To be sad at the level of competitive spending..

[BelleMarionette]

At children's parties?

The old fashioned coming over to the family home, party games and some food and snacks seems to have disappeared.

It's now all about hiring venues, entertainers, or going to expensive places that offer packages.

I can't remember the last time my children were invited to a party in the children's house without an entertainer. Even families without a lot put on big parties.

I can't afford fancy parties, and feel embarrassed to host a 'normal' (ie just at home with food and games I organise) party.

When I was child I remember parties just being a few games or running riot in the child's home for a couple of hours.

Aibu that the norm has very much changed?

Only been to a couple of parties with an "entertainer" and they were, quite frankly, twee crap and the kids wouldn't have cared if they were not there - some never even engaged with them. ds and classmates usually had parties in community hall/bouncy castle, softplay or football pitch. Smaller groups to activities such as bowling, climbing or sleepover when older.

The kids will make their own entertainment and just love being together with friends and usually some party food. Don't get sucked into "entertainers" if you don't want too.

I find these sorts of posts so strange- the OP will post about some assumption she has made because of her own feelings of insecurity which demonstrate the exact type of behaviour she is claiming to dislike. This OP thinks its "competitive spending" whereas actually it could be for a whole host of other reasons and writes off/makes assumptions about people around her as a result.

Put it another way- a lot of people don't have the size or type of house that can host 20 children and their parents. I know I don't. So I have to pay for it somewhere else. I couldn't give a monkeys what someone else is doing.

There was a party like this on Friday at the park near my DDs school. They all came up to me with balloons and food and I asked where they got it. I walked over as I knew birthday mum (same school) to apologise for my scrounging children but she said it was an open invite, all her son wanted was to hang out with his friends at the park. Birthday boy was having a great time with his friends and mum was happy she could just dump all the rubbish in the park bins.

Even with our summer born second child who is early 20s I wouldn’t have risked an outdoor party as the weather is far too unpredictable in this country .

DD is 9 and has been to lots of parties, none had an entertainer. She's been to several at the Bowling alley or the local softplay and lots of at home/village hall type parties where there's a bouncy castle, balloons, party bags and sandwich buffet.

Best parties my DC have had and remember vividly were sleepover & spa in the garden for DD 10th birthday and a treasure hunt & picnic for DS 8th birthday at the local County Park.

Both were cheap, esy to organise and definitely didn't involve the whole class or paying someone else £££.
I find the whole thing of throwing £££ at party venues such a waste when all DC wants is having a special fun / play day with friends.

I think it’s more to do with convenience - a house full of DC can be incredibly stressful/messy.

DC4 has had everything from a party in a patisserie in a 5* hotel where they did cake decorating to pass the parcel and pin the tail on the donkey at home during covid.

both went down well with birthday child and friends alike. I know which one was less stressful!

I also like with entertainers or a package party that there's a fixed end point. I've had other child-related gatherings at home and had people not leave for hours - one stayed two hours after the finish time but without getting involved in clearing up.

I haven't read all of the replies, and although I could host a party in my house (we have space, plus a garden and a field at the bottom of my garden) - I choose to do parties elsewhere for a number of reasons:

1. No tidy up required by me and DH at the end of the party in the party venue (their staff do that)
2. No chance of items in my home getting broken/damaged by boisterous over-excited children.
3. Less stress as party venues make food (all I provide is a cake, big number balloon and sometimes party favours, if the venue doesn’t provide this)
4. Parking in my street for 30+ parents (of the invited children) would be a bit problematic as we live 5 minute drive from DD’s school (we live in the next village over, with a couple of farms & fields between us)
5. My DH and I can afford it. We don’t do yearly expensive holidays abroad (medical insurance for me is expensive), we only have one child and we don’t have a lot of outgoing expenses. Hence why we can pay for a party venue to host a party for our DD. Other parents will prioritise holidays abroad, or expensive sports/hobbies, for their children - we all have different outgoings. It depends on what people can afford.

I honestly believe that if parents want to throw a birthday party for their child, they should do what is most comfortable for them, be it at home or at a different party venue. It’s not “competitive” on my part, but what is least stressful for me as I have a chronic illness. Hope you’re ok, OP?

I’m 30, when I was little parties were usually discos or entertainers in a hall, then when I got bigger it was more stuff like bowling or cinema, sometimes followed by a sleepover. So it’s certainly not THAT recent. And I don’t think it’s necessarily so much about competitive spending as having enough room in your house and enough confidence in your entertaining ability for 20 5 year olds!

Funnily enough the only parents in DDs year who have done an at-home party were the wealthy ones with the massive house. We paid £180 to a trampolining place which felt like a very fair price for not having to cram everyone into our fairly small house.

My kids love parties in other people's houses. I don't have them for my own very often because I find it incredibly stressful organising a bunch of kids. I'd throw money at a party no bother if it meant cutting out the stress/ someone else does all the organsing.

So I don't reckon it's competitive spending. I think people probably do it for all kinds of reasons

I've done one party for dd at a trampoline place.

