About 'girls' parties and 'boys' parties?

[LahLahsbigband]

My DS is six, and in his first year at school. There have been lots of birthday parties throughout the year, including his. I asked who he played with and we got together a mixed group of boys and girls for his party and it went very well.

As is to be expected, friendships have been very fluid over the year, but by and large it's a lovely group of kids and they all play together pretty nicely. On Friday one little girl, who I know my son plays with quite a lot, was handing out pink invitations to all the girls (in front of everyone) and said "its not for boys, it's a girls party". AIBU to be annoyed at this stupid boys versus girls thing, at this young age?

OK, his mother can invite whoever she wants and no one is owed an invitation - fine. I don't feel that it's necessary to ask a whole class (there are 24 in the class), and my son isn't put out about not going - this sort of thing tends to wash over him and quite frankly I am glad I don't have to schlep to yet ANOTHER party on my weekend with a gift.

It's just this stupid "boys"/"girls" apartheid that grinds my gears. They're SIX. My sons have been brought up with friends of both genders and sure, they may be areas where their interests don't overlap but every kid likes a party, and when he's been to very typically 'girly' parties (eg with a fairy princess entertainer) he still got into it and had fun, just as I imagine a little girl would enjoy running about at a "sports" party designed for little football fans (just an example of an all "boys" party we were invited to this year). I just think it's so sad at this age, and really annoys me when parents encourage it. Why not just invite the friends that you play with, whatever gender they are?

[Micah]

Yackety, yes I do believe that. If you allow any child to get away with that sort of behaviour, they will do it, whatever sex.

Your boys behave because you don't allow the behaviour. But some cant be bothered and prefer to just say it's how boys behave.

My girls have always needed to go out. They get cabin fever being stuck indoors. They would never get on with it for the day.

Stereotyping is endemic from before conception. How many of you dressed your babies in gender neutral clothes? They are constantly bombarded with how girls behave vs how boys behave from birth. My mil goes on about how lucky I am to have girls because boy babies are "dirty, smelly, greedy things" who'll sit in a shitty nappy all day quite happily. Girls like to be clean and play dollies.

My dd was playing with a bear recently, and it was commented on how girls love dollies, and boys are a nightmare with their love of vehicles. Until I pointed out her bag was full of model aeroplanes and trains.

Mehita you have just described different kids with different personalities, likes and dislikes. The personality is innate, nothing to do with what's between their legs. As they grow up they lean towards gendered activities because they sense adult approval or disapproval...

[stubbornstains]

DS was born 17 days late. If I had £1 for each of the "ha ha, what a typical boy, so lazy, he can't be bothered to come out" comments I'd had from healthcare professionals, I'd have been able to have myself a very decadent maternity leave indeed.....

[Bumbiscuits]

Got it in one duplo

So glad I just have girls to deal with.

[Mehitabel6]

Not at all. I love my boys to bits and wouldn't have had it different. They are all over 20 and so I can take the long view. One is an artist and was perfectly happy drawing for hours as a child- he was also out climbing trees.
I have also seen all their friends, and my friends children, grow up. They have nothing to do with parental expectation - they are their own people - quite often despite their parents.
If you still don't have a child over 8 yrs you probably don't appreciate the natural order of things. Girls will chat more, as they climb their trees, canoe down the lake etc. Boys tend to concentrate on the task. In a general way.
I have done girl only parties at times and it doesn't need split second timing - you can have pauses. I have done far more boy parties and you need extra help and you plan it so that they don't have a moment's pause! You might be pleasantly surprised that you can relax,but best to be prepared, especially if doing it in your home.

It does come hard when you have chosen your children's friends and you can still arrange play dates with the other mums in the playground.
It changes in the juniors and they choose their own friends and have groups of own gender friends- look in any school playground as you go past.
It is a normal stage of development and will revert to mixed groups sometime around 11 yrs or later.

[Mehitabel6]

My mother was all for me to be like her - sport - boy orientated things- like her. I wasn't - how does that fit adult expectation?

