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?

I said I can't afford a big party, but people assume I am rich for preferring to have it at home. It doesn't mean I have a big home, just that I would size the party accordingly.

While you chose to assume it’s some type of competition when in many cases it is more about practicalities and how much parents want to deal with and think they can handle.

In our case it's the reverse: we party "out" because we live in a shoebox with a tiny garden, versus DD2's friends who have their parties at home because they all have gardens the size of rugby pitches and multiple living rooms They have all been lovely, by the way, and it's what DD2 would like but just isn't possible for the number of kids she'd want to invite. Another factor for us is that DD1 is autistic so squeezing everyone into our small house would hugely stress her out.

It never would have occurred to me that this could be seen as competitive spending!

Also I do think you may be living in a bit of a bubble by the sounds of it (meant nicely, honestly). I frequently went to parties held in venues when I was a kid but these venues were McDonalds and Pizza Hut Private DJs seems a bit top tier!

Exactly.

The reality is that the parties OP remembers as simple won't have been that for the adults who had to do all the work, and they'll have happened in homes that were statistically larger than the average family home is today.

My dd has had a few parties at places. Our house is small and not a good layout for a party. We do have a decent sized garden but what if its raining? We hired the pool at our leisure centre this year and brought our own food to the function room. If we had a bigger house I'd do it here but a box lounge and a kitchen you can just squeeze a dinning table in, it's not practical. Might just have a few friends here next year and hope it's dry, as being in May we are usually lucky.

I have 2 late teens. Both had and went to parties at venues. Like an earlier poster, I didn’t like catering and hosting at home. Did it a few times and I wasn’t interested in it being every party.

We do not have the time nor energy to set up our house, cater, wrap 40 layers of paper, clean up etc. We do have money for hosting though. So we book somewhere nice, we buy balloons pre-filled, and DS enjoys putting the effort into selection for location, party bags and his cake. If you don't like it, don't come. If you want to do a party in your house, plus yet more haribo sweets for us to pack away until Halloween trick or treaters come, then you do that. But please understand it's not appropriate to dictate what others ought to do with their time and money, just so that they match what you are doing. Circumstances differ.

I much prefer parties at a venue or activity. I really hate having so many kids over at once. And you have to provide entertainment in any case. Where have you seen 10yo happily chasing around a balloon?? A venue has a start and finish time, no cleaning up and often provide the food. At home, you get CF wanting to bring siblings because it's at home, then you get some who don't pick up at finish time again because it's at home. And then you get some odd parent wanting to hang around and chat.

Agree, I would rather pay to have it all done somewhere else because sometimes having it at home works out more in terms of being such a pain.

Op I think you must be living in ancient times, back
Then most people didn't have much so off course it was easier to have done it at home. Also back then very rarely was it such a pain to host, kids just ate what you gave them, happy to bob a few balloons around and generally just saw to themselves. A few balloons and party hats and that was the decor. Please, times have moved a long time ago on so I'm surprised that you feel this is something new.

It's absolutely not about competitive spending! Our son's birthday is in the middle of winter which rules out garden parties. Our lounge is tiny and not big enough for more than 3 kids without chaos ensuing. DH and I work long hours in stressful jobs and don't want to spend the weekend either prepping frantically for a party or tidying up the mess once it's over. DH and 9 guests at soft play is by far an easier and more practical option.

Knowing that there are some parents who will never accept their child can misbehave or be otherwise difficult, I don't blame parents who don't want a party at their house.

YANBU

Best parties we eve did were for DD 9th, where we met on bikes at the gates of a local big london park, cycled round for a bit, had a picnic, ran around, cycled back to the gate. Each kid got a cycle bell as a 'party bag'. They loved it. Cheap as chips. We borrowed bikes for those kids who did t have one so everyone was included.

Or the custard pie fight in our back garden. A few polythene sheets, a ton of custard and squeezy cream loaded onto paper plates. Utter carnage but just the best ever.

'Party bag' was a £2 primark tshirt with stencilled child's name on that they wore home.

Kids don't need fancy competitive stuff. They just need friends, a bit of food, and space to run around in.

You can still make it memorable for them. My DD is an adult now and still boasts about her custard pie fight 😂😂😂😂😂😂

Bit of a both, I love an at-home party with cake made by moi and sausage rolls, pass the parcel etc, they were the norm in my childhood. We hosted a one for my twins' 4th birthday last year, I had a great time.

