On a blog today, I came across a situation where inviting all the coworkers except one to a wedding caused some drama. In the comments, someone said they didn’t agree with the "all or nothing invitation thing " that’s forced in schools , someone else commented that she knew as a child in the 80s that it was rude to invite every kid except one and someone else said that it’s been a problem for bullied kids since the 80s since they had to invite their bullies to their birthday parties. I’ve seen this online in other places as well , the idea that schools require that every child in the class be invited to birthday parties.
Now of course I can only know the policies of schools and other organizations that either I or possibly people I know have been affiliated with - but I have never heard of a school or other organization that required that everyone in the class/on the team/in the Brownie troop get invited to the party. Until today, I thought it was generally accepted as rude to exclude only one person from a group*and that a generally rule id that you should invite either less than half of the group or the whole group - but the only actual rule I have ever encountered with schools/teams/scout troops is “If you aren’t inviting everyone, you can’t give out the invitations at school/baseball practice/the Brownie meeting.” In other words, it’s not a rule about who gets invited, it’s a rule about giving out invitations and if you send the invitations via Facebook/email/mail/telephone you’re in compliance with the rule even if you only invited 5 kids out of 25. Has anyone ever encountered any sort of school ( or other group) where the rule really is about who must be invited and not where invitations are distributed?
because there were commenters who apparently thought it was just fine to invite four of your five coworkers to your wedding.
My (private) grade school did. If, during class, you handed out invites for a birthday party, you had to hand them out to everyone (or just the girls/boys).
To the best of my knowledge, this wasn’t a school policy, it was just the ‘accepted’ way to do it and an unofficial rule most of the homeroom teachers had.
There were, of course, no restrictions on what happened outside of school/off school grounds.
That’s what these people are saying - that the rule isn’t about what happens in school, but about who gets invited. I don’t know if they misunderstood, misremember or just can’t imagine any way of inviting kids without giving out the invitations in class or if there really are schools that have a rule that you can’t invite just some of the kids even if you send the invitations through the mail or something. It sounds bizarre to me, but I’ve seen people say it a lot and I’m wondering if anyone has actually heard of a school with that kind of rule.
My experience at my kids’ publoic school was the restriction affected invitation distribution only, not the actual inviting. If you stuck invitations in the classroom cubbyholes/mailslots, then you had to invite every kid in the class. Hand the invitations out on the playground, or use online invites, or word of mouth, then invite whoever you want.
Now, it is considered a dick move to exclude just one kid, unless that kid is an asshole. My son wanted to invite all but one kid in kindergarten, and I discreetly asked the teacher about the kid. He was the class punching bag, not a bully, so I made my son invite him too. The kid was so grateful to be invited. The rest of the party pretty much shunned him though.
As a child who was the only child not invited more than once, I’m fine with the “everyone must be invited” rule IF the invitations are being handed out at school, the Scout troop, the Sunday School class, etc. If the invitations are being mailed, they can invite as many or as few as they wish.
PSSST - nowadays, kids can just invite the fire or police department, and a TV station, and get more presents than they ever imagined. ETA: Here’s the thread I started about it a while back, when it seemed to be on the NATIONAL news almost every day.
I’m guessing there’s a lot more to the story regarding the wedding invitations. Does the OP have a link to the blog?
As far as organization rules, I’ve only heard of rules on distribution. If you’re inviting on premises, you invite everybody.
The only thing I can think of is, your soccer coach might bench you for privately inviting everybody except one teammate, because that causes a rift in the team. That’s a personal decision/policy though, not something I would expect to see in a student/parent handbook.
But as far as unspoken rules or social cues, there are plenty of times where a close knit group will agree to boycott a party unless they are all invited. Jill might refuse to go to the birthday party without her bffs Jane, Sue, &etc.
In Kindergarten (or first grade - I forget), I faced a major social challenge; two kids were having parties on the same day. Both invited the whole class - so which one should I go to.
(I also remember that everyone in the elementary school class was required to produce Valentine cards for everyone else).
In my daughter’s 1st grade class this year there is a total ban on invitations. If they catch you with them on school grounds they will confiscate them. For her 6th birthday we sent an evite to every person on the class parent mailing list.
We had that rule as well, which our sixth grade teacher was very adamant about because there was a girl who was the subject of teasing. The teacher said if “anyone” was excluded or any mean Valentines cards were given then consequences would follow.
In my children’s private Orthodox Jewish schools, that’s definitely a policy for Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. I don’t recall if that applies to other birthday parties.
When my kids were in grade school, passing out invitations in class required an invite for everyone. The obvious workaround was to send invitations via USPS, which was how everyone did it.
Which “that” is the policy ? Invitations can’t be passed out in school unless everyone is invited or everyone has to be invited no matter how invitations are given out?
How could a school possibly enforce a rule about who was invited to social gatherings outside of class? Are they really going to send Jimmy to detention if he didn’t invite little Billy to his party? Are they going to troll through facebook pictures to see when the party was?
A rule over conduct in class or on school grounds (the passing out of invitations) is one thing, but the other seems totally unworkable, at least in the context of a public school. I guess a private school could make you agree to all sorts of nonsense like that.
This seems to assume that all birthday parties are large cake & games type gatherings. A lot of my own birthday parties were ‘invite just three or five or some small number friends and we’ll take you all out to an amusement park/roller skating rink/river rafting type event and then get some sort of fast food afterwards.’ Obviously (not being a rich family) taking an entire class would be impractical.
Of course, my birthday is in August, so teams/classes/girl scout troops/etc. generally weren’t in operation anyway.