To wonder if charging people to attend a party is normal?

[SittingOnIt]

DC will be 5.

They are having a party in a hall. With a lunch castle, that type of set up

I have a text (WhatsApp) from the mum who invited us asking for a deposit of £5 for the Papa John’s pizza. And if DC had allergies, could we please send over the money for her own personalised small pizza?

Not a joke. But I thought it was some sort of odd text scam. Then realised it couldn’t be, as it was about the party? Same text style as the woman

Is this normal, to charge for birthday food now? Seems very, very odd!

Dessert is cake and no cost there requested. My own mum would be in fits of laughter to be told someone was hosting a party and charging for food

Oh GOD that is horrible. Poor her. She made a mistake on what was presumably her first go at hosting a school party, and one of the first of the school year.

I wouldn't feel bad op, kids are resilient and its been nipped in the bud. You can always buy a bag of sweets and a birthday card for your child to gift at school. Maybe the mum has learned her lesson, it was silly and rude.

I hope everyone who is this mother a CFer didn't make their guests pay for any bar drinks at their wedding or at any other party they've ever hosted anywhere with a bar! Because surely if you're hosting then you pick up the bar tab too????

Oh, that's not good.

That poor kid was probably really looking forward to their birthday and now it's all off and they're bearing the brunt of this whole mess 😞

Invite the childl to tea next week and really make a fuss of them.

I would do that as well.

I don’t think the kids were mean, it’s the Emperors new clothes. They were just saying what their parents thought, and what you and almost everyone else on this thread thought too.

You can’t charge people to come to a party after you have invited them. Not a kids party, and not any party. And you can’t say something is a ‘deposit’ and not explain what you mean and how much everything is going to cost.

She made a mistake. That’s all. Hopefully another child will have a party soon, invite her child and peace will be restored.

Of course the children were mean - laughing at the child. Just because they've been taught that behaviour is ok by their equally mean parents doesn't make it not mean behaviour.

No absolutely not the same thing.

Any softplay type party my children have been invited to I’ve fully expected to buy my own food/tea/coffee if I wanted it. I wouldn’t have expected to pay their entry fee though.

Same as at a wedding, I wouldn’t expect to pay to attend the wedding and pay for my own meal but drinks, absolutely.

@3luckystars You don’t think a bunch of kids laughing at another kid is mean?! Oh dear!

Yeah I agree with @RosesAndHellebores. Poor kid will be gutted about the party 😔
The mum will be too! I’d be devastated if I’d done something that caused that kind of upset for my child.
Id either invite the kid for tea or reach out to the mum and see if she wanted to arrange a play date. I’d take a gift for the birthday child too.

Oh dear. That's a shame. Bit of a daft decision is now becoming a big thing. Like others have said, maybe you could buy a few sweets and a card for the birthday child? As you haven't been blocked, maybe drop her a message and see if her DC wants to play with yours one day or come over for dinner? At least then Mum will know she has a friendly face at school as she is probably feeling terribly uncomfortable right now.

Never heard of this & my DC went to so many parties in primary school.

Absolutely not! They should pay!

now whilst I’m here, I need to hear more from @BoarBrushabout being expected to do a 6 hour round trip for a party???

Why are you going to WhatsApp her to show fake concern when you’ve started a whole thread on here for anyone to read?

She originally asked for opinions. I don't think the concern is fake.

Or maybe I like to think better of people than you do.

Maybe, maybe not, talk of setting up a smaller WhatsApp chat and starting a thread which is prime daily fail fodder doesn’t seem very caring to me.

Yes you have a point actually. OP be careful you did think she was out of order, hence the thread on mumsnet, if you message full of concern she may think she was in the right. I wouldn't message her but as someone else suggested take in a card and some chocolates for the child.

@SittingOnIt id be tempted to ask for this thread to be deleted, it's absolutely made for discussion in the papers, Loose Women etc and that's really not fair on the mum who I'm guessing didn't set up with the intention of making herself the butt of school gate gossip and slagging off

I agree 100%

I also think this thread should be deleted.
The mum was really daft and seems to lack social skills. Hopefully she's learnt from her mistake and it will all blow over.

If you ever planned children’s parties you know very well how much it sucks with parents missing RSVP dates and leaving you without any clue of how many kids will attend. There is always the last minute ones saying “sorry, is it still time to confirm that little Johnny can come to the party”? It sucks!! Maybe she is doing it as a deposit and refund the parent once the party is over. This is something new but there can be many many other reasons out there for it. Maybe mum needs the “little” help of £5 , so what ? I wouldn’t not take my kid for a party with bouncy castle and pizza because of £5 pounds. He would have a great day out that’s is actually cheaper than any other thing we could possibly do. I thought mumsnet was a mum supportive platform. But very often what I see is woman being mean to each other.

Thats a shame for the poor birthday child as they have done nothing wrong. However i am not overly surprised by it as the birthday child's parent was being ridiculously entitled and her child is now paying the price for it.

Hopefully the birthday child's mum will realise her expecting other parents to pay for her child's party is unacceptable and has resulted in her child being bullied. Not that I condone the child being bullied.

This thread was because it was the first party for OP and they didn't know the norm so asked others. That's not fake or unreasonable and a perfectly reasonable use of a forum like this. Nothing fake. And the update about how the outcome is concerning for OP sounds genuine to me. It's not compulsory to find something negative about every OP.

Maybe as the first party of the year for a new intake there are some parents with their first in school who don't know how it all works. I wouldn't say it's entitled at this stage. Just a mistake, that everyone can move on from now. There's no point in making them feel bad, better to reach out and support them as you will know them for all the next school years. Obviously if it becomes a pattern of entitled behaviour then that is different. But if it's just a mistake then just move on with a bit of compassion. We can all get something like this wrong at times.