However my parents had 4br 30s semi with lots of room for children... massive garden. Our house is much smaller... Would be virtually impossible for a flat. So with the housing crisis, going out to space with somewhere to entertain lots of kiddies makes way more sense.

I don't think it's competitive spending per se, just loads of boomers hogging all the big family houses 😜 especially in London. Sorry! I miss the one where you sucked up smarties with a straw, remember that?

I’m in my 30s and can remember attending several parties held at external venues in the 90s.

But I think the increasing number of parties held at external venues these days isn’t to do with competitive spending and instead is due to two main factors:

1. the average family home and garden is smaller now than it was back then
2. there were many more SAHMs back then

Now people are less likely to have the time and space to host parties at home. You can’t fit a bouncy castle in the garden of a small terrace.

I don’t think it’s competitive spending. A lot more families where both parents work full time. No time to pre clean house and toys, bake cake, cook food, supervise children, clean up a wrecked house etc. a party outsourced makes perfect sense when time is a premium

Those sound like great parties but they sound like they took quite a lot of a time to prepare - borrowing bikes, making picnics, stencilling t-shirts, buying polythene sheets and bike bells.

(And typically living near a London park and having a back garden in London big enough for custard pie fights don’t come cheap either these days?)

Generally children’s parties require either time/space or money. If you have plenty of time and space then yes it’s fairly easy to do cheap parties. But if time and space are at a premium - two working parents, more than one child - then people may choose to spend money instead.

The last 2 years, for DD's birthday, we've had a party in my Mam's garden as it's a better party venue, the kids that came loved it. Pass the Parcel etc... I think we're going to look at soft play this year as DD enjoys them but it will probably just be this one time. And we never invite the whole class! I don't get that part at all. Maybe in reception, but by Y1 kids know who they want there and who they don't.

When my daughter was at primary we nearly always did home parties old fashioned style with silly games and just playing in the garden , with pass the parcel. Her friends always said what fun it was. Decided I didn’t care what the parents thought. To be fair both me and DH were teachers so weren’t fazed by kids getting out of control and kept it all fairly organised. I can see it might be scary that they might go on a rampage and trash the house .

I'm 68. My mum used to organise brilliant birthday parties for me. She'd make sandwiches, stripey blancmange, jelly and ice cream, cake. Only about 5/6 kids from my class. We'd stay in the sitting room. We'd play musical chairs, pass the parcel. I got a little present from everyone. It was great. It's all gone a bit bonkers now. Perhaps I sound like an old fogie! I learned the other day that it's the tradition in Brazil to hold an ENORMOUS party when a daughter gets to 16. People get themselves into huge debt with this. The daughter is dressed like a Disney Princess and has a silver high heeled shoe ceremony where she exchanges trainers for high heels. It's insane and rather sexist in my view. Probably be over here soon.....

i have two teen DDs and I never hosted a party at home. I just couldn’t. It was hard enough to clean up and leave a booked venue … I couldn’t face the idea of organising it all, having my house trashed and cleaning up too. I don’t think it would cost an awful lot less in the long run either …

The norm has changed but I don't feel any way about it. I just have a few sandwiches and patty games in my house and no one is sneering. I also own a place that does birthday parties and honestly all the parents just book it because they can leave the mess for everyone else. And it's not very expensive for the convenience, no one seems to be showing off by having their parties at my place

Parties are much more inclusive now and i don't think have changed so much.

When i was a child, there were fewer whole class parties. It went from 8-10 children for a party tea/pass the parcel at home, to half a dozen being taken for laser tag/swimming/cinema/ice rink. There were some children who got invited to almost no parties while a popular handful went to them all, despite the fact that many friendships at 5-7 are fleeting and aren't well established at all.

Now the at home parties tend to be for under 5s, and for 5-7 year olds you get whole class discos/bouncy castles etc in village halls. I prefer this because no one is left out, by 7-8 when smaller parties start the friendships are more fixed and children recognise that the small group included are the ones who play most with the birthday child.

Also when i was a child fewer mums worked in full time stressful jobs when kids were primary aged. They had more time to plan, host and tidy after an at home party. As a working mum i do not!!

My time is worth money. It takes a lot to clean and prep for the party, decorate, make food and clean up after. Not to mention the stress of whether it will rain, will the house get trashed, will someone get injured, sorting out the entertainment etc. We host play dates all the time but a venue party is so much easier. And not much more expensive. They start from £10 a head here.