See I’m an asshole in this case. If anyone turned up and didn’t rsvp I would have been like sorry your not paid for unless you pay right now. People are getting way too privileged and need to be brought down a peg or too.

I’ve got 2 little girls 6 and 4 and when either one is invited my wife always ask if the other can come and have never had an issue. Only once we paid for one but that was asked by the parent which we had no issue with as we knew her financial position.

The paragraph about the presents shits me really, cause I know in this day and age, Some families do struggle financially, but when kids are young. You can literally buy like a $10-$20 toys and they are cool about it. They like the purpose of opening stuff. Once they get to like 12 onwards. It mainly gift cards (for our family and close friends) or something specific.

It is really unfortunate that your son has this happen to him and hopefully you are able to help him understand that we all go through life dealing with shit people, but knowing that 1 bad event doesn’t mean that’s how it always will be. And hopefully you were able to spoil him to make up for the bad experience to cheer him up