to provide unhealthy party food at my daughter's party

[ReallyTired]

dd had her birthday party. I gave each child a small bag of animal biscuits, pack of crisps, raisens, a babybel. I also put out plates of strawberries, cucumber, grapes, sausages and sausage rolls. Unsurprisingly the children ate all the sweet unhealthy stuff, the strawberries were popular, but very few children wanted the grapes or cucumber or raisens.

One of the parents was pissed off that her daughter ate loads of chocolate and crisps and didn't touch the fruit. I feel its unrealistic to not have unhealthy foods at a children's party. I am not prepared to force feed a child fruit at a birthday party.

Utterly daft. Yanbu at all!

ignore her

if someone is that worried that their child may not be having a healthy lunch they should feed them before the party

i do not give it much thought what ds has eaten at a party just that he has had a good time

It's not a normal meal. Exactly. There is no requirement whatsoever to cover all the food groups when catering for a children's party.

Such a joyless ratbag really shouldn't accept party invitations for her child, if she's going to bollock the poor kid afterwards for eating a few chocolate biscuits!
I once had a loony mum request that her dd not be allowed to get dirty, as she was wearing her best dress.
Poor kid was done up like the fairy at the top of the Christmas tree while most of the others were running around in jeans.

At first I felt like shoving the child's head in a bowl of trifle, for sheer divilment, but actually felt really sorry for her in the end as she seemed genuinely scared of spoiling her clothes, poor thing

FFS if the mum didn't want her to eat party food she shouldn't have taken her to party!

At all the parties my children went to, including their own, the birthday spread would have been considered a complete failure without plates of fairy cakes, chocolate crispies and marshmallow top hats (yummy!) as well, as Party Rings and jelly! We also had mini-sausages (very popular!), crisps and various types of sandwiches - the latter for appearances' sake and largely ignored!

The children all had a wonderful time and were none the worse for it. Birthday parties are about fun and indulgence - the children know it is a special day and should be allowed to enjoy it!

Flogging, thats so sad

Jeez its a party, live a little. Maybe that mum always feeds her daughter biscuits and was hoping you would provide something healthy

Yanbu

I had a party for one child in infants school. One mum came up to me and said that her child had a bad reaction to E numbers and what assurances could I give her regarding drinks and food

I said that I would be happy to make sure he only had water and ran through some of the food they would be having...because I am not fucking stupid I only ran through stuff with E numbers. Leaving out the carrots, strawberries, grapes etc

So she said "will you be serving any healthy food at this party "

Wouldn't mind but her child didn't even go in the end!!!!

It was a party FFS.

Most parties my DDs attend don't have fruit, just the unhealthy party stuff. So I make sure they eat some healthy food before party, and then they can eat as much party good as hey wish.

Ignore that mom. How weird is she???

My daughter was 21 today. She's eating chocolate fudge cake and chocolate birthday cake and had bucks fiz for breakfast. Birthday parties are for fun.

Our birthday parties are 70s style. Apart from pizza.

Locusts have nothing on 20 6 yr olds faced with sausages and jaffa cakes.

Yanbu. If she wishes to police her dc's eating then she should have stayed.

Actually don't think your party food is too bad - much better than the chips and chicken nuggets fried in rancid fat and made with mechanically recovered meat, served at some of the parties my dcs attended. Yuck!

By five all DCs know what party food should be. If you put healthy stuff out first they still mostly ignore it. They know their is chocolate somewhere!

There

I did for Ds's 5th birthday hotdogs, crisps and nuggets... followed by cake...She would of been appalled at my son's party...

I refuse to buy a load of veg to throw in the bin..

Don't let this women ruin your memory

Last two parties I held for my children, I served takeaway pizza followed by jelly and ice cream.
Didn't even try serving healthy stuff too.
But they were running around and jumping on bouncy castles for the whole time too.

Yanbu. One of my ds is 10. He went to a party when he was 5 that had carrot sticks at it. He still refers to him as Archie, you know the one who had the carrot sticks at his party. The rest of my dc all nod and say ah yes him.

My cousin was a health food freak with her kids & you can imagine what their dietvis like now that they have gone to uni.....

All in moderation & that parent was v unreasonable to expect their precious offspring to eat healthily at a party!

I've done all sorts of parties. Now settled on the tea followed by pudding/ crap, as opposed to putting it all out at once. If I were you, I would have had the sarnies, babybels, cucumber out. Then crisps, choc, biscuits, fruit etc after. It does annoy me if it's all out once as what child is ever going to choose a cucumber over a strawberry.

I think there is a happy compromise. Not that party food has to be worthy, but just keep the savoury separate so they have a bit of it.

I must admit, the first few parties that my daughter went to, I did get a bit fidgety as I watched her pile crisps on to her plate then pile cake on top of that. I was shuffling around the table being a miserable helicopter parent. Now I've got the hang of it, I don't care what she eats really, it's a party! And actually, the day I chilled out, she ate sandwiches through her own choice.
The most recent party she attended, she was seen running around with a hula hoop on each finger, like rings, because learning that trick is one of life's treats!
YANBU. She'll learn, I hope. And if she doesn't then I feel for her kids.

I remember a party attended by youngest DS...what looked like a plate of mini sausages was handed round and all the children helped themselves, then they all spat the food out...they were dried dates...at a party..for a 4 year old.

YANBU! You offered healthy food along with the treats. I agree you can't police what other children put in their mouths. It is not your problem since you offered!!

living that story has made me laugh!

That woman sounds weird. Parties are for eating chocolates, sweets and endless crisps and I say that as a parent of a 2 yo (my PFB!)...

... Not just parties too. This week we've been on holiday and DD's diet has consisted of baked beans on toast every day for breakfast, chocolate ice-cream and a flake each day for lunch and hot dogs for tea. Thank god we were only away 5 days!!!!

If she is 5 yrs then YANBU. At that age I didn't have the parents staying and so they wouldn't know what they chose to eat. They have got past the stage of parents hovering behind them.

I occasionally hear this as a teacher. Parent A comes in and tells me to tell Parent B that little darling Johnny can only eat organic carrot sticks. I am not the post office, it's not my job to pass on messages about parties and I will just give you a face. I even have one parent come and see me at the start of the school year and try and get me to demand parents only serve vegan food at all parties as she didn't want her child exposed to animal products at all. Poor child was quite traumatised when we had to unit about 'where food comes from'.

My nod to healthy eating at parties has always been fruit kebabs - for some reason small children are more likely to eat fruit if it's been pushed onto a sharp stick first. But then of course you're left with a load of sharp sticks and that's not always a good thing (the memory of the Lord of the Flies re-enactment that followed at DS3's 8th birthday will never leave me).

I could happily live off party food alone. I love those cheap and nasty chipolatas and frozen sausage rolls and cheese puffs.