Nothing to do with competitive spending. 100% about less stress/ input from me, minimal clean up and no pressure to entertain the kids for hours.

I'd rather do no parties altogether but this way I was willing to do one.

When did it change? Can we link it to 2008 social media? Is everyone posting pictures online

Nope. Mine had birthdays at Charlie chalks? I think it was called. A big pub set up for childrens parties.
They were safer than my house and garden, much bigger too and they did it all for about a tenner a head.
It meant if all the parents fucked off after dropping the kids off I wasn't left trying to soothe an upset child, create memory's for mine, organise the games and cater too.
Also my house wasnt torn apart and the gift bags with cake were done for me.
A January birthday dictated this somewhat.
And that was in the 1990s
Also cinema, and bowling and archery once and a pretty good one in an adventure outdoors place, plus some others I forget.

The other child with a summer birthday got a few at home parties, easier in the sunshine, and a few holidays abroad as well as the chain pub set up for this purpose and horse riding, cinema, bowling etc.

No pictures at all as film was expensive to buy and to develop.

My dc are 9 and 11 and we’ve been to a mix of home parties and venue ones over the years. Their birthdays are in jan and we’ve always done them at venues for convenience until the last year or two when it’s become sleepovers.

I mean some of the home parties were nice but a lot were like an extended play date, not really that exciting and not a treat like a venue one unless Their parents made a massive effort with entertaining them. They would always prefer to go trampolining, make slime, etc. Just my kids’ opinions! They never wanted one themselves.

It’s always the middle class better off parents around here who throw the home parties with lots of help from friends and families!

Yes, I remember a lot of parties at Charlie Chalks! All the little girls used to have those shiny dresses with the firework pattern on

I’ve done big expensive parties, entertainers and themes, amazing party bags etc. I work full time so was conscious that I didn’t always know all the parents, and don’t do lots of play dates. So I threw money at it every year. I felt a bit competitive around it in honesty.
Ds loved his parties, I said for his 11th that was the last one like it.
Year 7 so not had parties this year at all so no expectation of inviting back. Ds liked different parties for different reasons. He had big parties from 5-11, except covid when we went for a fairly joyless lunch.

I was thinking about this recently as my childhood parties were all jelly and ice cream at home.

I can’t bare the thought of having 10-20 kids in my home and their parents possibly hanging about too. That’s why I have it out. I just want to rock up somewhere and not deal with the stress of prep and tidy up.

We did one at home party. It pissed it down with rain and our bouncy castle was cancelled so had the uncertainty of whether to cancel or not. The kids still played outside in the rain (and inside) and to be fair had a fab time. Grown-ups had a bbq under a gazebo. It was the most stressful party out of all of them and our house was a mess because of the kids coming in and out.

I am quite happy to pay for a party or do a group day out for a smaller number because it is much easier. I really don’t give a monkeys about competitive spending or social media.

I have lived in two areas with a very different social demographic. First was a suburb of a large city. Estate with average houses. The birthday party standard was high, hired entertainers, catered, over the top gifts.

Second was a village close to a market town. Large houses worth 1 million +. Birthday parties were all village hall, sandwiches and crisps, pass the parcel type affairs.

Interesting!

It's not 'competitive frugality' because someone chose something different to you either. People are free to do what they please. However, it's kind to keep others in mind and not be the one to raise the bar and make poorer parents feel inadequate.

I don't think a lot of people have space in their homes tbh. Not sure if has anything to do with competitive spending. I am in my 30s and never in my childhood did I attend a party in a house with just games. That was an evening in. The only time I remember being in someone's house was a rich girl who's parents rented a double decker bus that was converted into a soft play inside. This was parked outside her house.
All the others were in church halls, leisure centres, park etc.

I'm not rich but I do think the big Kardashian type bday parties are extremely tacky.

I agree with those saying it isn’t competitive spending in as much as many people don’t want to host children’s parties in their house anymore and so if they can afford it they go elsewhere. I think that is what I will do when DD gets older. The stress of organising it, providing entertainment, games etc just doesn’t seem worth it when I can spend some money having it at a neutral venue with somebody else providing food and entertainment. I certainly wouldn’t look down on anybody having a party at their home though - I would probably be impeded at their confidence and the amount of effort put in.

I agree completely. We live in an affluent area where we are realistically one of the least-affluent families and we can't afford to drop hundreds of pounds on parties. We have been to a couple of less expensive parties but by and large they've been much fancier than the parties we went to as kids. Things like huge, multiple tier bespoke birthday cakes baked by local bakers, entertainer's, mascots, face painters (often all three, plus a bouncy castle/soft play etc), massive party bags full of bespoke stuff in...our eldest is about to turn 5 and we only did a party for her 4th birthday and we are taking her to Alton towers for her 5th instead. I'm dreading it all as she gets older, we already had the questions at her last birthday about why she couldn't have x y nd z like her friends did...

*impeded = impressed