To stop inviting children to parties when they have not had a party themselves

[PMDD]

I just read another thread about their son not being invited to a party. It has raised an interesting point that I am considering this year.

On the whole, I believe that if you have a large party where all the children or all of one sex at the party, that you invite the whole class and not leave one, two or three off the list. Especially when the children are in infants.

I really enjoy a celebration and hold parties for my friends and their children (and friends with no children) at Easter, Summer, Halloween and Christmas. My children have a party each birthday every year.

It costs a fortune but it is my choice to hold the parties. Each children's party costs around £300 to hold and my children are born in May, June and July so it is an expensive quarter.

However, over recent years fewer children are having parties or are only having a party for a handful of children at home or taking them bowling or to the cinema. My children may invite 20+ children to their party, but only get to attend less than 4 each year in return.

There are 2 boys who never invite my sons to their house/party, so I have decided this year to have the party but not invite the children that never invite my children. This will mean that in my friend's social group there will be 2 children who are not invited. I feel this is reasonable, but from reading the other thread, perhaps I'm not.

I'm not saintly. I've stopped inviting one child after about 3 years of really being difficult at parties ( and like rockin says, he was way old enough to know better, and no SN, just allowed to do whatever he wants at home, he had loads of warnings etc, after 3 birthdays I'd had enough).

But never excluded anyone else or any other grounds, and neither has anyone I know (as far as I know).

I don't and have never done parties for my kids. I can't afford to. It's as simple as that. They go to parties they are invited to and finding the money for a present is sometimes hard but I do it as I assume they were invited as they are wanted not because some reciprocity is expected.
Tbh I'd rather they weren't invited!

I would just invite a selection of people who my dc play with at the time of the party. I don't think it's about reciprocating. Lots of people don't have parties for whatever reason, some have large parties but aren't particularly friends with dc, things change from one month to the next with friendships.

My aim is to have a group of reasonably well behaved dc there whom dc actually like, thereby making a nice party. But we never have the whole class party thing here as we have a three class intake that are regularly mixed up. So they have friends across the three classes.

I have spotted op. Just not here its a bit warm!

My kids are going to be 1 in 6 weeks time and 3 in 10 weeks time and have always gave a party from the min my wee boy was born I have that many kids in my immediate family that my parties are atleast 300 each which we do struggle but I don't see why my kids should miss out so we save! But my sister and her husband are on benefits(health issues ect) and they have 4 kids and simply can't afford to hold parties and it's not that they are being horrible or rude not to invite but they just can't afford it her kids get invited to parties despite this and even if they can't make it to the party she always buys kids a present for about £5 without anything in return for anything gif her kids so not everyone can afford to have the luxury of giving their kids a party but I can see where u r coming from op but don't think it should be held against the little kids but I would be annoyed aswell a bit if it turned out they had invited everyone else to a party and not my kids then I would have a different opinion and not invite them depends on circumstance ... Sorry hand not read every post so this could have been said x

I would feel very resentful about inviting hordes of kids who were having birthday dos (even just cinema, if there's more than one or two friends going) and not inviting my kids back. But I wouldn't have any problem inviting kids whose parents weren't doing any sort of party apart from their own family - even if the parents are well off and are just being stingy, it's hard on the kids that they become pariahs because of their parents! (Yes, I was that kid :))
Also if it turns out that it's just one or two kids who're going to be excluded I'd avoid that too.

Gosh, the politics of birthday parties, am I ready for this?

YABU. My eldest is having a party on Saturday. Shes invited her friends no matter whether shes been to their party this year or not.

"Hands up those who have vetoed inviting kids because:

Their mom is horrible to you, blanks you at the gate
Every year she does not invite your DC
You don't like the look of the child
They gave a pound shop present last time
They have a 'condition' you couldn't cope with
Their DC is very naughty, running riot at party
They don't include your DC in games at school
Their DC is not very clever (unlike yours!)
"

Nope. None of those. My DC have had whole class parties and that means the whole class (not huge classes, 24 is the largest I have ever dealt with). When DS chose to change to doing more expensive things with a much smaller group, he chose that group.

One year when I was aware that there were a couple of "challenging" DC in the class, I recruited extra help in the form of the teenage sister of another child who I knew to be fantastic with difficult DC - I paid her babysitting rates, all the DC had more supervision, and it was fine. Others (like the pound shop present) just leave me at the idea that it would affect who you invite.

I'm don't think I'm a saint but my DC choose who they want to invite to their parties. And that has included the children of parents that I try to avoid, chidren who I know may misbehave, children who may have given my DC a rubbish present last year ( I say may because by the time the next year roles by I've forgotten who gave what - I don;t keep a black list), intelligence definitly doesn' t factor into it - are there really people where it would? And I pay the money because I want my DC to have a party they enjoy, which meants they invite their friends.

When I was a child my birthday parties were held at home with around six friends invited. I would have party food, sausage rolls, sandwiches, fairy cakes etc and games like pass the parcel and musical statues were played. The parties I was invited to were always held along similar lines. When did it become the done thing to hold whole class parties?

OP is not being unreasonable.
It is rude not to return invitations.

I think you are confused!

If you invite someone to a party, they give you a gift in exchange. They don't have to invite you to their party - it's not tot for tat. The gift is the swap.

Secondly, why invite endless numbers of kids to a party? The best parties tend to be more intimate with real friends only.

"OP is not being unreasonable.
It is rude not to return invitations."

