On Friday, I came to the horrible realization that my daughter is spectacularly unpopular, and I got to wondering. Is it me? Is it her? Or is it factors out of our control?
Still a bit discombobulated from our incredible vacation, I was a wee bit late in getting invitations out for Kelly’s birthday party, which we decided to celebrate on Sunday. I sent emails to 3 of her homeschool park friends on Friday, and followed it up with mailed invitations on Monday. Neil’s neighborhood friends have two little sisters with whom Kelly had recently started playing, so we sent an invitation over to them. And the rest of the invitations went to 4 of her fellow classmates. We never got a class directory, so I put them in the selected students’ cubbyholes, knowing it would go home with the rest of the school mail.
For 8 invitations, I only received 2 responses, and a second one from one of the school parents when I asked her in person. In all, Kelly had 3 friends from two families coming to her party, and a whole lot of people who don’t know, don’t care or don’t want to come to her party.
I try to remind myself that it’s not the number of people you have as friends, but how good the friends you do have are. But we sent her to the neighborhood school hoping she’d make more friends, and it does hurt to have the sense that your daughter is unpopular.