Not attending a party after RSVPing yes

[sammycat]

Yesterday was my 10 year old son's birthday party and he invited 23 kids. 2 RSVPed 'no' immediately, which was fine, and the others all said yes (a few I had to chase up but I suppose that's that norm these days).  I was hiring some entertainment that was based on a pay per child basis so really needed to know definite numbers as 15 was the minimum amount of children.

Come party time, 1 boy from school did not turn up at all, no phone call, no nothing. I've never met the parents, have no contact details etc. My son was a bit upset/puzzled by this but I explained that maybe some emergency came up (possible I suppose but not likely in my opinion).  We are on school holidays now for 7 weeks so by the time school starts my son asking his friend why he didn't turn up will be long forgotten I hope.

2 other girls (not related), who live in our street didn't turn up either.  I only found this out when the parents were dropping the younger siblings of each of these girls' off.  They are both 12 1/2 years old and I understand that attending a 10 year old boy's party may not be their thing at the moment, although they play together quite happily with my son at other time. I wasn't annoyed at their absence at all and my son never mentioned it.  But if they didn't want to come they should have said so earlier and neither my son nor myself would have taken offence.

Is it rude not to tell the party hostess that your child is not coming only at the time the party is starting?  Or am I thinking about this too much?

[LifeOnPluto]

I think it's rude, especially when it's a pay-per-head situation. Did the parents of the absent children realise it was a pay-per-head party, or did they think it was more of an "open house" deal, where anyone was free to drop in (or not as the case may be) without any hassle.

Anyway, I don't see why children's partys should be exempt from the normal RSVP rules. If a parent has RSVP'ed yes on behalf of their child, then the child should attend, (notwithstanding any emergency, or illness, etc).

[sammycat]

The invitations had a definite start and finish time, as opposed to being an open house type thing.  I think the neighbours knew that paid entertainment was coming as my son had mentioned that 'x entertainer' is coming and I think I had mentioned something about it to one mum in the course of a conversation.  Also, the invitations had the logo of the entertainer on them and stated something along the lines of "'come and be entertained by X".

[Chocolate Cake]

It was definitely rude to not show up at the party after you received their positive RSVP.   If I were in your shoes, I'd call the parents and ask about the girl's health because you are worried about them since they didn't show for the party and you hadn't heard a peep since then.   

Just be prepared to hear a bunch of lame excuses.

[sammycat]

Oh, I already know the excuses.  One of them decided to go and attend the school holiday activity programme at the local community centre.  It's school holidays here and this is the same programme she will be attending almost every week day for the next 6 weeks as both parents' work.  The second girl also has working parents and her younger brother was actually brought to our house by their daycare mum who told me that" "Jane" seems to think that I (the daycare mum) am going to be doing something exciting today so she's decided to stay with me - although I won't be so I don't know what she's going to do all day". (The babysitter is a lovely lady and I have no beef whatsoever with her). So in reality it wasn't even her actual parents that told me; they left it to their babysitter.  Truth be told though, neither my husband nor I am particularly fond of this girl and really only invited her as a courtesy so that she wouldn't be the only neighbourhood child not invited.

I've just simply put it down to the fact that 12 1/2 year old girls don't want to attend parties of 10 year old boys.  Having said that, I do think once you RSVP yes to an invitation you have an obligation to attend, barring accident or illness.

[Lisbeth]

Those three no-shows were very rude to RSVP yes and then skip the party without a life-and-death emergency.

Don't invite any of them again.  If they're the only ones not invited to parties in the future, it's because of how they (or their parents or guardians) dealt with the situation.

[sammycat]

Both of those families' have their houses listed for sale so by the next lot of birthdays it probably won't even be an issue as they'll likely have moved away.  But even if they haven't moved, I was already planning on culling the 2 older girls from the guest list anyway.  As for the boy from school, I suspect that his parents don't live together as he catches a train to school some days from a suburb over 40 minutes away, so maybe there was a breakdown in communication between the 2 households. 

Thinking about it now, other friends have had a similar things happen at their children's parties recently (completely different sets of kids and ages), so maybe this is a bit of an unfortunate trend.

I'm relieved to know that I wasn't over reacting as to how rude I thought this was.  Thank you all for your replies!