To wonder if charging people to attend a party is normal?

This is very odd, and I say that as someone about to pay a small fortune for my soon to be 6 year's party on Friday. I pay for everything, they bring a gift if they can and f not, that's totally cool, come anyways and have pizza, hot dogs, and cake and jump in the bouncy castle until you barf.

I've had parties for my dc, including one where we ordered pizza from Dominoes. Ive never dreamed of asking parents to pay. Taken dc to many parties too, I've never been asked to pay. She's a CF host

It's amazing how many parents think it's fine to speak about others in front of their kids.

We had a few corkers in my son's year group at primary. One lad questioned one of the other Mum's about whether or not she had a six pack and waxed lyrical about how hard his Mum had worked in lockdown to achieve them and had SHE put in as much time to look good in a bikini.

Absolutely batshit.

He also told a Grandma who was on pick up that his mother wouldn't be seen dead in her car and pointed out to other kids how terribly SMALL their gardens were compared to their house.

Just a proper snotty little sod and we all knew damn well it had come from parents.

Yes.

Parents really need to keep their opinions of other kids' parents away from their children. It's not the child's fault that her mum made a faux pas - and nobody has died.

I wonder if someone egged this mother on saying it is normal nowadays or something. Who knows? I now feel for her and her child. However it will pass, nobody died.

Does nobody have children's parties at home any more?

I thought everyone was boycotting the party but maybe I have lost myself in this chat 🤔

My reply:Hi, thanks for the invite, child will be there. We’re having lunch out that day so we’ll just leave the pizza thank you!

please don’t do this and have your kid sitting watching the other kids eat.

My reply:
Hi, thanks for the invite, child will be there. We’re having lunch out that day so we’ll just leave the pizza thank you!

Weird!

I feel realllly bad as my daughter wants a pottery painting party and afternoon tea. It’s £15 each plus whatever the cost of the item they paint is. There’s hardly anything less than £15 but there are some cute things. So I’ve said £15 towards pottery, took a picture of the display with prices and said ‘but they can upgrade should they want a more valuable item’ - there’s no forcing there, but I didn’t want to be the mum on the day that says no to someone choosing something for £50 and spoiling it.

This mum will be on Daily mail telling "no one turned up for our party "... ridiculous

Did you end up texting her OP?

Maybe as the first party of the year for a new intake there are some parents with their first in school who don't know how it all works. I wouldn't say it's entitled at this stage. Just a mistake, that everyone can move on from now. There's no point in making them feel bad, better to reach out and support them as you will know them for all the next school years. Obviously if it becomes a pattern of entitled behaviour then that is different. But if it's just a mistake then just move on with a bit of compassion. We can all get something like this wrong at times.

This thread was because it was the first party for OP and they didn't know the norm so asked others. That's not fake or unreasonable and a perfectly reasonable use of a forum like this. Nothing fake. And the update about how the outcome is concerning for OP sounds genuine to me. It's not compulsory to find something negative about every OP.

Thats a shame for the poor birthday child as they have done nothing wrong. However i am not overly surprised by it as the birthday child's parent was being ridiculously entitled and her child is now paying the price for it.

Hopefully the birthday child's mum will realise her expecting other parents to pay for her child's party is unacceptable and has resulted in her child being bullied. Not that I condone the child being bullied.

If you ever planned children’s parties you know very well how much it sucks with parents missing RSVP dates and leaving you without any clue of how many kids will attend. There is always the last minute ones saying “sorry, is it still time to confirm that little Johnny can come to the party”? It sucks!! Maybe she is doing it as a deposit and refund the parent once the party is over. This is something new but there can be many many other reasons out there for it. Maybe mum needs the “little” help of £5 , so what ? I wouldn’t not take my kid for a party with bouncy castle and pizza because of £5 pounds. He would have a great day out that’s is actually cheaper than any other thing we could possibly do. I thought mumsnet was a mum supportive platform. But very often what I see is woman being mean to each other.

I also think this thread should be deleted.
The mum was really daft and seems to lack social skills. Hopefully she's learnt from her mistake and it will all blow over.

I agree 100%

@SittingOnIt id be tempted to ask for this thread to be deleted, it's absolutely made for discussion in the papers, Loose Women etc and that's really not fair on the mum who I'm guessing didn't set up with the intention of making herself the butt of school gate gossip and slagging off

Yes you have a point actually. OP be careful you did think she was out of order, hence the thread on mumsnet, if you message full of concern she may think she was in the right. I wouldn't message her but as someone else suggested take in a card and some chocolates for the child.

Maybe, maybe not, talk of setting up a smaller WhatsApp chat and starting a thread which is prime daily fail fodder doesn’t seem very caring to me.

She originally asked for opinions. I don't think the concern is fake.

Or maybe I like to think better of people than you do.

Why are you going to WhatsApp her to show fake concern when you’ve started a whole thread on here for anyone to read?

Absolutely not! They should pay!

now whilst I’m here, I need to hear more from @BoarBrushabout being expected to do a 6 hour round trip for a party???

Never heard of this & my DC went to so many parties in primary school.

Oh dear. That's a shame. Bit of a daft decision is now becoming a big thing. Like others have said, maybe you could buy a few sweets and a card for the birthday child? As you haven't been blocked, maybe drop her a message and see if her DC wants to play with yours one day or come over for dinner? At least then Mum will know she has a friendly face at school as she is probably feeling terribly uncomfortable right now.

Yeah I agree with @RosesAndHellebores. Poor kid will be gutted about the party 😔
The mum will be too! I’d be devastated if I’d done something that caused that kind of upset for my child.
Id either invite the kid for tea or reach out to the mum and see if she wanted to arrange a play date. I’d take a gift for the birthday child too.

@3luckystars You don’t think a bunch of kids laughing at another kid is mean?! Oh dear!