To be annoyed play centre held a party at the same time as open session?

[Hohohoididnotgo]

I went to a little role play cafe today with my children. It’s only small so probably only capacity for about thirty kids. Fine except today there was a birthday party which was pretty much the whole centre. So after an hour or so of play pretty much every other child there went and sat at a table with food, balloons and cake and were playing party games.

I have had this before at soft play and obviously it happens but at soft play it’s bigger and less obvious and when the children go to eat and play games it’s in a separate room. This wasn’t.

AIBU? I felt a bit sad for mine as they’d struck up friendships with some kids playing and then they were left almost alone!

Another post just triggered a memory for me is clearly locked away, back from when I was a newer mum

My daughter has autism, when she was 3 she started preschool. One weekend we went to a soft play, quite small, and there was a birthday party with pretty much every other child in the class there. Fortunately, being autistic and three she didn’t know but I remember my cheeks burning. I couldn’t just leave, she’d have a meltdown. So I sat there about 4 chairs away for a fucking awkward hour. I REALLY learned some lessons about toughening up and making decisions about how I’d choose to parent.

My next children were the super popular type, and friends with siblings but I’ve never mixed since with those mums

Sorry, that is a tangent- but that memory just slapped me in the face

Op, look, 93 percent of people disagree with you. Just hide the thread and move on, arguing and doubling down on it. Isn’t going to change it.

you think they should have shut the centre, I and many others think you wanted to join in the party. You decided to stay and get your kids upset so you could get your moneys worth. And blame the centre. Nearly everyone disagrees.

id honestly just move on.

This is one of those threads...

OP: Am I being unreasonable?

Everyone: Yes, you are being unreasonable.

OP: I'm not being unreasonable and I'm going to repeatedly tell you I'm right you're wrong - so there.

OP knows whether she wanted to join the party or not. And if you lot are wrong, then you're wrong, no matter how many of you there are! So, why would she do as you say?

Other people's kids aren't there to entertain yours, you should do that.

Of course she wants her money's worth - these places are bloomin' expensive!

And I can see where the OP is coming from - if her kids were practically the only ones not attending the party and the party kids were essentially taking over the place in terms of noise/atmosphere, then personally I'd feel a bit like we were gatecrashing and paying for the pleasure.

They all do this? Children need to know they can't have everything.

You can't expect the wider world to be available to entertain your children. You need to meet up with your friends if you want to have companionship.

There were some other children there, your children played with them.

Then it was time for the other children to go and have something to eat.

Expecting a business to close to the public in case some children may be upset when they aren't invited to the party of a stranger is unreasonable.

With respect that's not going to line up with the potential ,£4k a week your way

Businesses have to get money in to stay in business.

I don't understand these weird responses. OP YANBU. The venue is too small to host a large party and a public session so they should have closed it to the public or at least made it clear when booking that there is a party so that you can make an informed decision.

We have two soft plays nearby which have capacity for 30 children. When there's a party it's closed to the public and the party prices reflect this. We've been to many parties there and as a party goer, it would have been awkward to be sitting playing games and eating party food 2m away from other children.

It's fine when it's a large soft play with separate party rooms, but that's not OP's set up.

I suspect that some people have voted YABU whilst imagining that it's a large soft play where this is more normal and accepted. People don't always read everything before they vote.

These occasions are an opportunity to just explain to children - it’s someone else’s birthday that you don’t know. When it comes to their birthday they will have a party that these strangers won’t be invited to.
And then move on.
It would have been more annoying to arrive and see a sign ‘closed for a private party’..

As parents we have to teach our children how to deal with these little disappointments so they learn the skills to cope with bigger disappointments that come later in life. Our children's lives are not going to be all flowers and unicorns and learning to manage this has to start young and small. My Mum's favourite saying was life isn't fair and she is so true you have to learn to deal with it.
Lack of resilience is a huge issue, I am interviewing for a university degree and as part of the interviews we specifically look at resilience.
So proud of my DD last night she was talking about some choices she had made that had my life a bit tougher and her attitude was they were my choices I have to get on and my make best of them now. She is 20 a student made some financial choices that mean she needs to do extra work, but her resilience means she is cracking on and sort it out. This all starts with managing tiny disappointments as a toddler and preschooler.

