Single sex birthday parties

When isn't it lazy to divide a group by gender rather than by aptitude, interest or actual friendship?

Sounds like the definition of lazy sexism to me.

What a message to send to children...it doesn't matter what your interests are or even your who you actually like or get on with - genitals are all that count.

They aren't kidding when they say parents are the source of sexism in the next generation.

I think OP is long gone!

I don't understand why you assume it's ''lazy brained' of the parents to only invite one gender, they may be working to a budget and are only able to invite a certain number of children - do you know for sure the birthday child and their parents didn't discuss the guest list or that the parent insisted only on one gender of child? It's much more probable the parent said 'you can invite x amount of children, who would you like?' and the child gave the names of his close friends who also happen to be the same gender. Sounds to me like you're assuming a lot and you haven't got the actual facts.

For my DDs I did big whole class parties till they were 7 ish then (in theory) smaller just girls parties. When you invite the people they play with (both mine mainly girls) and ones from activities etc you start getting to the point where it is all the girls except one or two anyway - it is purely a way of controlling the numbers without obviously excluding anyone...(although both mine have had all girls plus a couple of boys they played with parties)
No pamper/craft parties here though!
When they are smaller you can do church hall type ones but then you get venues that have a max number of children. Also as they get older you start looking at more expensive things things - like cinema trips ...too expensive to do the whole class ...

DD1 class was a smaller one and more or less 50:50 split so 10 girls...just about doable until she started secondary (and more or less organised her own parties...)
DD2 more of a headache - much bigger class and mainly girls -16. I really debated this time whether to make her choose 10 - but she is a social butterfly, gets invited to lots of parties/sleepovers etc (opposite of DD1). So I would probably have to make it 12 girls - then you are leaving out 4. And I know the ones who would have been excluded are the ones who rarely get an invite - are quiet, new, have special needs or for financial reasons don't really get birthday parties so aren't at the top of the list for reciprocal invites...all the girls is fairer...

Dd had a single sex birthday this year as 3/4 of the boys
in her class are nightmares and she didn't want them there.

Home school parents can better decide the children their children hang out with, obviously. They will also usually know the children and their parents better as they hang out in groups.. All the ones I know are vehemently against sex segregating toys and learning.

If you tell child thatvthey can invite 10 kids and they choose all girls, that's fine. If you say you can invite ALL the girls in the class but no boys. That's not fine.

Surely no child is friends with all the children who happen to be the same sex and MORE so than they are with all the children of a different sex. Yes, it's lazy.

If someone said their kids went to a school that was 50/50 white/ Asian but weren't going to invite the Asian kids "because it was easier" or "because Asian kids don't like Make A bear" we'd think they were racist fucking idiots.. but sexism is fine.

My son would be very to the poser who thinks boys can't like princesses. And I know many little girls who be like this at a princess party.

Reason 103 for home education: No single sex birthday parties.
Bollocks!
How on earth do you link Home Ed with no single sex parties?
No parties at all maybe?
Surely friends (even home educated ones) might still choose a single sex party, maybe from the friends at football club or dance or rainbows?

My kids went to a mixed local school, never once did they attend a single sex party - they were all mixed. There were some single sex parties that happened, but they tended to be small groups of boys or girls who enjoyed particular activities.

I have ten nieces and nephews as well as various close friends with children of a similar age to mine. I have had single sex parties since it was the only conceivable way we could manage the numbers. One local hall with bouncy castle hire and sporty games would only accommodate a maximum of 35. With only half of a class, we still pushed it with 38 kids in all. Lazy-brained? It took us forever to reach that kind of compromise, OP.

good grief. What a horrible sexist situation. No wonder school produce such gender biased results.

Reason 103 for home education: No single sex birthday parties.

Do understand your point 15thaugust ... particularly as explained in your 3rd and 4th posts.

However, it really does not sound as if you definitely know, for sure, what circumstances brought about the situation regarding this particular party.

For example, I could imagine this situation arising if the parents had told their child he could have a themed party ... so he picks a football themed party. The parents then book and pay for, say, ten children and tell their DS he may invite 9 friends. It seems to me perfectly possible that the child (with his football themed party in mind) might pick the 9 friends he's closest to from, say, an after-school football group, rather that the 9 friends he's closest to from school.

Is that possible? That it was simply down to the child picking a strictly limited number of children, with the theme tying in with, for example, an out-of-school activity group uppermost in his mind?

Although desirable, I think it's probably not always possible for parents to guide their children into picking a fair mix ... especially when numbers are limited.

I don't think it's just lazy parents, my daughter wouldn't want boys at her party and she has three brothers. She doesn't like boys, she's nine. She finds boys her age tedious and babyish. She is very female. My sons aren't the same, they like both and have friends of both sexes. My daughter has never had a male friend.

This is quite common in my DD's class. The split is around 2/3 boy and 1/3 girl.

I had whole class parties for a couple of years, but its a lot of hard work and DD didn't get invited to many parties as most people didn't do them.

Last year we invited all the girls to soft play, as only 10 of them and I didn't feel we could leave any out, but we also invited 2 boys that DD likes.

