"Lost" Bar Mitzvah invitation? WWYD?

amother

Sun, Sep 19 2010, 8:52 pm

Okay, here's the story: My son's grade has started with the bar mitzvah parties. He is in a medium-sized school (around 40 boys in the grade) and the school rule is that you either have to invite the whole grade, and if not, it can't be more than half the grade. (I.e., you can't exclude just a few boys). So far, as far as I know he has been invited to all the bar mitzvahs except for one that was over the summer (which apparently not all the boys were invited to.) Some of his friends' mothers who I am friendly with started a "bar mitzvah carpool" which comes in handy so that no one has to drive to each and every one, and we joined the carpool. Today, the mother who's organizing it informed me that my turn is coming up to drive to "Yossi's" (not his real name) bar mitzvah. My immediate reaction was, "Uh-oh, my son wasn't invited." It happens to be this boy is not at all a close friend of his, but he is in his class and I was a bit surprised. I spoke to two of the other mothers, who informed me that a) they got the invitation a while ago (b/c I was thinking maybe we just didn't get it yet, and b) although so far everyone has invited the whole grade, there definitely will be people who DON'T, which is totally fine with me. However, my friend very kindly offered to casually email the mother of the boy (who I really don't know well and certainly wouldn't put her on the spot by asking myself) and mention that she is setting up a carpool, and before she does so, she just wanted to know if the whole grade is invited or not, so she won't call anyone to carpool who isn't invited. My friend then got back to me to say that yes, the whole grade is invited.
Now what do I do? There is no way I would send my son to the bar mitzvah and risk embarrassing him, not to mention that there may very well be seating cards and wouldn't be one for him, but also NO WAY would I call the mother directly and ask. I feel like I have no way out: I don't want my son to be hurt when he hears about it and realizes that he "wasn't invited" (even though he supposedly was), but I myself don't want to be aggressive or possibly embarrass the hosts by contacting them.
My friend offered to casually mention to the mother that my son didn't get his invitation, but I'm not sure this is the right approach either (at this point it may be obvious to the mother of the other boy that she was fishing around with her earlier question of whether the whole grade was invited or not.)
I just want to do the best thing for my son. Advice, please!

girlygirl

Sun, Sep 19 2010, 8:59 pm

Send him. Tell him to have a great time. In case there isn't a place card, remind him before he goes that his invitation got lost and so he never sent back a response card, perhaps the hosts weren't sure whether he was coming or had a conflicting bar mitzvah. At bar mitzvahs, there's usually one big table for the boys on one side of the room, someone can always just pull up a chair. I hear that you may feel funny, but this mother (baalas simcha) obviously has nothing to hide about the invite list and it may just be a genuine misunderstanding.

MaBelleVie

Sun, Sep 19 2010, 9:02 pm

If the mother said that the whole class was invited, I'm guessing the invitation really did get lost. Every single person I know who made a simcha has had this happen.

Usually the classmates don't have seating cards- there are tables set aside for them, and they seat themselves. Why not explain to your son that the mother said everyone was invited, but his invitation must have gotten lost- which is quite common. No need to make an issue out of something that isn't one! He'll go, have a great time, and learn that these things happen.

myfriends715

Sun, Sep 19 2010, 9:05 pm

I just made an upsherin (though it was the size of a bar mitzvah) and after mailing our abt 100 invites dh was in shul and he mentioned to a friend that he never got an rsvp the friend said he never got an invite. I then called another friend the night b4 the upsherin to ask if she can give someone a ride and she also said she never got an invite. it seems there were abt 2 or 3 invitations that got lost

send him. if the whole grade is going chaces are it was just a mixup

amother

Sun, Sep 19 2010, 9:06 pm

I hear what you're both saying, I really do. But I just can't see how I can bring myself to send him without a "real" invitation. Also my dh is being VERY difficult about it, b/c he had two "traumatic" incidents many years ago (with weddings, not bar mitzvahs) where he showed up (or someone asked about him) and it turned out he WASN'T invited. So he is being very unsupportive about it. (I was actually crying about this earlier...okay, I'm a bit hormonal at the moment, but still....)

MaBelleVie

Sun, Sep 19 2010, 9:30 pm

If it's a real issue for you, I think you should call this boys mother. Say that someone asked you about carpooling, she was under the impression that everyone was invited, but your son didn't receive an invitation. Ask- was everyone invited? If not, I completely understand! I just thought that perhaps my sons invitation got lost, and there's no reason for him to miss out if everyone else will be there.

Worst that will happen is that your son was never invited, but this phone call will have prompted an invite. And chances are, no one will ever figure out if that's what happened.

SavtaHelen

Sun, Sep 19 2010, 10:09 pm

Things happen. Invitations get lost. This isn't a big deal. If the mother said that everyone was invited, then there is no way that she would leave out just your son.

Have the friend call and verify. Let her tell the mom about the carpool and that your son never received his invite.

This may be that poor mom's first affair and she has so much on her mind and this is most likely just an innocent mistake....or her kid made the error, or the post office. But if your son and hers have not had a major blowout, then there is no way that he was singledout.

Send him and let him have fun

amother

Mon, Sep 20 2010, 5:57 am

Barbara wrote:

If you don't RSVP, chances are that the mom will contact you prior to the bar mitzvah to ask whether your son will be attending. At that point, you can tell her that your son never received the invitation.

From previous experience, this doesn't always happen. Like one poster said, the mother may be overwhelmed with all the planning and I usually find that unless someone is really missing a LOT of responses, they don't necessarily call around to find out if people are coming or not.

DovDov

Mon, Sep 20 2010, 7:37 am

As I see it, the possibilities are:

1. Your invitation got lost in the mail.
2. Your name was deleted from the list by mistake.
3. They didn't want to invite your son.

Of these, it's really unlikely to be (3), unless the boys really hate each other. You wouldn't believe the number of invite mess-ups that happen. My great-aunt's invitation to my bat-mitzvah came back to up all torn up FOUR YEARS after the bat mitzvah. My father's best friend was left off my sister's wedding invite list. THINGS HAPPEN. If there's no particular enmity between the boys and the whole class is invited, you can assume he's invited too.

Your options are:
1. Keep your son home, so he misses the bar mitzva and maybe feels really bad when he hears about it in school.
2. Send your son anyway and let him be embarrassed if someone says something funny or if there is clealry not enough of something (seats, etc.) for him.
3. Call them up and ask, upon which they will undoubtedly express terrible regret that you didn't get an invitation and of course he was invited and please send him.

Options (1)&(2) both leave room for your son to be embarrassed, which is really hard at that age. With (3), only you might be embarrassed. Isn't that better?

1Life2Live

Mon, Sep 20 2010, 8:01 am

life'sgreat wrote:

If the mom said everyone was invited, why would you doubt that?

I think it completely makes sense for that mother to call up the BMB's mom and say I called Mrs. X to carpool and she said she didn't get an invitation. I told her that you said everyone was invited and she said she doesn't feel comfortable sending her son without an invitation. There's nothing off or wrong or fishy in this.

I think this is the best advice so far. I would feel the same way as the OP and would not be comfortable calling the bar mitzvah boy's mother.

Chana Miriam S

Mon, Sep 20 2010, 8:02 am

if I was the hostess, I would be mortified that you had not yet received the invitation and thought you were not invited when everyone else was.

a number of times, kids were given invites in school and my son never brought them home. we almost missed a few of them but for me realizing the event was coming and we had not heard. in one case he was not invited but that bar mitzvah was in another town the weekend of his own bar mitzvah, so it was no biggie.