So what do you do when your DD is invited to around 10 parties a year, but your budget only stretches to her inviting 4 friends to her own party? Particularly if some of her closest friends - the ones she actually want to invite - didn't have parties at all?

And some of those parties were for children who DD was not that bothered about, and were very obviously inviting all and sundry just to make up numbers? Should she be refusing these invites? Surely that's awful?

Up until year 3 all parties, including my DD's, were class parties.
Now they tend to be small groups of the birthday child's closest friends.
"The gift is the swap". Wow that's a nice attitude!
Very rude not to return invitations.
Manners cost nothing.

Toecheese
I agree that you don't invite to get invited but I don't agree that the present is the swap. I think that going along and joining in to help make it a good party is the 'swap'.

When my child would like to have a party to celebrate her birthday, I allow her to choose what to do and, within reason and without singling anyone out, who to invite.

I couldn't give two hoots whether they have invited her to theirs or whether they have brought presents in the past. The party is about the child celebrating with their friends, full stop.

I'm at how much over thinking, politics and card-marking goes on. These are children FGS! As long as they don't bully my child they are welcome at any party she would like to invite them to.

I would never want someone to feel they had to pay us back by inviting her to a party where she wasn't really wanted.

I have rarely done big parties for mine. They are encouraged to just invite a select number of close friends round for a birthday meal and maybe a sleepover.

I used to do more in the way of birthday parties when they were very young, but I am glad that phase is now gone, largely due to cost.

£300 per party seems a huge amount to me. I could never afford that. I must admit that I kind of admire the OP for the number of parties she holds. That is fine if you enjoy doing it and can afford it, but it would be my idea of hell on earth (plus I can't afford it either).

I guess that makes it pretty clear that I am not a party animal even though I did the necessary for my children when they were of that age.

I was the child who would be in invited to parties but whose parents were too poor and our house too small to hold a party. When I came home with a slice of cake, it would be cut into six slices so that everyone got a piece.

I am eternally grateful to those mums who treated me so kindly - Mrs Casey, Mellor, Condon, Hook and Friday - you made my childhood through your kindhearted gestures. So OP as you won't be aware of all your DCs chums family circumstances, please continue to invite them for as long as you can.

LatteLady - that's so sad. Hope you gets lots of cake now x

I would tend to invite the dc whose parties my own dc had attended and the odd extra dc. I would never have massive parties.

I remember being upset with yd when she was around 9 because she wouldn't let me invite a dc to her party even though she had been to other girls party.

I think some parents could have parties but can't be bothered to make the effort. it isn't always financial.

Are they friends of your dc's or acquaintances? If acquaintances I see no point in snubbing them. You should also consider possible repercussions. Could your dc's be left dealing with grudges at school?

My mum always insisted we invite everyone. We would have a big themed party with lots of decorations, themed food and games. It was THE event of the year according to my class. The school would even get involved - letting us make decorations/costumes for it in art. My mum made great party bags for everyone and even to take home for siblings. However, despite this, and having friends at school i was rarely invited back to a party.

I was always heartbroken and go home crying that x was having a party and loads were invited but i wasn't. My mum always insisted that no matter, what we would not exclude anyone.

I did enjoy my parties, but i was always painfully aware that the people who came did so because it was a brilliant party, not because they liked me or were my friends. After a while you fucked off being used.

My DD has just started school and there is a welter of whole class parties, mostly at a hired venue with an entertainer and catering. Even if that wasn't my idea of hell on earth, I couldn't afford it.

DD has gone to parties of DCs she regards as friends, and we have given apologies to others, including the party of the DC who made up a rhyme about how scruffy my car is. I assume Scruffy Car Rhyme Kid's mum is aware our DCs don't get on - in fact anyone at the Christmas play where our DCs as Mary and Joseph argued about holding the doll playing Baby Jesus, and ended up having a tug if war with him knows they don't get on - and only invited us because the whole class were invited. We are having a few friends only do, and won't be inviting Scruffy Car Rhyme Kid.

Actually thinking about this - I have just realised another knock on effect from this whole "your child shouldnt accept an invitation if they are not reciprocating themselves"

A few years ago my son was invited to a party by X - now this boy was not at all popular (mainly as he was often unpleasant as a result of having ADHD) My son was quite an easy going type, whilst we thought it nice that DS had been invited, we debated whether he should go or not as he didnt really view him as a "friend". He decided that as he actually didnt actively dislike him and appreciated that his behaviour was as a result of his condition rather than just nastiness, that he would attend. What a good job he did as out of a class of 25, only 4 had gone to the party - due to the fact that he was unpopular and his Mum comes across as a bit "cool" with people many of the parents did not even respond. They had hired a pool and catered for way more than actually attended.

Up until year 3 all parties, including my DD's, were class parties.

has it occurred to you that perhaps some of those parents were paying for parties that they could ill afford because of the attitude of people like you and the OP? We can't afford to do a whole class party, so we won't. But I hope that there are no parents like you who would proceed to ostracise DD because of our finances. And I hope that you wouldn't teach your DC that this is, in any way, a nice way to behave to children.

AT DD's nursery it's a mixture, and as often I don't know the parents of the party-giver I have no idea when we accept if it's going to be a whole class party or not. But presumably you think that we should decline any whole class invites as we won't be 'reciprocating'? I actually don't want DD to know that there are people in the world like you who would make the judgements you are - who would think that she shouldn't attend because we can't afford a whole class party.

You sound really really horrible.