Asking to include a sibling for a kids birthday is being a CF

[pourmeadrinkpls]

Unless stated, asking to bring a sibling is being a complete CF.
You can say, sorry Olivia can't attend as I don't have anyone to watch Raphael, and leave it up to the parent to offer. Even asking is being cheeky as it puts the parent in an awkward position.
Even if the venue is something like softplay, as it's not a family outing for you, it's a party for the child having a birthday. It's rude.
Stop doing it! AIBU?

My kids are adults now but if there was one thing I'd do differently it would be to say no to this. I had them turn up every year. It can add unexpected costs and burdens.

I was a full time working single parent on a strict budget who didnt drive and i always managed to get my kid that was invited to the party there, and take the other one out for the duration.

Apart from one single dad who was foreign, who rang and said 'katia come yes, meg too'. Then hung up. I prepared for the unknown meg at the party too. What do you say to that?!

Meg was the 18 year old nanny. I have never been so delighted to meet an uninvited guest in my life!

It’s more nuanced than “it’s always CF behaviour to ask”.

It depends on a variety of things.
How well do you know the parents - if they’re friends of yours, it’s easier to ask.
How close is your child to the birthday child - if my DD’s absolute best friend couldn’t come to her party unless he brought his little brother, I’d definitely prefer the brother came than he missed it, and would want them to ask.
Whats the venue - soft play that will be open to the public is totally different to a party at someone’s house.

A parent I don’t know, with a child my child barely knows (whole class invitation), at their house, then no, I wouldn’t ask.
My child’s best friend, party at a soft play, birthday child’s mum is someone I went for a drink with last week - I’d ask if I didn’t have the childcare.

The venue we booked was one where you had the whole venue exclusively. Any additional kids that turned up on the day were charged for at full party package price (which was £36)

Very cheeky. Parties are expensive enough as it is 🙄

Very entitled. Not something that ever happened when mine were small. Sibling needs to suck it up!

Sometimes it’s not ok to ask anyway. it’s a crap position to put someone in.

I had a belter at my daughter’s 8th birthday party. I’d hired a hall and a company to come in and do some activities with them. Company charged per head.

my daughter wanted to invite a girl in her class. I didn’t know the parents but got mums number from the class WhatsApp group and messaged her about the party. All good. She mentioned in general polite chit chat that she was away that weekend so her husband would be dropping off. Fine.

So her husband turns up to the party with my daughter’s pal and her older sister in tow. Older sister must have been 11/12. He says to me, in front of the older sister “it’s fine for her to stay too, isn’t it?” cheeky fucker clearly just fancied a day chilling and watching football on his own 😒🙄

I said no because I hadn’t paid an extra head and also she was like 4 years older than the rest of the girls. But I felt like a right witch saying no in front of her. It was horribly awkward. He was so eye rolly about it too and never spoke to me when he came to pick the younger girl up two hours later.

He was a twat to put me in that position and you’ll never convince me otherwise.

Then it’s cheeky to have others show up. Is that the norm in your area? If you’re doing something that’s more unusual in terms of booking off whole centre, I think popping a polite message on invites would help. Or doing more village hall/regular soft play until kids are at drop off stage might help avoid that situation!

Just cos I can't stop thinking about it now;

Pizza express did an amazing kids party after a cinema trip! A make your pizza party, I hope they still do them. It was £10 a head but this was 10 years ago.

We did a lot of grown up stuff, tailored to kids (I have 2girls) so dinner parties, afternoon sleepovers etc. we hired out a bar and did a nightclub one afternoon. And my favourite party was a magician club where we hired it for the afternoon, so the kids had a spaghetti dinner and magicians at their tables.
These were always really cheap as the venues weren't in use at the time but staff were on site for deliveries etc. so think outside the box and include siblings from the start, or say NO, NUMBERS ARE RESTRICTED! And put that on the invites!

The flip side is that unless it’s a drop off party you are being presumptuous that everyone has childcare. The answer is return to drop off parties - the norm from 5 when mine were small just 20 years ago

Op, what has happened to have you going your dinger so much because it really is out of all proportion to the no harm caused, if a family pays for their other children to go into soft play and eat whilst their sibling is there at a party.

And if your party is at home? Then just say no if the idea of a sibling coming along so an invited sibling doesn’t miss out because of a childcare problem causes you this amount of angst or offence.

What a carry on about what would only be a plate of cake.

How people can get so triggered by this is unbelievable. They are children fgs. Crazy

Because people don’t like to be taken advantage of. Children or not.