[Mehitabel6]

You can keep telling me that I am wrong but you will find out what happens when they get to key stage 2. They may play together, but whole class parties stop ( on the whole). Parties get smaller or they take a few friends out or have a sleepover and they they choose friends of the same gender.
When you get to teens they are back to mixed and sometimes you look back fondly to when they had same gender parties!
You can fight it but are unlikely to win!

[Schoolname]

I'm one of those with a daughter who doesn't fit the stereotype and it makes life really hard. I have lost count of the number of parties she hasn't been invited to as she isn't a boy. She frequently gets invited to parties of girls she isn't friendly with, doing things she isn't interested in purely because she's a girl. Today, for the first time she was invited to a boys party where she was the only girl and she wasn't bothered a bit as she got to go to a party with the people she is good friends with. I have a massive issue with dividing primary children by gender lines from early on, probably because my daughter is a bit different. She likes craft, reading, cooking, making things, having secret clubs, her build-a bears and other girl things but most of all she loves playing football, climbing trees, swapping match attax cards, building a fantasy football team. She doesn't wear dresses,she doesn't care about pamper parties, although she loves Claire's accessories and this has a times totally alienated her and people have seen her as weird as she doesn't fit the stereotype. It makes life very hard for her.

[duplodon]

I think with nearly twenty years of working with kids behind me you can stop the patronising, Mehita.

[FlyingByTheSeatof]

We had mixed parties for reception and yr1 and single sex parties for yr2,3,4 for both my DD and DS. Just makes it easier to organise tbh as I don't have the time these days. My friend who has twins a DS and DD has single sex parties for them.

[duplodon]

You are also missing the point. If a girl wants to spend time with girls on a sleepover, fine. What is being argued here is that at six, if a child has a large party, excessive gendering of that party is the adult's choice and doing. However you are consistently stereotyping based on gender on this thread in an odd way as apparently your own children are - shock, horror - individuals with different interests and skills, yet you can still extrapolate from this how boys/girls behave based on gender alone?

[unclerory]

DD2 had a big set of male friends at nursery but wasn't invited to parties much because she was a girl because of parent imposed gender splits. When they went to school the school put all the boys from her nursery in one class and all the girls from her nursery in another class. Her friendship group disappeared immediately, she didn't get on with the girls from nursery at all. That was social engineering by the school (nursery had told school her best friends were boys) and it was shit for DD2.

Who you invite to parties does matter and affect how kids view each other, DD2 is ridiculously grateful when she is invited to parties and it does help her make friends. Imposing a gender divide on kids is lazy parenting/teaching and reinforces stereotypes. I doubt anyone here would cut down numbers at a child's party by only inviting kids of skin colour X so why is it ok to select guests based on what's between their legs?

[Lovecat]

All girl parties are easier than boys???



DD, 9, has gone to 2 all-girls' schools and so most of her parties tended to be all-girl. (when she attended a mixed school, her parties were mixed - schoolname, our children sound so similar!).

If I got them all to sit down at one time together just to eat their party food it was a jeffin' miracle! Noisy, running around, screaming-at-the-tops-of-their-voices, into everything, play-wrestling... it was great fun but not what you'd call easy :o

In the playground, they never stop running around. It was only when boys were introduced to her first school that the girls became more inhibited in their behaviour and the stereotypes started emerging. Partly why we moved DD to somewhere she didn't feel pressure to sit still and chat or be ostracised because she wanted to play the games the boys were playing.

She's just been to a high ropes party and is going to a climbing wall party just before Christmas. For someone involved in teaching, Mehitabel, I'm alarmed at your lazy stereotyping...

[Mehitabel6]

The problem with these threads is that most people - the ones that host the single gender parties -keep off.
Disregard my stereotyping altogether but the one fact is that after the age of 7 yrs a good 80% of parties, if not more, will be single gender. If you don't believe me just wait until they get to that age. You are not going to be able to change it- except for your own child's party.
The other fact that is true is that in a school PE lesson - with a free choice of partner- over 90% of junior school children will choose a partner of the same gender.

[duplodon]

Again, is this relevant to a thread about a child in their first year of school?