If you have to remove your child because they can't behave that on you, you do not get to ruin someone else's party. We have all been through it, I have had to remove my kids from the cinema and theater before missing something I spent far more than £30 on... that what you do as a parent.

OP paid £30 for 2 and the other parents paid for 25 so £375 (probably more as party packages often charge more for food/juice/party bags/co-coordinator).

Totally agree with you, but in this situation the OPs children were complete strangers.

The parents had manner, that they where forced to say something because you lacked them.

Of course you don't just accept the 'invite' they offered out of trying to defuse your badly handle situation, it rhetorical social politeness. You what what Britain is forever mocked for by the rest of the world (where we say something polite when someone is out of line but all know its means 'your being rude').

83% of slots where taken by the party (so nearly 20% of the venue spaces where not booked) not 99%... there wasn't 200 space with 198 booked for a party.

Its insane made up stats like that that make the 'offended' peoples 'opinion' hard to take seriously.

NAIL ON HEAD.

The people who want their kid invite to the party simply can't be arsed to parent their own kid. Which is a pandemic at play places (parents who ignore their kids even though its not a creche and everywhere states you must supervise your own) but expecting other parents to invite your kid to a strangers party so you don't have to is next level entitled insanity.

Having the play area to yourself is fantastic... its also possible that OP could have paid in and found there was only one or two other families (slow sessions happen) and they may have left 10 minutes in and her kids would have lost play mates and been alone anyway. Or maybe there is 8 other older children their who have no interest in playing with a toddler either so ignore them the whole session while playing with their own aged kids (which is their right they are children who paid to play they are not caregivers there to babysit toddlers).

Going to a soft play does not guarantee your kids get to play with other kids, they are only guaranteed some use of the equipment. You can't force other people to be involved with your kids.

Nope we are perfectly capable of understanding, these small role play cafes are everywhere its not something unusual we haven't experienced before.

It cost a LOT more for private hire, I know because unlike OP I have actually hosted kids parties before (many, many times for my multiple children in the 16 years of being a mam) as have many people responding.

OP has no experiance or awareness as she has very tiny kids, when she has been through this herself she will realize how nuts she is being.

I look forward to posts about rude party etiquette like how at £20 a head some people brought 3 uninvited siblings along making everything awkward sending the kids over to 'join in' and the parallel thread of how mean a mam as DS school was for not offering cake and a party bag and party game inclusion to little Timmy, he is only 1 little 3 year old it would 'make no difference to add him' to the party.

Why do you believe we haven't read the posts? So 93% didn't read it properly 🙄

I don't claim to know what the percentage is but there are some posts that reference larger soft plays.

Also we all know that this forum is full of bored people who like to disagree and kick OPs just for shits and giggles so that's probably a small proportion too.

If a venue sells 25/30 places they have available for a birthday party with specific catering and entertainment then of course they should close to other people! They're probably making a lot more money than 30 non-birthday entry tickets. It's really weird. It'd be like somebody booking out a whole pub for a party for 100 people but letting one group of four book a table in one corner without warning them.

Ita under the first post 93% disagree with OP.

So we have op asked aibu, 93% say YABU. OP says no they aren't. Still 93% say YABU.

Now we have sure they didn't read it and they only want to be contrary 🤣.

You may have a point of it was 50/50 but let's be fair.

Because I'm not a big believer that an OP should just roll over and accept anything based on the poll. People don't always read threads properly. I've seen plenty of threads where the poll is one thing but the actual replies are more mixed.

Some of the 93% think the OP wanted her children invited to the party, some thought she wanted the party turned away altogether and some just like to be contrary to liven up their mediocre lives. You’d be better off doing the opposite of most things MN suggest.