Single sex birthday parties

VestalVirgin
There's about two reasons to exclude one or two people of a large group: a) those people are nasty bulllies or b) the rest of the class bullies them and your child avoids them to not become a target.
So you think it is acceptable to invite the whole class but not the child who gets bullied?
That is just fucking shitty and makes you an adult bully.
Just ask any parent of a child with special needs how it feels when your child is the one child who doesn't get a party invite when every other child in the class does.

DS has been to swimming lessons with an equal range of boys and girls, music lessons with similar range, school and pre-school.
Does he socialise much with girls? Not really.
Even though he was given toys rather than boy or girl toys.

Maybe you should enroll your DD in football lessons and she gets invited to "boy" parties. :)

Not all parents can invite the whole class or want to, I certainly won't be this year. Life is full of disappointments and we have to help our children cope with them.

Lazy brained is a tad unfair, and if you challenged me as a parent on this I'd think you were psycho freaky and avoid you from then on!! 😂

OP the more I read of your posts ..The more I think you are going to find school very tough...Your DD will not receive an invite to many parties.. I have had parents tell me how there child likes mine.. My child certainly doesn't always share the same opinion..

You can raise your child how you like but I am not sure why firstly you assume this is a sexism..It may be boy doesn't particualry put your DD near top of his friends list..

But go ahead and talk to mum and be that mum... Your DD still won't get an invite.You need to just teach DD to deal with she won't be invited to every party just because she invited the whole class.

OP, you describe the boy as a class mate rather than a friend. If your DD could only ask 15 kids (or fewer) to her party, would this boy be high on the list?

Ive never done whole class parties as my kids aren't friends with the whole class and I don't have anyone to help supervise 30 kids. The most I've had is 10 and I had to fork out for an entertainer whose prices depended on number of kids.

I'm a serious feminist mum, we don't have boys and girls toys, we just have toys. My ds2 loves my little pony and frozen, dd likes minecraft and horrid henry. They are free to play princesses or pirates or dolls or lego. All 3 of them do trampolining lessons.

But you know what, I can't choose their friends. If they mainly play with just the boys or just the girls that's ok. It's their choice.

I can and do teach them that boys and girls are equal, and that excluding people is not ok but I don't get involved in their friendships.

Also IME, as kids spend more time at school, they can identify certain children as friends more than others and whole class parties reduce, even in the course of reception year.

Sorry, forgot to refer back to this:

"" I just think that parents should be aware that a lot of development is nurture."

A hell of a lot of that "nurture" at this age will happen at school. If the boy in question plays football or goes to football club every week with 90%+ boys, no amount of his parents saying "girls like football just as much" will hit home.

" I just think that parents should be aware that a lot of development is nurture."

I expect a lot of parents are.

You seem to be saying that these parents should have had the same kind of party as you ie an all class bouncy castle.

A football party often involves one or two organisers and a venue hire, so it may well be charged by the child, unlike a bouncy castle. Round here, bowling parties are about £13 a head (including party food, shoe hire etc). A definite cost difference between 15 and 30 guests.

Both my ds' have been the only boys at various parties - cake decorating, Good Kitty, princesses and pirates (ds1 was the only pirate), Pocahontas (ds2 went as spiderman). When parents have asked if they'll be OK I've said they'd far rather have the invitation and decide for themselves if they want to go than be left out. So far they've always gone and always had a good time. It's really hurtful if a good friend excludes you on the basis of gender.

pretty

The overlap was amongst boys AND girls. And here's a conundrum for you. The one boy who enjoys crafty stuff more than any of the others (and even so not that much) is the son of .... two dads. Now what?

I think this is a false argument based on a false premise, namely that ALL children should be treated the same. That's just bollocks. It's an undeniable fact of life that many many boys prefer playing with guns and trucks and cars than dressing up as princesses and doing glittery crafts. And vice versa. Why is this such a difficult thing for people to accept? It's an undeniable fact of life that women have periods and wombs and can have babies, and that boys have more testosterone than girls and have penises and testicles. There's no better or worse in any of this. For cost and logistical reasons I have to draw the line somewhere, I can't cherry pick as (1) I don't have the time (2) it's such a minefield, I could well end up causing offence in other ways (see above mentioned boy) (3) it's just not that big a deal. All 20 kids spend more time with each other over he course of the week than I spend with my DD. they mix quite enough as it is. This is one 1.5hr birthday party per year (ok, x 10 if you count all the girls' parties). Do the sums. It's really not worth getting het up over.

