DD6’s party, Jemima’s mother and the clownfairy part 2

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Hi all

After my last post here https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5097890-to-tell-a-mum-of-a-guest-that-she-cant-stay-at-dd6s-birthday-party?page=1

I thought some of you might be interested in an update.

The clown/fairy I had booked ghosted me when I tried to confirm!!!! so for a moment there I was panicking about having no entertainer and felt that the mumsnet curse of hoping that DD had a shitty party would come true!!!!! luckily though, I have found and booked a back up fairy. So that mitigates the clown phobia risk

9 guests have RSVPed if a total of 12 invites (I had guessed 15), 3 TBC. Of the 12, I know 6 mothers (most of them just to say hi to at school). 3 who have RSVPed I couldn’t pick out of a line up. So far no other parents have asked to stay. Or indeed asked for any other details (or an “plan”)about the party.

Forecast is for pissing rain on Sunday.

The last few pages of the thread took a weird turn while I was asleep and started talking about swimming parties and lifeguards. We do actually have a pool … (I know I sound like I’m trolling at this point.) There will not be a lifeguard on duty, but as it’s about 12 degrees here so I don’t think anyone will be getting in the unheated pool.

(Am WFH today because DS has a high fever and power-chucked in the hallway last night while I was making cupcakes at 10pm for the sodding school fundraiser. As DS coughed in my face while he spreadeagled across my bed, I did think wistfully of one poster on the last thread who thought I was probably a cashed up career woman who barely saw her kids.)

But it isn’t 15, it is 12 at the most (if everyone turns up) and yes, many of us do think it is acceptable regardless if you are in NZ or the UK.

Not letting kids develop their own sense of independence at appropriate times and telling them to see tigers in trees where there are none does not help with resilience as they grow up IMO.

Then close the thread and don't come back to it? I don't think you get to police what is or isn't a two thread issue!

Indeed. The posters are highly stressed and are simply annoyed that OP isn't stressed too.

I think people are getting very stressed on both sides.

Please listen to the Voice of Experience here (capitals used to stress how much experience and how loud that voice is).

Do NOT, under any circumstances, do a piñata. I always had dd's parties at home. The girls in her class were lovely, polite, well-behaved girls. There had never been an issue at any of her parties until The Year of the Piñata. They turned into completely insane, vicious monsters. We did manage to avoid any trips to A&E but that involved wresting the stick off various girls at various stages and then acting as physical barriers to prevent 20 girls jumping on top of one another when it finally opened up.

And fair play for getting the fairy magician. Your experience of Ariel and Ana/Elsa was exactly what I had assumed a fairy party would be. A magician sounds much better. Shame how socialisation frequently results in girls missing out. Although I assume you outsourced the DD, what with you being a hands off, child hating career woman and all.

"I think people are getting very stressed on both sides."

The OP is cool, calm and collected in comparison to some of the posters on here.

I think most people could see a middle ground here.

The OP overreacted to a few reasonable messages and was quite rude to the mother and some posters here. She could be more accepting that some kids might need a bit more support and generally be a bit nicer to keep the peace. She seems to quite enjoy antagonising people and that is getting some peoples backs up hence the thread is carrying on.

On the other hand she is entitled to do what she wants in her own home. I think she will be very capable of looking after 9 kids on her own and I am sure her daughter will have a lovely party. She is obviously a good mother to her kids and at the end of the day that's the most important thing here.

I am very much not stressed. Leaving an abusive fuckknuckle of a husband is stressful. Fighting to keep your kids in your family home is stressful.

Organising a fairy party for 6 year olds and getting your adult child ratios criticised by health and safety inspectors on the internet is not stressful.

The piñata idea sounds potentially highly stressful though so thank you @OchonAgusOchonOh I will be axing that idea and going with pin the tail on the unicorn instead. Potential for kids getting jabbed with pins though? What would the risk register say?

I find it strange really as in my experience (Scotland) the children are mainly dropped and left from P1 onwards! The odd parent would stay to help but mainly they go and enjoy their child free hours! In nursery parents would always stay but after that, it would be unusual.

