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?

If that post was aimed at me, I have 6 children, I care for another two on a regular basis that belong to a single mum friend who has no family in the area and I have about 30 nieces, nephews and great-nieces/nephews and we're a close-knit family. The last thing I would ever do is assume that all children are the same. There may well be children who are friends with every one of the 12-15 children in their class the same gender sex (in one of my schools there was only 4 girls in the year so we were quite close) but I can't imagine that there are many of them.

No, my posts are that some boys are only friends with other boys, therefore some of their parties will be boy only parties. Some of the girls are only friends with other girls, therefore some of their parties will be girl only parties.

As DS1's good friends are boys, to up the numbers by a few more I would probably include extra boys. If I wanted to up the numbers by a lot I would also include girls.

I made it quite clear that if my DS had a good friend that was a girl, then I wouldn't ever do a boy only party. DS1 doesn't. So holding a boy's only party is NOT imposing my own agenda on him. He listed the friends he wanted - they were all boys. There were only a few boys left in the class which he didn't list (far less boys than girls in his class) so I added them to the list and made it a boys only party. Adding a few of the girls would have started to make it messier - X was invited, Y wasn't, etc. So yes, it was easier to round the numbers up by just inviting boys.

.

If a child is friends with only boys, why wouldn't you invite only the boys and vise versa. Your child's parties are for their enjoyment, not to show what a "progressive" mother you are by casting aside gender roles.

If your girl likes pink, wants an all girl party or a girl themed party why not invite just girls?

If future 6 year old DD wants a pink princess themed birthday party, I'll be doing a princess themed birthday party with just girls. I won't be inviting boys for the sake of "boys can like princesses too". It's a child's birthday party, not a feminist statement.

The voice of common sense Bulbasaur.
(And like a breath of fresh air like some of the nonsense on this thread, like use a lottery to choose the guest list!)
This is what the vast majority of parents do.

It's also perfectly possible to have an all-girls party and not do remotely 'girly' things. DD2 went to an all-girls rock climbing party the other day.

When I was a child I saw a picture of a pink castle bed with a slide from it. I begged for it. I didn't get it as my mother rightly felt it wasn't in line with the values she wanted to promote. I got over it and I have no sense she should have given it to me. Families do shape what their children have access to. Nobody needs a pamper party at six. I think it's frightening how consumerism is walking women blindly into providing weak role models for their girls. Let's all aspire to spa days with the girls and marrying a prince while the boys test their limits and save the world, shall we? After all it's only a bit of fun... they really WANT it.

There's a dreadful game a friend bought for her daughter where you send two princesses buzzing round a pink plastic board, if one of them ends up in the prince's arms, they get a star - four stars and they win. There's no message there, no. None at all.

Look, if people are happy to let their girls buy into the media message they need to love pink tat and obviously have a natural inclination to it as they are girls, so be it. If your values are consumerist and conformist, that's the right path for you. It doesn't mean because it happens commonly it makes sense.

Yes duplodon if your mother had got you the bed you had begged her fir - your life would have been ruined - 50s style house wife, bare foot and pregnant! Tsk! Those pesky princess beds!

A pink castle was not in line with the values she wanted to promote!!!!
What a load of pretentious bollocks.

But Bulbasaur what would you do if one of your dd best friend's was a little boy. Would you really just not invite him?

Ds2 went to a 'My Little Pony' party this year. He was the only boy and he doesn't like ponies much either. He wanted to go because the little girl whose party it was is one of his best friends. He would have been really hurt not to be invited to a close friend's party.

Last year he was invited to a pamper party by another friend. He said 'no thanks' to that one. But at least he had a choice.

I would never allow my child to leave out a good friend on the basis of gender. Obviously if friend would rather not come, that's fine.

No, it's not pretentious billions to make decisions based on your values about what you are willing to blow three or four hundred quid on because your kid asks for it . I'd be surprised if any parent didn't.

No Pepper but neither was it ruined by my parent, you know, telling a six year old that they couldn't have something they felt they desperately wanted because they'd seen it in a magazine.

And it's not housewifery we have to concern ourselves these days in terms of feminism, it's much more about buying into the notion you have to be perfect, pretty, have all the right stuff in order to have a sense of value of yourself.

Ooh I don't know duplo, you only have to cast an eye over a few MN threads to notice that expectations of who does what in the home still cause HUGE levels of resentment. I completely agree with you, though.

Of course children should be able to just invite their friends to their parties. And it's also entirely possible that the OP had over-estimated the friendship between her DS and the birthday girl.

However, several people here have said that single sex parties are such a great way to keep numbers down. So it does make you wonder, if a 6-year old, who normally plays with both boys and girls and has so far been to mixed parties of classmates, really totally independently went out and bought those pink invitations. If it's just a way to keep numbers down then like OP, I find it sad that parents encourage this.

I think there's a lot of bunkem spouted about what boys and girls want.

DS went to a party last week (he's 4) with a dj who did entertainment. The kids had been encouraged to come as superheroes, and many had.

Throughout the party, the girls were told to stand in front of the a Frozen/Elsa banner, and the boys were told to stand in front of a Spiderman-style cityscape. When some people came out dressed up as Elsa/Spiderman/Batman, the girls maintained their groups - girls round Elsa, boys around Batman and Spiderman. Even though more than one girl had come dressed as Batman!

These kids have just started school, they've been trained to do as adults tell them, they were told where to stand and who they were allowed to interact with - yet I bet most of the parents watching would say that it was their girls who chose to go to Elsa, and their boys who chose to go to spiderman.

Nature rather than Nurture my Bum.

I meant to say 'only housewifery'!

Ah...agree with you even more then.

Being told to spend a party randomly standing in front of a banner sounds like a shite party for various reasons, Chunky. The costumes the kids were wearing is only the half of it.

They stood in front of a banner when they were out of whatever party game was being played.

The kids were actually in a good mix of super-hero costumes, girls and boys alike - just the one princess I seem to remember (although one of the batmans was pink, and I think another had a tutu). It totally was the adults imposing their wishes - all the kids would have been perfectly happy to stand with Spiderman and Batman - pointlessly including Elsa 'for the girls' was an entirely adult invention.

They're 4 for goodness sake - the contents of their trousers really isn't going to matter for a fair few years yet.