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

Did you end up texting her OP?

This mum will be on Daily mail telling "no one turned up for our party "... ridiculous

My reply:
Hi, thanks for the invite, child will be there. We’re having lunch out that day so we’ll just leave the pizza thank you!

Weird!

I feel realllly bad as my daughter wants a pottery painting party and afternoon tea. It’s £15 each plus whatever the cost of the item they paint is. There’s hardly anything less than £15 but there are some cute things. So I’ve said £15 towards pottery, took a picture of the display with prices and said ‘but they can upgrade should they want a more valuable item’ - there’s no forcing there, but I didn’t want to be the mum on the day that says no to someone choosing something for £50 and spoiling it.

My reply:Hi, thanks for the invite, child will be there. We’re having lunch out that day so we’ll just leave the pizza thank you!

please don’t do this and have your kid sitting watching the other kids eat.

I thought everyone was boycotting the party but maybe I have lost myself in this chat 🤔

Yes.

Parents really need to keep their opinions of other kids' parents away from their children. It's not the child's fault that her mum made a faux pas - and nobody has died.

I wonder if someone egged this mother on saying it is normal nowadays or something. Who knows? I now feel for her and her child. However it will pass, nobody died.

Does nobody have children's parties at home any more?

It's amazing how many parents think it's fine to speak about others in front of their kids.

We had a few corkers in my son's year group at primary. One lad questioned one of the other Mum's about whether or not she had a six pack and waxed lyrical about how hard his Mum had worked in lockdown to achieve them and had SHE put in as much time to look good in a bikini.

Absolutely batshit.

He also told a Grandma who was on pick up that his mother wouldn't be seen dead in her car and pointed out to other kids how terribly SMALL their gardens were compared to their house.

Just a proper snotty little sod and we all knew damn well it had come from parents.

I've had parties for my dc, including one where we ordered pizza from Dominoes. Ive never dreamed of asking parents to pay. Taken dc to many parties too, I've never been asked to pay. She's a CF host

This is very odd, and I say that as someone about to pay a small fortune for my soon to be 6 year's party on Friday. I pay for everything, they bring a gift if they can and f not, that's totally cool, come anyways and have pizza, hot dogs, and cake and jump in the bouncy castle until you barf.