I wasn’t rude to the mother, I was just (a bit) rude about her in my first thread. If that’s any better 😂

Thank you for the kind comment

Oh I see, the OP has clearly updated this thread to say that only 9 have replied so far, and a few others tbc, so could be at least 12 attending, apart from her own, which is near as damn it.

Regardless, she was still prepared to look after 15 according to the last thread.

Look at the last thread. It was 15 the OP thought she'd be looking after.

Blue tac instead of pins. Much better. Otherwise, multiple pins will be dropped, you will miss at least one, and the child with no shoes on will stand on it and then you will need to provide tetanus shots in the party bag. Also, it needs to be pin the horn, not the tail, for the unicorn.

Dd is currently 23. I have many, many years of experience of parties.

This thread/pair of threads is such a microcosm of everything that is wrong with Mumsnet now.

OP asks a question

Posters in opposition get annoyed when OP doesn't fall to the floor and thank them for their service (on your bingo card will appear 'why did you bother posting if you already know the answer?)

Posters start to dredge up and/or invent everything they can to attempt to get one over on the OP, all of which has nothing to do with the original query (bingo card: 'seems like you should spent more time with your children than with your nose in your phone')

OP either fades away to allow the thread to run for 40 pages of other poster's insult each other (bingo card: 'do you lack reading comprehension?', 'are you the OP?' and 'maybe time to get off the internet, sweetie')

Or OP will turn airy fairy and nonchalant in the face of insults thrown, which will further infuriate the poster who are unable to accept that they cannot win the battle or get the last word (bingo card: 'you're not the thread police')

Some people have this many children to care for every day. School teachers, holiday clubs, parents with big families. What do people expect to happen exactly? They set themselves on fire 🔥 drown each other, crack cocaine!! WTF!

'Cool, calm and collected' 😁 ..... That'll be why she's started two threads and been quite rude and over reacted to so many people, especially on the previous thread.

No, it's on her original OP in this thread, which one should read before continuing to comment. Whether it's 5 or 15, if the parents of the children are happy with the arrangement and OP is happy with the arrangement then it is none of your concern and completely irrelevant to the thread topic.

I think you need a lifeguard op. Safety first and that.

Daisy145'Cool, calm and collected' 😁 ....". That'll be why she's started two threads and been quite rude and over reacted to so many people, especially on the previous thread."

No she responded with aplomb and a great sense of humour.

But that's just it, we don't know if the parents are aware of the arrangement. If they are, that's up to them.
But when asked if she'd told the parents/ put on invites that it'd only be her looking after everyone, then she refused to answer.

I'd bet that if the parents know it's just her, and not even one other person helping out, they'd be a bit concerned and offer to help her themselves.

Most likely the parents assume that she'll not be alone, and are happy to leave the kids.

And as I said, 12 or 15 is still less than/about the same as half of the number in a classroom - and parents aren’t there either. Not all schools have a plethora of TA’s.

But you have asked the question about whether or not we would consider querying the OP about her adult/child ratios as ‘batshit’ and the answer from many on here is in the nicest possible way, yes. And I can’t imagine being the child whose Mum has said no to attending the party arriving at school on Monday when all the girls who have attended are talking about it and not really understanding why they weren’t allowed to go even thought they had been invited. They are 6 and this sort of stuff matters to them - they don’t like to miss out. They certainly wouldn’t understand why this Mum can’t look after them indoors when their teacher does exactly 5 days a week….

This ^

I doubt very much there is even one school that doesn't have other adults on hand to help if needed.

Can I just say (this is a very outing story) when I was 9 I ran over a sewing needle that was lying in the carpet and it snapped off an embedded itself in my foot. My mum’s best friend was getting married that weekend so I wasn’t taken to the doctor for a week (no one realised the needle was jammed in there, they thought I was being a hypochondriac) by which time it was well and truly wedged and they needed to put me under GA and slice my foot open to get it out. The 80s were a bloody wild time to be a kid!

My mother tells this story with no shame at all, she thinks it’s hilarious

Excellent summing up there