Kids birthday at theatre - does guest pay?

[Firey40]

DD’s best friend (6) asked her to a kids theatre show for her birthday. It’s just the two of them.

I asked the mum to let me know what I owe them for the ticket. She said £15 for the ticket and that they’d go to pizza afterwards

so i sent £25 for the ticket and pizza. All fine.

I’m just curious though….would people ordinarily expect to pay for their kid to go to another kid’s birthday trip, in this kind of set up?

I just know that if it was me, I’d have paid for her kid as part of the invitation, and said no, you don’t owe us anything.

Just musing really. If it makes a difference, they aren’t rich but not impoverished either, mum and dad (separated) but both in good jobs

I wouldn't expect a gust to pay for this and I wouldn't have offered money to the parent who invited my child. Not for a birthday. For any other time of year I would offer to pay.

I asked the mum to let me know what I owe them for the ticket. She said £15 for the ticket and that they’d go to pizza afterwards
so i sent £25 for the ticket and pizza. All fine.

Even if she asked you for £15 for the ticket, you didn’t have to pay for the pizza on top, surely? Kind of defeats the purpose of it being a Birthday treat and not just 2 friends going out.

Why on earth did you ask how much to pay for the ticket?

That's just weird.

She was probably so confused that you asked that she just blurted out the price.

I may have paid for the theatre ticket but certainly not the food after.

But really I wouldn’t have asked how much I owed and just presumed it was their treat.

No, it was over WhatsApp and she sent me her bank details to make the transfer

Sounds like being overly polite has backfired on you OP! Please tell me you didn’t get her a present too 😂

my 18 year old had a birthday event recently. I paid for all the tickets for him and 4 friends (at £70 a head) and I bought dinner for them all. They did pay their train ticket to London though, although I had expected to pay that. And I saved up for ages to be able to afford it for his 18th

over years Ive done parties , things like lazer quest, cinema, zoos and shows. Ive never expected the parents to contribute if its a birthday event. Or even if Ive just invited a child to come along. If its an agreement between parents to go to something together as a group, not birthday related, then thats a different matter.

You invite a kid for a birthday treat/event - you pay for it. Its reciprocated when they get to go to someone elses birthday treat.

I mean the fact that you asked about paying probably made her feel uncomfortable and like you wanted some sort of transactional approach.

Like perhaps you were unable to accept gifts or something.

And the fact that you sent more money than the ticket price reinforced that message.

Just chalk this one up to experience and next time don't say anything

In this situation, we always paid for everything for the whole day - theatre, dinner, travel.
(Some parents would offer though)

If you invite a guest then you pay for them otherwise you're expecting the guest to subside your celebration.

I would also have been polite and asked how much I owed her but would expect her to say that of course the treat was on her and I owed nothing.

Yes, exactly this.

It’s the first theatre-invite type trip my daughter had been invited to, and I didn’t want to presume.

I don’t feel cross about it - maybe she was financially struggling, and I can afford £25 no problem so I wasn’t annoyed. Just a bit baffled, hence asking you guys to check if I was the only one!

Thanks to everyone for your responses :)

And yes of course we bought her a present, you can’t turn up to a birthday without a present! :)

My policy has always been I invite, I pay. However, if my kids were invited somewhere, I would always send them with money, just in case.

I pay for guests. My daughter did something similar this year instead of a party chose a friend & we did a show, food & i let the guest chose a bath bomb in lush and she had that and some sweets / cake instead of a party bag.

i wouldn’t have offered the money. I’d have assumed she was paying until she asked me. If it was just a day out she was prosing say at a weekend i’d offer ticket / food money but not a birthday.

Another parent supervised your daughter during a show and then took her for pizza. You paid for both of these things. Nothing about that suggests it's a birthday party. I'm surprised the other parent was cheeky enough to accept a gift after you had already given them £25.

If I invite one of my children’s friends to go out with us then I pay, I’d never expect their parent to pay. I wouldn’t even think to offer to pay if it was my child invited , I would hover give my child money towards ice cream for both children.

we have taken my dds friend on holiday, we paid for it all. Holiday cottage here so no extra “costs”for that and we paid for all food and drink and days out. If I couldn’t afford it I wouldn’t offer to take them.

Now DD is a teen and the etiquette seems to be changing as to whether it is a "birthday meal" paid for by the host or whether they are going out for a meal around the time of someone's birthday and everyone pays their way but still takes a present. This makes some sense as it's moving towards what generally happens at Uni and in your 20s.
Otherwise, I would always pay for the guest. On a more expensive day out, I might allow the guest to buy ice creams or similar. The only exception was when I have essentially provided childcare and the child would have otherwise been in paid for holiday camp when, depending on how many days I ended up doing it over a particular holiday. I'd let them pay the entrance fee knowing it was cheaper than childcare would have been and always clearing the activity with the parent when I made the offer in the first place.

People are all different and deal with things differently. I would be like you but that doesn't make a different way wrong. It's simply jow people see things. Fab to go to theatre though!

I would expect them to pay! If you could afford the theatre you would be taking them yourself and actually your child is the chosen one by their child, hence keeping that child happy on their birthday without the expense of a party. Next time don’t ask and maybe send child with a fiver for sweets / drink etc.

This. It isn't a party. Would only be giving a tiny token present/card