Is Sweet 16 really a big deal?

[Cantinfluenceme]

So my sister has 4 daughters, around a year between them all, the eldest of them will be 16 next month. We have just received a birthday invite in the post (I see her all the time so wondering why it had to be posted also). This invite was fancier than a wedding invitation, inviting us to her 'Sweet Sixteen' birthday celebration. In the invite is the restaurant details with a nicely worded poem letting us know that they would like our company but we pay for our own food. Also complete with a QR code with a link to an Amazon wish list for my niece.. I've had a look and presents range from £50 to £500 😳. I'm flabbergasted by the whole thing.. is this a thing? Do I have to fork out for this for the next 4 years as the other girls turn 16, then again I presume at 18 and 21??? AIBU to say this is totally over the top for a sixteenth birthday? Myself and my husband and 3 kids are all invited and will be expected to be there, I have kids of my own that are older and younger and wouldn't have even considered this age that much of a special birthday?

I did and off the back of it asked my parents for a Sweet 16th Party (and a puppy).

I was promptly told where to go 😂.

"No. It's not a tradition in this country and you'll be having exactly the sort of birthday you have every year. And if you sulk like one of those brats off the telly you'll be getting bugger all!"

I never watched that show although I’m familiar with it. It’s an outlier in more way than one. I grew up largely in the States (parents moved around a lot) and the only ones who had ‘Sweet 16s’ were girls. The girls in my family had them but none of the boys did, and the same for my school peers.

Ridiculous American nonsense.

Bad enough with the whole Prom thing which some schools dread , baby showers and pre wedding meals , now this!
Ok if you're rich , but it is an import most people won't want for their children I bet ( especially if they discover they can get such expensive presents too!)

In America maybe.

Spend the amount that you normally spend on her birthday. Go to the meal unless it is somewhere stupidly expensive.

It’s an American thing. Glad it’s not big here.

If the restaurant is affordable then nothing stopping you going but choosing a different present or an Amazon gift card

I have enough to do with 16 year olds to form an opinion of my own.

Why exactly do you feel so triggered by my passing generalised comment to feel the need to quote it in this post?

you don’t have children and have very little to do with 16 year olds

and “triggered” 😆

the vast majority of teens are currently socially inept. It’s not helped by the fluffy ‘parenting’ they have received.

I’m so sick of this covid so. story excusing vile teenage behaviour

”vile entitled teens”

bloody hell @PixieLaLar you really don’t like teenagers

Who an earth are you to state I haven’t had children. Yes I have thanks and my opinion still stands.

Like I said you seem triggered by MY opinion. If you don’t like it scroll past, you felt the need to quote me over a generalised comment.

No, you don’t. Well, you have step children
one of who is violent and abhorrent to you . Probably a teen and probably drives your view on the “vast majority” of teens being such despicable creatures

i’ll hide the thread leave you to stew

🤷

Go to the meal
Buy an amazon voucher to the amount of your choice

I think this is extremely grabby.

A 16th birthday is not a big deal, culturally, in the UK. Of course, that doesn't mean that the girl or her parents can't make a big deal of it but they should be the ones financing it.

Sending you a formal invite to a meal that they expect you to pay for while also requiring you to bring an expensive gift? It's very rude.

Another instance when I'm glad I'm too old for such shite

Erm yes I don’t have a good opinion or experience with teenagers, congrats for advanced searching me to clarify that. 👏

My daughter was 16 last year and just did bowling and pizza with a few pals, which we paid for. She didn't even have a cake.

However, a funny thing happened 3 years back with my son. He left home at 19 and moved a fair distance away. We don't see much of him and we didn't see him at all in the pandemic.

Anyway - during the pandemic he started seeing a girl, she moved in and it was a serious relationship by the time Britain got moving again.

So - first contact i have with this girl is when she gets in touch with me to say our son is turning 25 - ¼ century and she wants to us to help her organise a massive birthday for him as it's his 25th!!!!

And i was like what?????? 18, 21. 30 at a push. But never heard of 25 being a thing.

And never heard of 16 being a biggie either!

I made a fuss of my eldest child turning 16 and will do the same for my other kids when it’s their turn when they do, but I don’t expect other people to. I certainly wouldn’t send a frigging gift list to people unless they specifically asked. Really presumptuous imo. I wouldn’t expect any relative to spend £50+ on them, let alone £500! I don’t even spend £500 at a time on my kids.

I agree, even if the gift list was for an 18th or 21st birthday, expecting people to pay £50 - £500 on a present is incredibly rude and entitled.

Very true and the conflict between these two ideologies is quite intriguing... Why and how did the paradigm shift so extremely? Sixteen was previously seen as an age where maturity was deemed to emerge, albeit pre adult. Now it is very different.

Absolutely- I gave my nephew £50 when he turned 18 but that is the last birthday I’m gonna send him anything because he’s an adult now. It has to stop at some point. If nephew had sent me a gift list like that (he’d never) I’d be deeply unimpressed.

And when I say I made a fuss of my own daughter’s 16th it was a girly weekend away because that is what she chose. We celebrated her birthday and our joint amazement that I’d managed to keep her alive for so long. So far. That was her toast to me anyway. if she’d wanted a party instead she could have had one but it wouldn’t be a flash one at a restaurant or anything.

I wonder if it’s this^
I would buy her a gift card and treat as a normal birthday generally just with a special sweet 16th card.

My daughter had her 16th a week into GCSE exams. Absolutely no time time worry about a massive party.

sadly she will be in a similar boat for her 18th, mind.

I think it's a stupid sexist notion. Ugh.

Depends on your culture. My coworker from Central America got a second job cleaning to pay for her daughter's sweet 16 and spent over 10k Canadian. She's someone who never had any emergency savings at all so could have benefited from a safety net.