Both sons, daughter in law, adult grandson, adult granddaughter.

As NotSpagetti and others have said it is more likely that your adult children just wanted a night out together at the pub. All pretty normal stuff. There are lots of conversations, stories, jokes that they really don't want to tell in front of their Mum. Having Mum present does change the tone of the evening.

Also, I don't think many adult children really understand that a parent, especially one on their own, may sometimes feel a bit left out in situations like this. The bittersweet process of letting go of your children into the world is not a life experience they have had to face at this stage of their lives.

Instead of the feelings of low self esteem you should give yourself credit for having brought up children who are friends, like each other's company and want to have a night out with their siblings. That's a parenting job well done. ?

I don’t invite my children to every social event I go to or when I have friends round for dinner, so why should they invite me to their social events? They have their own life separate from their parents as do I. We do plenty of family things together, we just don’t do everything together. Don’t take it personally.

Many thanks to you all. Well, I thought that an update would be in order. My younger son came over yesterday and I remarked I'd have liked to be invited to the --- . He asked if \i could have endured two hours in a pub, some music going on too. I said I could have managed two hours as long as they did not expect me to hear everything that they all said. Then he said that it was all spontaneous that his children had arranged to go and casually asked him to come along and he asked his brother and simply did not consider I'd like to go. I well understood this as he knows I don't hanker after pubs, beer etc.

This pub meeting was different as it involved grandchildren and daughter in law too. Although we don't all hobnob together it would be nice I thought to be recognised now and again at a casual family get together. Anyway no bad feelings with me or anyone else, however I still think that generally old people are too often excluded, and other minorities too.

Actually, grans, the relationships between my grandchildren and me are almost non existent. This casual pub meet might have been a new beginning. I blame myself for not making enough effort and the geographical distances when they were all young children. Probably cannot be helped now that they are adults. All relationships require a lot of attention.