To want to ban craft tables at toddler parties?

[Misspilly88]

Turn up at Xmas nursery party with my bulldozer 2yo after a shockingly shit day, heart sinks when I spot craft table (complete with glitter glue pens, massive tubs of glitter and thousands of sequins).

I wanted to sit down and chat to the other parents. AIBU, is it just me?

Why? Just leave 2 year old to do art table herself and you can chat. It's a party, someone running party will be keeping an eye and they are expecting mess if it's toddlers

It's for the children to craft, not you!!

Surely your two year old can scribble, sprinkle glitter and glue stuff? It doesn't matter what the end result looks like!

I know the feeling and I agree it's not about us, but maaaan, sometimes I dread it.

Mind, my main pet peeve now is play groups where they encourage toddlers to draw on walls, why?!

Ha, it's not just you.

This is the reason we do not craft at our house, I don't have the energy to clean glitter off the walls.

When outside of the house I actively encourage DS to engage with his creative side ☠️

Glitter is evil. It sticks well to hair, sweaters, and cats, but not to whatever is meant to be glittered. Two days after you use glitter, you can open a boiled egg and find glitter inside.

YANBU. I love doing crafty stuff with my kids at home where I have overalls and a bath but I hate craft tables at toddler groups etc. There's always a couple of very well behaved children nicely making something alongside my almost three year covered from head to toe in glitter and my 17 month old with a mouth full of glue. They need constant supervision and inevitably a change of clothes. I stopped going to my local childrens centre for a while when they started covering everything in food dye to 'add interest', spaghetti and stuff like that. I never used to take them in their nicest clothes but I would like the clothes to wearable after a trip there! Food dye fucking dyes clothes!

from your responses I can tell who has children like mine. Glad I'm not alone. In the time I had parked the buggy, taken off my shoes and hung up our coats my child had undone all the glitter pots and emptied them and was in the process of emptying the glitter glue pens. He refused to do anything else.
Guess I'll ask ahead next time!

YABU, it was their party. Not a Dick about & drink coffee party

What were you worried about? getting clothes/hair/nails dirty? the party host making you clean up? I too have a bulldozer for a son who would have loved the crafts in between running like a headless chicken. I think parents forget that its the process the children love not the finished product.

Eric, I laughed, as this morning I found glitter in my boys snack box - just how?

I feel your pain OP, especially with more than one DC, you can't have eyes on both at the same time.
I now have a nanny for the days I work and she does lots of arts and crafts with the DCs (and cleans up afterwards) so I can do "clean" activities for the days I am with them