. Usually get together planned 4+x a month, let the kiddos play freely while we hang out)(we all live on the same street). Everyone else is still cool I suppose and it seems like my family is now the only one on the outside of the circle (which again was kinda my decision that I felt I needed to make for my own mental health.) I guess the part I am stuck at is I have like no kids to invite to his party and I know it’s going to break his heart😢 He is seeking connection badly and is constantly asking me for friends. I absolutely do not want to cave and invite this group. If anything I only want to invite 1 couple out of the 5 and that’s because my son actually bonds and plays with him the most (and they are the only adults I actually don’t have any issues with). Everyone else he only plays with becauseeeee of the adults hanging and now that it’s been months since I silently took a step back he doesn’t ask for them at all. Only that 1 kid. So wtf do I do. Hubby says all get invited or none. I stand my ground on f*** how that makes ppl feel, I just want to invite the one.
Definitely don’t want my boy to be sad on his birthday because there’s practically no kids to play with at his party. I’m trying to protect our peace. I don’t want fake ppl around us. Am I in the wrong? Gosh I’m just so sad over this 🙁
** Adding in that my own childhood trauma may be at play. I was a very lonely child who craved connection and attention and my childhood was hectic. Alcoholic neglectful abusive parents. Birthday parties were never for us. It was for them to get drunk and make them look good. So this is really big to me because I pour my heart and soul into my kids birthday parties to make sure they feel special. 😔 what would you do?
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I thought about that (doing something smaller somewhere) but my kid is so adamant on wanting a specific themed party at our house and that is also a driving factor for my anxiety because all of the other families will see I’m having a party and realize I didn’t invite them and I don’t want that drama or to be made to feel uncomfortable on my own street post party. It’s bittersweet. I don’t care how I make them feel but then I also do because I have to see all of them all of the time like when I take my garbage bins out or when I’m at the community pool which is literally across the street from our houses or even just when the kids want to ride bikes up and down the street 🤦🏽♀️
I had no intentions of letting this group know why I dropped out either but I feel like this is gonna force the truth out and I guess I’m anxious for that confrontation as well. I hate drama. I rather walk away peacefully.
Thank you for your input. 🙏🏼
I would do a trip instead of a party.
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