To say no to party invites like this in future

[nightsurfing]

We live in a town that has plenty to do, in the town itself and a certain radius.

However the parents of DC at my child's school (late primary) seem to be increasingly booking birthday parties that are further away. A 40 minute drive minimum, and including in city centres.

The difference in attending these includes roads closed across the county and needing to go miles out of the way to get to the location, including finding multiple roads closed part-way through the journey, waiting on long queues of traffic for a couple of miles on the diversion and feeling completely lost where diversions aren't signposted, the satnav being no help, in fact worse it keeps telling us to go back to the closed route. We end up down tight little residential side roads that aren't familiar with higher risk of an accident. It wastes fuel. It is really stressful. Then sometimes the satnav (which is a good one) doesn't get us to the place and we're left figuring out how the hell to do it, finalising realising it's at the back of some industrial estate on the city outskirts. The parking when it's in s city centre is another £10 on top of the child's gift and card. And because we have to wait, money in a cafe or shopping. If you add these the party has probably cost 3x as much as if held nearer to home.

Sometimes the place is nice when we get there. But not nicer than places near to where we live. Sometimes it's downright nasty in comparison. Today we had to navigate a parking garage that smelt of wee with gross rubbish in piles around the doors. Several groups of homeless men yelling things as people passed. Only to find the party in a grotty old shopping centre.

I don't know the parents well which to know the rationale for these choices, or question them.

AIBU to just say no to these invitations? I don't want my DC to be left out and not go to parties but getting so fed up, and don't like how stressed I feel by the time we actually get there.

you do sound a bit overdramatic, sorry. All the angsting about diversions and delays and how hard and incredibly stressful it is - do you not drive often/far? Everything you've said is very very normal for driving anywhere. Saying things like "end up down tight little residential side roads that aren't familiar with higher risk of an accident" is just silly- driving down a residential street at a slow speed should be almost minimal risk for an accident whether you 'know' that particular street or not.

And why should it be particularly stressful? You're not rushing for a job interview or to catch a flight. Just leave plenty of time, look at the route BEFORE you go so you know the rough area even if diversions aren't signposted, and have google maps as a back up. Worst comes to the worst, you'll be a bit late to a kids party, as will (if the roads are that bad!) presumably lots of the other attendees. It's not life or death.

Same with "navigate" (so, you mean, walk past?) "a parking garage that smelt of wee with gross rubbish in piles around the doors." Again this really isn't particularly unusual. You're making a slightly grotty area sound like some sort of dystopian hellscape. God forbid your kids have to walk past a bit of rubbish.

Saying all that, of course you are not unreasonable to spend excessive time/money doing something when you don't need/want to, and there are other alternatives, but again, stop the dramatics. It's not a choice between attending every single one of these parties or your kids being miserable and isolated sitting at home alone every weekend. Your kids will still see their friends in school and at other activities, you can do something else fun as a family, and they will presumably be invited to SOME parties within a reasonable distance, so when you get an invite you don't fancy for whatever reason, just say 'sorry sweetheart this one's a bit too far/we've got something on that day already,' and then do something else.

The local trampoline place to us - which is fab - is 30 minutes drive simply because you have to cross the city, with city traffic. The kids love it, and I can see why - it’s great fun!
If you’re having that many disasters, it’s you.

Seriously - I think we can all relate to the trampoline park on an industrial park that you can’t see from 10 metres away and you end up shouting at the satnav. But… not every time! Ditto the road closures. Google maps is excellent by the way, don’t know why your “good” satnav seems to be so perplexed.

You sound ridiculous saying you have to spend money because you’re there. No-one is forcing you to! Bring a flask and piss about on MN sat in your car. Or if you’re more social, chat to other parents about the awful traffic and how hard it is to find this place.

I can’t imagine saying to my 9yo, “sorry love, you can’t go to <fun activity with all your mates, highlight of the week> because I can’t handle the occasional wrong turn and having to spend £4 on a coffee.”

I mean just replay that in your head, him in his 40s saying, “yeah, I missed lots of parties when I was in primary - you know, all the cool laser quest type things - cos my parents found the satnav a hassle.”

Not world ending, not even therapy inducing… but kinda sad, no?

I get it. I don’t want to spend my weekend driving to the nearest big city 40 mins away and hang around while they do paintballing or ninja warrior. That seems to be the deal now with 12 year olds. Luckily the last couple of times the birthday parents have taken them all for us.

We've had a few of these recently. Often because the party family live 20 mins across the town from us. So for them the party venue is maybe 20 mins away but for us it's 40 as we have to get across town before going on.

