do you let a child choose if they want to go to a birthday party or not?

[Whatalife58]

My child is celebrating his birthday soon I got a text from a close friend saying her child would not be going because he thought the party would be too babyish for him. He is 2 and a half year older than my son. I am interested in what people think about this.

It might be that the older child wasn't reluctant to go to your son's party in particular but had just had enough of tagging along with little brother to keep him and mum happy.
My kids often had people not attend their parties because they didn't fancy whatever the activity was, particularly my son who tended to invite girls and boys and was often disappointed by the girls deciding not to come (he usually only invited 2 or 3 of each sex but the girls were reluctant to come alone if 1 dropped out).
My daughter usually had more of an idea of who would come anyway and at that age mainly had girly parties.

that's the thing - not all DC like parties. DD was invited to several parties which turned out to be quite big parties, and in every instance she never actually played with the birthday girl at nursery, so I'm not sure why she was invited. She was excited at the idea but actually found these big parties all a bit much.

What an incredibly rude response - and for a 'family friend' type situation yes, I think your friend should have insisted that both siblings go to the party.

I can't imagine my DS not wanting to go to a party - he accepts every invitation he receives and always has - he's 13 now. .

I let my children chose if they want to go to a party or not.
I don't think your friends response was rude at all, if it had been a parent from school I would have found the response rude but as she's a close friend then she was being honest. I, myself have told my close friend that my eldest wouldn't be coming to her daughters party as it would be to "babyish" for him and the only reason he was really invited was because we are close friends no one else his age was invited. She's a CLOSE friend and I am pretty sure she was not being rude in the slightest.

Thanks for the feedback. It has been enlightening.