PLEASE just RSVP! “No one came Dad. I guess I'm not very popular."

A heartbroken mother writes an emotional blog post describing her “utter devastation” after no one turned up to her son’s ninth birthday party.

The mother-of-six from America, who goes by the pen name Kristen Layne, and blogs at Life on Peanut Layne, described her son Mahlon as “The kid who would give the shirt off of his back to a stranger, and hand over a beloved toy to make another child smile”.

Despite this, not one child from school or Mahlon’s taekwondo class came to his birthday party.

Ms Layne begged other parents to RSVP latest blog writing, “I had asked parents to RSVP on the invitation, but hadn’t received a single reply”.

“Since we’re new in town (and school just started a little over a month ago here), I didn’t have phone numbers for any of the parents.”

This was Mahlon’s first year attending a public school, after being home-schooled for much of his life.

Ms Layne considered cancelling the party but her son had assured her that five of his friends were definitely coming.

The mother-of-six went on to say, “He handed out multiple invitations to his friends at school, and one from taekwondo.

“When his birthday finally arrived yesterday, he was up before the sun.”

Ms Layne watched as her little boy ran up and down the street anxiously waiting for his party guests.

“But no one came. Not a single child,” Ms Layne added.

Mahlon told his father, “No one came Dad. I guess I’m not very popular at school”.

Ms Layne said Mahlon later started sobbing when he realised nobody was going to turn up.

“I don’t blame the kids who didn’t show up, and i’m trying very hard not to blame the parents as i’m honestly too devastated to be angry. There are a million excuses and scenarios that could explain why no one showed. Perhaps they didn’t feel comfortable sending their kids over to our house for a couple of hours, perhaps they already had plans, perhaps their child was sick, or perhaps their child’s invitation never made it home and is crumpled up into a ball at the bottom of their backpack, who really knows? What I do know though, is that M will likely never forget his ninth birthday. It will forever be etched in his memory bank as that one year when no one came to his party. And that kills me as a parent. And it could’ve all been avoided by a simple RSVP, via phone call, text, email, whatever, etc. I know I will definitely never ignore those four little letters ever again.”

Parents please remember – “It could’ve all been avoided by a simple RSVP, via phone call, text, email, whatever, etc.”

Has your child ever had a similar experience?

Share your comments below.

Image via Life of Peanut Layne

19 Comments

- - shilto02 said
  - 15 Dec 2016
    7:34 pm
So sad for this poor little boy. My son had 2 boys tell him they wouldn’t come to his party when he gave out his invites. To his credit he didn’t get upset and I let him pick 2 more children. Thankfully they all RSVP’d but a lot of people don’t these days. I always make a habit of doing it soon after getting the invite so that I don’t forget. If only the parents of these kids did the same and said they couldn’t come, then they could have had a back up plan.

- - Mygirlsmumma said
  - 01 Dec 2016
    8:31 pm
Thats so sad. My daughter recently had a bday party and lots of kids didnt show too! She ended up with 4 out of the 10 she invited and 8 who RSVP’d. 2 showed up near the end of the the party. Its a shame that noone showed. I can only imagine how devistated he was.

- - june11 said
  - 04 Nov 2016
    10:59 pm
If the parents of the invited children were concerned they could have contacted
Mahlon’s parents and explained their feelings about being wary of letting their children go where they don’t know the people. Perhaps the Mums could have had a morning or afternoon tea to meet her then come to a decision.
Maybe a month after school started was bad timing as far as getting to know each other and waiting until the following year may have been a wiser choice. I know parents who have made that decision in the past.
I know one family who restrict the number of children invited and invite the Mum as well. Their friends do the same. The Mums get to know each other and decide whether or not they will attend in future.

- - jools41 said
  - 02 Nov 2016
    6:26 pm
Poor kid & shame on the parents – in the day of the mobile it is so easy to text an RSVP these days.

- - mom112217 said
  - 02 Nov 2016
    7:54 am
That is just very sad for the young boy,l hope he makes some friends in the future.

- - mom93821 said
  - 02 Nov 2016
    6:26 am
It is just plain rude and bad manners not to RSVP as it hardly takes any time at all to respond to an invitation. Poor child, no child deserves to feel bad on their birthday.
- mom93821 replied
  
  03 Nov 2016 , 7:23 am
  Hopefully he will have parties in the future. 🙂
- - mom134803 said
  - 02 Nov 2016
    1:15 am
Poor boy !! Maybe they lived there too short and friendship relations where not created yet ?
Yes, very rude not to RSVP. When you have children yourself you can know what not replying can do to a child’s heart.

- - mamavon said
  - 01 Nov 2016
    11:23 pm
I think it is pretty rude when people do not rsvp. Of course, there may be occasions where they have lost the invite or just forgot about the rsvp date. That is why I tend to ring up the parents of the children who have not rsvp.

- - bmuir said
  - 01 Nov 2016
    11:07 pm
Happened to us last year for my daughter’s 3rd birthday party. I handed out 8 invitations, only 3 people bothered to reply. 2 said they couldn’t come and only 1 little girl came. Luckily we had family there and my daughter was too young to worry about it. It’s very rude not to reply to an invitation. I make sure I always do.

- - mom160421 said
  - 01 Nov 2016
    10:40 pm
It makes it very difficult for the birthday child’s parents to know what to do when other parents do not RSVP. A little courtesy goes a long way.

- - mom90758 said
  - 01 Nov 2016
    10:19 pm
Devastating. But if nobody reserved by the day specified in the invitation, the parents should have maybe thought about some other way to celebrate this birthday.
I always answer when my daughter receives an invitation. To say that she goes or that she can’t make it.

- - mom70876 said
  - 01 Nov 2016
    9:58 pm
very sad for teh little boy, but why didn’t they check rsvps before going ahead with the party?

- - BellaB said
  - 01 Nov 2016
    9:36 pm
I’m terrified that one day this will be my child (as it’s happened to me). But the majority of parents at our school are good at RSVPing.

- - regine_kong said
  - 01 Nov 2016
    9:04 pm
It happened at my baby shower. Only my baby’s godparents rocked up. Also at my tupperware party. Am at the point where i am really over parties and don’t want to have them anymore. Being an adult doesn’t make it any easier

- - lspew said
  - 01 Nov 2016
    6:57 pm
We haven’t had this happen, but i do dread the days it does. I hate chasing people up for responses and often include several forms of RSPVing. I understand some people are just busy but it takes only a few seconds to reply yes or no.

- - mom64356 said
  - 01 Nov 2016
    5:57 pm
Poor boy, I couldn’t hardly read this article as I felt so sorry for him! I always RSVP…. everybody should remember this, it takes a couple minutes to do, it’s not hard!

- - mom81879 said
  - 01 Nov 2016
    5:33 pm
How absolutely devastating for this poor boy. How hard is it to RSVP fir gods sake. This never happened to my kids, but it happened to me on my 10th birthday. It still brings a tear to my eye all these years later thinking about it :,(

- - nealsq said
  - 01 Nov 2016
    5:17 pm
poor kid, not rsvping is just plain rude