Birthday party invites - give to receive? Just musing.

[Crunchymum]

Another thread got me thinking, do you "give to recieve" when it comes to birthday party invites?

Someone on another thread said they've never done a party and a few posters found this unusual and even asked 'has your DC been invited to other parties despite you never holding one?' which kind of insinuated that DC shouldn't expect invites if you never do parties?

FWIW I have 2 January children (not twins) born close to Christmas and we've never done a party for either of them. Too skint, too knackered etc. Neither DC gets many party invites and I wonder if I've been making some kind of faux pas all these years.

Caveat to say one DC has SEN so I've always assumed that swayed the invites they get but my older - and generally quite popular and well liked as far as I know - DC had never had many party invites now I come to think of it.

I'm quite honest I don't do parties for the kids to the parents I'm friendly with but I'm now wondering if it makes me look like a cow and has impacted the invites me DC get?

For me no it wouldn't. I didn't care if they got gifts either. My children invited their friends and it to was my child's benefit that they came.

In my kids classes there’s a mix - some will have a small party or activity, some will do big parties, some don’t have parties, some might have a party some years and not others.

I'd expect whole class parties and best friends to still invite, but nothing more from more casual friends if you never reciprocate. Different if you still host playdates etc and make effort in different ways

I’ve only done one party for my eldest in a decade but they have been invited to many and continue to do so every year. I think it’s petty not to invite a child just because they haven’t reciprocated with a party of their own. Children’s party’s are ridiculously expensive. Great that you want to waste your money on one but don’t take it out on my child because I can’t stump up £500 plus for a party. Luckily my child’s friends and their parents are a lot more realistic about the world

It’s kind of the other way round,

if my dc were invited to a party that child would be invited to my dc’s party.

reception was whole class anyway, this was y1 onwards.

my dc would have invited your dc if specific friends and then rest of the list was reciprocal invitations.

so yes, giving a party generally means you get (some) reciprocal invites.

I don’t invite children to parties in the hope that my kids will be invited back so the literal answer to your question is no. However, I will encourage / prompt my child to consider inviting the children who have invited them to parties in the past year or so, and they will often say yes, so those who have parties probably do get invited more. Close friends will get invited either way, either because my children suggest the names or I know them well enough to do so. But some of the other children who end up at our parties are more about circumstance and whether we have seen them at clubs, events or their own birthday parties, so that I know to invite / suggest them.

We are still only in Y1/Y2 so this may also change over time as parties get smaller still.

I never expected any kind of invitation. Always taught my daughter that not everyone gets invited to everything. We’ve never had a whole class party she’s just picked a few friends to celebrate with. This has always been her friends as opposed to returning an invitation in exchange for a party she’d previously attended.

For me, no. There are only 7 boys in ds's class so all got invited regardless of who didn't have birthday parties. One boy had one joint party in 8 years - so what. Others had a party every year. All got invited.

We never invited any of the girls as there's more girls...ds is only really friends with the boys anyway. Not really friends with 1 or 2 but they got invited anyway

I do think you would be invited to more if you hosted occasionally.

I ensure that anyone who invited my dc gets an invite when we hold a party

I don't throw parties or give invites to garner invitations though.

I do think it is good to be the host from time to time, to reciprocate, to give your dc the chance to host etc. I think if all parents do what they can to create opportunities for dc to be social, it shares the load a bit!

Do you do playdates? Most people we invite to bdays are ones who are regular playdate friends so it's not really just reciprocating a party. To be honest, it's the "phantom" friends that tend to be at the bottom of the list or get left off invites. These are names that DD may occasionally mention, but the parents are uncontactable, not part of the class Whatsapp, children often picked up by grandparents, they never offer playdates and never do birthday parties.

It doesn't really come down to birthday invites, but generally how much effort the parent (or mum) want to invest in their children. Some parents seem to go out of their way to be aloof and uncontactable or are even proud of the fact that aren't part of the group chat. They also never offer or reciprocate play dates. Obviously, it's understandable that cost and time can play a role but all families are busy and squeezed for time. Many still manage make an effort to organise a social life for their children or welcome their friends.

This doesn't apply to you of course, but I tend to view low-effort parents as a red flag that the children aren't being parented well. If the parents can't be arsed to organise bday parties for their kids or host their friends, then those aren't families that you necessarily want your children socialising with either. If they flat out never do play dates then you have to wonder what they want to hide at home. Bday parties tend to be social signifiers to other parents. There are tons of thing you can read between the lines based on how families organise parties.

I always encourage DCs to invite children who have included them in parties previously. I know that not everyone can afford parties, or have the time/energy, but equally it seems unkind to exclude children who have been nice enough to invite my DCs, so they are top of the list.