There have been a lot of parties where its boys only or girls only and it seems more common as they grow older.

Totally agree seafoodeatit. It's a non-issue for 99% of parents, I'd say.

We just had an all boys party for my 6 year old boy. He'd asked for the boys only and that seemed fine to me. From year 1 onwards gender splits seem totally normal where i live....Halved the numbers (money is tight ish) and made for a really easy party.

Most of the boys play footie on a Saturday together in the morning so it seemed natural. And to be honest I'd highly recommend it as 15 was a lovely number. Easier and much less stressy that the 24 whole class thing last year.

I think you are way over thinking it. Is your dd your first child? I work in Early Years and am the first to support both genders playing with any toy or playing any sport they like - my 8yr old dd loves football, for example.

I think it's actually a non issue. Just explain to your daughter that the boy wanted it to be a boys party, end of. Move on to a different subject and she won't think twice about it. If you are "furious" then that will clearly come across to her... And I think 'lazy brained' is rather rude.

Not sure I'd invite your dd to future parties if you were to challenge me over invites. Pushy parent. Just need to accept not everyone gets invited to everything. Making a big deal out of it is not cool. Do something exciting with your family the same weekend so dd has something else to think about and talk about at school.

I wasn't aware this bothered anyone? It's just a party and it's up to the parents how they run it, I can see how halving the numbers would be appealing when the costs can run very high per head. For our sons party we invited the whole class plus their siblings as we hired two entertainers to do lots of activities/dancing etc, he'd only been at school for over a month so it was impossible to have invited only friends, next year we may well have a list depending on what he chooses to do.

A girl in his class I've just found out is having a girls only dance party, I'm not bothered, if anything I'm glad it's one less party to buy presents for.

With siblings we would always have mixed sex anyway. Our chidlren from age 3 or 4 to 18 went/go to single sex schools so many of the parties once school age were single sex but that was because the school was for that sex.

However our chidlren have been brought up in gender neutral ways so a party at which girls might be attending is as likely to involve mud and running around as a boy one. I hope all parents act like that. It is the way to bring up children in an equal fashion.

I have a DS and a DD close in age - they play with each other, each other's friends and each other's toys. I hate gender stereotyping, and neither DC has ever had a single-sex birthday party (although they both have been invited to them).

I still wouldn't dream of taking such a parent to task, or presume to know why they had chosen to have just one gender to their child's party. It's beyond presumptuous and rude.

You cannot 100% know anyone's reasons for doing anything, and even if you did, telling a parent off for not inviting your DC to their kid's birthday party is too cringeworthy for words.

Would you have a go at a parent for not inviting them for any other reason - - or is this the only one that deems it OK to behave like a social buffoon?

My 6 year old girl has always played with unisex toys and my DH and I have tried not to force her into a pink pigeonhole. She likes dinosaurs, Minecraft, insects, and sports. She is not interested in fairies, Frozen or playing mummies and daddies. As a result she only plays with boys. She gets referred to as an honorary boy. She gets invited to all the boys parties and is regularly the only girl. Her last birthday party she invited only boys.
We might have avoided heavily gendered toys/activities but school and her classmates have decided she is a boy because her interests are deemed masculine.
So... Not sure what my point is but you really can't complain your daughter hasn't been invited to a friends party. It's the child's choice.

My delicate flower of a seven year old son would be equally horrified by the idea of a football party, and gleeful at the idea of a craft party. Just because "most" of a gender do or don't like something, don't presume they ALL think the same! Geez...

Equally, what gives anyone the right to ASSUME their child will be invited to a party? If they're not one of the closest friends of the child in question, I don't care what type of party it is, or what gender the child is, it's just tough.

Another thing I truly hate is when the parents "vet" their child's friends. This has had a devastating effect on my daughter and it's nasty, childish and vicious.

I am feeling your issue, OP. My DD2 is Reception, and we've been talking vaguely about who she might like to her 5th birthday (thinking small group at home), and all her suggestions are girls. In fact she only seems to play with girls - she's only 4!! I've been at great pains since she was a baby to have all kinds of toys in the house, to be very conscious of my language (eg not focussing on her appearance too much, complimenting her for when she is brave, strong, good at maths etc etc), and am very much a feminist. But then my 4yo still only has female friends. Why?!

Surely it's the child and parent choice, it might not be everyone's but if that is what the child chooses and he chooses friends to come along then it's the same as issue as every birthday party invite list. I think we have to accept that people have different views and it is for anyone else to dictate , just as we would not like people to tell us who to invite to our party or what activities we should have.

Ds 1, all parties until he was 12 had mostly girls and a few boys. Stopped having parties at 12

Dd, all parties til she was about 10 were a fairly even split between boys and girls. Last 3/4 years she has invited her two female best freinds

Ds2, all parties til he was five were mixed. From 6 it was all boys

They invited the children they wanted to invite and to be honest it would have made me very angry if a mother of a girl in ds2's class had trotted up to me in the playground and told me that i was being sexist

Not that i am accusing you of doing this op

My 7 year old son would love a Princess craft party. Some boys really like craft and sparkles.