I've seen no one dispute that, developmentally, there's a stage same-gender peer preferences exist. That's a good time for sleepovers and cinema trips and smaller celebrations, but as I'm sure you are aware with your vast experience of children, large party celebrations have usually lost some of their appeal for most children by Key Stage 2 anyway. In my case, one of my sons is in a class of 25 with only 5 girls so when it comes to this time, he can happily choose all boys for a birthday celebration based on who he plays with if he wants, but we won't just be cutting out girls because they are girls or calling his party a 'boys' party'.

This doesn't account for the stereotyping of gender behaviour and imagining you can say who's 'easiest' to manage based on their genitalia, though.

[Mehitabel6]

Girls are actually the toughest to manage if they decide to deliberately play you up! They are very clever and subtle about it.
It is relevant because OP is embarking on a new phase where her son will not get invited to many girl's parties. It is sad- but it is what will happen. Mainly because the big parties stop and they just have a few friends and an activity, trip to the cinema etc. Talking generalities.

[Floggingmolly]

I host single gender parties, Mehitabel. Purely at the behest of my children... I have never chosen the guest list for them, why would I? All three of them from 6/7 onwards wanted all boy/girl.
Although the eldest is now 13; I suspect that may change soon

[YackityUnderTheMistletoe]

Can I just say that if either of my DSs had a girl who was a very close friend, that I would never do a boys only party?

In fact for DS2 I suspect I wouldn't precisely because there is 1 girl who he does like, not his best friend or anything like that, but because she mixes more with the boys I would never dream of excluding her in that way. She already gets excluded from things by the girls because she's not 'girly' enough, I would never do anything that would make it worse for her. (Besides, she's a bloody brilliant footballer! )

It just never happened with DS1, so having a boys only party was logical. He was 'friendly' with the girls, but not 'friends', IYSWIM.

[HazleNutt]

I wonder how acceptable everybody would consider it, if a white child only asked other white classmates to the birthday party. To keep numbers low, obviously. Why is segregating based on gender any different?

[Bumbiscuits]

Oh bore off Hazelnutt. Yawn.

[unclerory]

Girls are actually the toughest to manage if they decide to deliberately play you up! They are very clever and subtle about it.

Of course, now we get the 'girls are bitches' stereotype. Nice.

Hazelnutt is right, adults segregating their children's parties by sex 'to cut down on numbers' rather than asking their child 'who do you want at your party, you can have X number of children' is no different to segregating by race.

Most children are socialised into self segregation but that doesn't mean we should impose it on all children, there have been several examples on here of children who have interests outside their gender stereotype and so mainly have friends of a different sex and you have all been told how upsetting it is for those children do be excluded by the parents purely due to what is between their legs. So what if boy X isn't invited to a party of someone he isn't that friendly with because the party child's best friend girl Y is invited instead, maybe boy X would have preferred to go to girl Z's party, but sadly he was excluded from that because the parents decided to have a girls only party?

[NancyJones]

Oh hazelnutt, get a grip!
Nature plays a massive part here even if I do take issue with high ropes being a boys activity. Race has no baring on children's preference for a party with just other girls/boys.

Skin colour is completely abstract to children so if party invites were divided along racial lines then that would be a superficial gathering implemented by a slightly unhinged parent rather than an 8yr old wanting to spend the morning with a bunch or other 8yr olds having their hair and nails done.

[HazleNutt]

We obviously have different opinions regarding nature/nurture. I do not believe all girls are born bitchy and uninterested in anything active, and all boys aggressive and destructive, like one could think based on this thread.

[AmysTiara]

Ds1 has a best friend who is a girl. They are 11 and have been friends since starting school.

She has always come to all of his parties and been the only girl. It's never been a problem, she played with the boys so I wasn't going to invite a girl for her to be with at the party.

Btw My neices had the worst parties - 15 girls squealing, give me boys an day

[NomorepepperpigPLEASE]

I would give my dds a party they asked for. Is that simple. I really wouldn't get angsty about it. I think the op I secretly pissed off her ds wasn't invited TBH.

on holiday in Egypt when were were on quads - the organiser wanted women to go in the 'slow' line as the 'faster' line was for men and it could be dangerous. I laughed and said ' I like danger and refused to leave. I actually left dp coughing on my dust as I way waaaay faster than him.

I can go to a pamper party with turning in to a wilting flower