I have no skin in this game as I have an only child but honestly I don't think it's that big a deal depending on the type of party. I went to a party today in a community hall lots of people from school there with smaller siblings and a few older ones. It was fine and I very much think the host had assumed there would be families coming.

DD had a small craft party last year and one child was dropped off with her siblings in toe then the dad took the sibling to the park. I invited them back for the food part as it was only the craft that had been paid for by head

I think you can easily just say I prefer just the invitees and apologize.
It could well be a childcare issue which of course isn’t your problem etc etc …
Like a previous thread I’d have zero issues unless it cost me problems financially and I often invite siblings on play dates only if it’s ok with the other kids as it gives parents a break ! I could be totally wrong but I always find it’s parents of only children who have such an issue with siblings tagging along, obviously you might have other dcs but I swear 99 percent of these types of threads of from parents of one child . I’ve never brought uninvited siblings along and would never btw but couldn’t care less if someone does.

Yes, this is exactly what the CFs rely on: "Ah, but they're just kids".

Fine - you, as their parents, organise and pay for something fun for them, then!

I disagree with a couple of points. As others have pointed out, depending on the venue and type of party, asking beforehand to bring a sibling a pay for them separately is fine in soft play places.

A couple of years ago, I had a nursery parent ask for a sibling to attend my son's party - she said that her younger child is friends with all of her son's friends, too, and she didn't want her to miss out - (no mention of paying for her though!). 🙄 I told her it was fine as long as she paid her entry and didn't expect any food/ party bags/ cake etc as we hadn't hired exclusively anyway. On the day, she acted like she was doing me a huge favour for buying her a meal and sorting it out. 😂 I though she was a CF.

However, my son's school class are all a really good bunch of parents. Where it's made clear that siblings aren't invited or I have alternative childcare, I don't take my youngest. If it's our local soft play (like most are) I ask the parent. It's never been an issue and I think we're all of the mindset that we'd rather have as many of our child's friends attend and celebrate that to have both them and child with sibling misss out for something that's really a non-issue.

It’s cheeky to ask but I don’t really see the harm in asking. Some parents are very entitled though. If it’s an even where you have to pay for each kid and don’t mind them coming just ask them to pay at the door. If they turn up then without asking then still get them to pay at the door and explain they won’t get a party bag due to them just turning up or food. It’s really the really the parents issue, they can buy their extra kid food if they want.

So I've had my first person ask to bring a sibling (who my child doesn't know) and said they'd pay for their entry and food. I said it was only for my child's friends and the party area was limited seating (this is true). She was fine about it. I guess this is why it annoys me, as clearly it wasn't a childcare issue, and if I was more of a softie (I did feel bad) I would've said yes. But I really don't want randoms that my child doesn't know at their party where they have chosen all their friends very carefully. I just find it rude that they ask and put you in an awkward position.

So is this is a softplay type party? The person was saying they would pay separately for their other child who would be off playing in the venue? I can't imagine thinking I had any right to say no to that and to policing a public venue.

Round here it would be totally expected a few siblings would be off playing with each other having been paid for by theor parents. Might have been a polite heads up they were coming but nobody would be asking permission.

They are children fgs
This is such a typical CF response 🤣 ... think of the children!! Yes you're the parent so think of your children and don't put them in a situation where they are sidelined or excluded 🤷🏼‍♀️

Similar, although then there is a party space that the children will go to for food and games (which actually when I think about it won't work as the parent can't be in two places at once). Thank you for making me realise that!

Do they need to be? Are you expecting all the parents to stay and supervise every child? Every party I've been to like that some of the parents stay in the main bit, not the food room, even if they haven't got another child to supervise. Those rooms get hot and noisy.

Maybe it's a personality thing too. I like to be organised and I'm a perfectionist so I want the place settings, right vibe, want to havw all the party bags ready, everything accounted for etc which is probably why I'm also being pedantic about it all. My friend had her child's birthday last week with a similar issue of people wanting to bring siblings, she plans events as a living so was equally unimpressed 😆 I also want all of the children to be able to play together and not have their siblings dominate over them, which can tend to happen. Parents like this tend to group their kids and they don't get to just enjoy their time with their friends (which I also witnessed last week, probably worse when its a younger sibling that simply must be included).

Interesting, this is my first time planing such a thing. I suppose they don't, although these are 3 and 4 year olds and I certainly wouldn't want to be responsible of someone else child gets hurt or wanders off etc, and I'll be too busy to notice anyway

I did this once about 20 years ago and I’m still mortified by it. I have no defence except ignorance at the time.