I agree with pps that it’s not purely about parties, but also having play dates. I certainly didn’t do parties for DS to get invited in return, just as I didn’t have his friends round to play for that reason — I just did I because he liked having people round and going to their houses, even though it was difficult to arrange with two FT working parents. We both managed flexible working from time to time, or hosted at weekends.

I definitely take into account what parties my DDs have been invited to, if only because it indicates a reciprocal relationship, although they (naturally) get the final say. There are some regular invitees who have never invited DD to theirs, and I’m not massively bothered. Everyone can’t do parties, for whatever reason.
We’re pretty lucky (in W Scotland) that parties aren’t costing £500+ as mentioned by a pp. DDs most recent, for 8, was about £170 for activities, food and ice cream. on a Saturday.

Now we’re down to just inviting a few children, those who have invited my children tend to get themselves an invite as well as the children mine really want there.

I hadn't even considered playdates!!

And no we don't really do them either (but this isnt one-sided, no-one really seemed to do at home playdates? We do however meet certain friends in the park / for picnics etc)

DC1 had a few playdates - reciprocated, DC2 was prime playdate age during covid so they kind of fell by the wayside and DC3 has never had a playdate as her SEN mean she doesn't really have proper friends?

Not to make more excuses but I'm on my own(single parent, albeit with good support), I work (so often don't do pick up and lots of playdates happen after school), and DC3 can be quite high needs at times. Plus we have a weeny house and the older two kids share a room. So yeah I've never really done playdates.

I didn’t do parties until they were older precisely because they got invited to so many. I didn’t have the money or the bandwidth to reciprocate.

If my DC had asked for one I might’ve taken a different view but they were happy and fussed over enough with grandparents and family on their day. When they started to have real friends at age 7/8/9 that’s when I started to arrange stuff.

I don’t think anyone kept score. My kids were fairly popular and I did my fair share of play dates so I didn’t feel any guilt about it.

This doesn't apply to you of course, but I tend to view low-effort parents as a red flag that the children aren't being parented well. If the parents can't be arsed to organise bday parties for their kids or host their friends, then those aren't families that you necessarily want your children socialising with either. If they flat out never do play dates then you have to wonder what they want to hide at home. Bday parties tend to be social signifiers to other parents

Blimey (and yes I think it does apply to me)

Other than having a small house, I'm not "hiding" anything. I'm just a knackered, skint, single parent who works so isn't around for pick-up. I also have a child with SEN (life long learning disability related to a rare genetic condition) who can be hard to manage. Plus I have the usual clubs and hobbies for older kids, I just dont have the bandwith to host playdates.

We do meet friends at the park in the nicer weather and I do actually see non school friends (friends of mine who have DC themselves) plus we have a massive family. Kids have 19 first cousins.

In fact the massive family is probably a factor in why we don't have parties as once you invite one set of cousins then you have 19 of them there 😆 (barring 3 who are older all the cousins are aged around one of my DC so we'd honestly have to invite 16 of them! And they'd all come too).

The huge family has probably impacted playdates too as we see family quite a bit and all 3 DC have cousins they are close to. Maybe I'd have bucked my ideas up a bit if I didn't have so much going on - in every sense.

I'm never rude though and I know a few of the parents quite well (DC2 is late primary age) so they know my situation. So they know I'm just busy and frazzled and pulled in so many different directions as opposed to rude and low effort I hope

Hmm I think there’s an element of this. Close friends would be invited regardless of whether they had a party or not. But my daughter tends to list about 40 kids she wants to invite. Tbh this year there were a couple I knew who had a party and didn’t invite her so I encouraged her to cut them out over a couple who I know just didn’t have a party. If she really wanted them that would be different but when I know they’ve not chosen her, I won’t encourage her to choose them.

Meeting friends at the park is basically a play date just not at your house.

i did this a lot.

also birthday parties can just be taking a picnic to the park.

My DC are adults now. But when they were the age for me to be organising birthday parties for them, I did use to make sure that a child who had recently invited my DC to a birthday party got a reciprocal invitation. (DCs' close friends would get an invitation whether they'd had a party or not.) I can't imagine I was the only one who did this, so I imagine that DC who had parties themselves did end up getting more invitations. But it wasn't that I gave out invitations with a "give to receive" mentality. It was more that if my DC had been to the other child's party, it felt a bit mean not to extend a reciprocal invitation.

Yes I would always return an invite for dc party( especially when young). Now I have a teen it’s up to them but mostly my dc and their group of friends incites everyone (so it’s been the same consistent group of around 20 for 4 years)

Yes I would mostly return an invite.

Play dates and parties are an important part of bedding down friendships for your kids. I have two social butterflies and one complete introvert but these are ways that we can make friendships go easier for our children and it is something I prioritise.

Early primary we invited the whole class then after that it was the list of x many kids that my children wished to invite.

I never kept track of invites we received.

But some people are weird.