My strategy has been to try and organize something nearby with dc so we can be more leisurely about getting there.

Yeah I think if money is an issue get there earlier and find better parking even if it means a bit of a walk, take a drink with you. But if you really can’t afford the petrol of course it’s ok to decline the invite. But otherwise I’d say suck it up, it can’t be that often and won’t be for very long.

It's an invitation. Your child doesn't have to go. Have a look at the route before you decide whether to accept or not. Not a big deal. A couple more years and the kid parties pretty much stop at secondary school. I have to admit my heart sinks a little when I see a destination 1 hour plus away. Only because I don't like navigating new areas or turning up somewhere busy, looking for parking, etc. But we mostly car share with a bunch of other parents, so between us only have to do a couple of long-distance parties a year. Offer to take other children next time, and then usually someone will return the favour the following time.

You don’t need an excuse or reason to say no, to anything. You just no.

Two that we travelled to for our youngest daughter were a nightmare.

One at a seaside town an hour away. In an ice cream shop, so the whole class in a small cafe, with parents, as it was such a long journey.
The party family were late, and there was just no room, nor anything to do, and the children could barely move.

Another one, on the other side of a town 45 minutes away, was a large play area, but they refused to let our teenage girls join me in the coffee shop.
They looked like adults annd were clearly not going to play, climbing etc and would all have had coffee and drinks. Instead they insisted that they wished to charge them £15 each admission.

They had to wait in the car park instead, so two surly teenagers.

The ‘being dramatic’ is your fear of accidents in unfamiliar residential roads. Ridiculous.

It does sound a pain. But in this situation I would have tended up with friends parents and taken it in turns.

Like others have said, can't you liftshare? At least part of the way, if none of the kids live next door. If it's class parties, there must be at least some overlap with invitees.

How many parties does your 9 year old get invited to? How many children are at the parties?

At 9 I’d expect parties to be just their closer friends now rather than the whole class / all girls or all boys.

If it was one of their close friends I’d take them, but then I’d also expect that there would be less parties.

YANBU to not take them if it’s not their close friend though.

Lift sharing is the answer as others have said.

If you don't know other DPs well you can ask party host DP if they know anyone you can share a lift with, or best case scenario they may well offer to take your DC themselves ( don't accept this too many times or word will get round).

DS had a phase like this as the parties for older DCs tended to be at trampoline parks out of town.If I was giving a lift, it was a badge of honour for me to fill the car up with pals.

We have lots close to us including several different trampoline centres and similar, climbing, cinemas, etc. The ones further away seem to be the same type but in another location then some extras say bigger cinema, bowling, or just eating out.

I am an anxious driver, really admit that and DH doesn't drive.

We’ve had this with our son.
Unfortunately he has a tracking app, so we could see the times the parents were scarily speeding on the motorway and single carriage roads

We aren’t letting him go anywhere with them again

They are parties of about 10 each time.

I think the conclusion is we will try talking to some of the parents we do know and suggest sharing lifts in exchange for other favours.

Hadn't thought of that...

If you use Google maps as opposed to a sat nav it updates more regularly with road closures and journey times.

not necessarily other favours, just with the understanding that next time the kids are all invited to an out of town birthday, it's their turn.

Of course you can decline. But for things like that I always use my phone sat nav and not the car one. It's live and will route you correctly, I hate trying to follow diversion signs in unfamiliar areas.

I'm an anxious driver too, but sometimes you've just got to grit your teeth and get on with it for your DS.

Football matches at some far flung place many miles away early Sunday morning were much worse than parties and as we didn't know the DPs as well and they didn't live as close there was no lift sharing.

I have a big sat nav and I find that really helpful for navigation.

Thank you. Didn't know that difference between sat navigation.

1 thing we have been reflecting on today, is the thought we put into arranging our DC party. We would actually never invite other children to somewhere far away, difficult to get to or inconvenient or costly. We would have other parents in mind. It doesn't feel like this is reciprocated. And as pp have said, while other parents can choose any venue they like, we have come to the conclusion we're also reasonable to say no to parties with some of these characteristics. Unless it's DC best friend (but that's actually less likely they would choose one of these).

The only thing is op, within the next year or two the parties will be fewer and fewer for your child, one of my children had a party aged 12 but even he said nobody really does them that much so it’s nice for them to experience as many as possible

Any parties that are a pain in the ass to get to (random leisure centre across town when there are 2 within 10 mins of the school) are a hard pass. I don't expect anyone to go out of their way for any parties I hold either. I certainly cba to deal with a magical mystery tour due to road closures or a 40 min journey in any direction - feck that. I live in a city to avoid spending my life in a car.