Having a boy now in year 7 I have found that the first few years in primary were mixed though not always then from the age of 8 or so it became very single sexed. I am told that will probably continue until the age of 14 or so. By 15 they become a bit more mixed again ( though more complicated I am sure :) )

DS has been to 5 parties since starting secondary and out of those 4 have been single sex and the other one was a whole year (200 11/12 year olds) and was raising money for a charity.

I suppose what I am saying is that when your DD is 9/10/11 etc and only wants the girls will it still be unfair then?

No wonder kids pick up sexist views if parents are saying things like this.

Exactly. And given the responses on this thread, I'm sure there are some parents who, when faced with their DS wanting to invite one girl to a football party, or their DD inviting one boy to a pamper party, will dissuade or even downright lie to their DS to avoid it happening.

I do wonder whether it partly depends on whether the birthday DC has an opposite sex sibling, though? If DCs in your own household don't conform to gender stereotypes (which is less likely if there are toys/activities targeted at both genders in the house) then you're more open to the idea that the girls in the class will be fine with a football party.

Maybe they can't afford to invite the whole class...

I agree

My DD had a girls only party in reception. She wanted a soft play party with 9 of her friends, it was her choice who to invite and she didn't want a whole class party, she wanted a soft play and frankly it's not anyone's business who gets invited to my children's parties, I pay for them, no one else.

Bloody hell, just read some of the earlier responses! So many sexist stereotypes here. DD is far more boisterous than DS and much more likely to climb on furniture / shout / run around a garden. DNephew is the most likely in our family to sit nicely and make arts & crafts. No wonder kids pick up sexist views if parents are saying things like this.

If my kids wanted to only invite boys or only girls to their party then that is entirely up to them! My DD is having a sleepover party this weekend and we have only invited the girls, if a parent had anything to say about it I would tell them exactly where they could stick their advice!!!
It's all very well saying it doesn't cost much more inviting everyone but if you have 20+ in a class party bags alone can be another £30-50 the extra food adds to that, no one knows other peoples financial situation so don't judge people for having a smaller party. Also who you invite to your kids parties doesn't guarantee you an invite to theirs!

"lazy brained" or not it is surely up to the individual family ( parents or child) who goes to their birthday party. After all it is THEIR party. this expectation and entitlement to dictate what others do is just plain weird. If you don't think that way fine when it is time for your child's party then do it your way

"Lazy brained" is such a good phrase for it! I once did an all-girls party for DD when she was YR - massively regretted it after the invites had gone, she loved playing with boys I don't know what on earth I was thinking!
Since then she's been to all kinds of parties - superhero, football, miniature golf, karaoke, bowling, pizza-making, driving, jewellery-making etc. I haven't noticed any single-sex ones. I suppose it's different if they genuinely only have friends of one sex but if the parents had decided to segregate by gender I'd be a bit I wouldn't talk to them about it though, some things you can't raise easily without it turning into a fight.

I think its a bit unreasonable to expect every parent to do a whole class party, I would never assume that my child should be invited to any party. Neither would I expect my child to be invited to someones party just because they were invited to our party.

The only people that get to have a say in who's invited are the birthday child and the person who's paying for the party - the reasoning behind any of those decisions is private and interrogating either of them about it is only going to get you marked down as one of 'those' mums.

The 'boys only' reason came from a child, not the parent. I wouldn't expect anything more tactful than that reason from a small child either, he is not gender stereotyping or being sexist; he is a child. Kids are tactless and they simplify things. If the parent has set a limit to numbers, and that boy has chosen all his close friends, which just happen to be boys there really is no reason to get upset. They're kids, they choose their friends not us. As much as we'd love our kids to come home with a even mix of friends reality is often different.

Kids will bring us years of awkward social situations, they will upset each other on a daily basis, as parents we just need to rise above it all and not get involved or it will drive us mad (and make us the mums that other parents cross the playground to avoid).

So lets say I am the birthday child's parent, after a year (or less) at school you don't know me or my situation. I would like to give my son a party but there is no way I can afford a whole class one. So I make it single sex ( and even then we are pushing it). This is not about YOU and YOUR child this is about MY child and his birthday.

You have many many years of birthdays throughout school. Should I have felt snubbed that once the girls get to 7/8 they only want girls and not stinky smelly boys?