Kids clubs and birthdays

[autumngirl714]

How do you approach children’s after school clubs when they clash with close family birthdays?

Do you let your child miss their club so the family can get together, or do you skip the celebration to keep to their usual routine?

In my family, we tend to miss the club, we’re quite a small family, so it feels important to make the effort and be there for birthdays. My sibling, though, always prioritises the clubs, even for milestone birthdays or the younger cousins, which I find a bit of a shame.

Curious how others balance it, do you think it’s fine to miss a week, or is keeping to the routine more important?

No I do not see my parents on their birthday even though they live about 20 mins away. It isn't practical if its on a school night and my parents do not expect this. We will usually have cake at the weekend before or after, or sometimes my parents will organise a meal that myself and my family and my brother and his family will all attend. This might not be on a birthday weekend though as everyone is busy so it could be a month or so after.

We always celebrated birthdays at the weekend. Cousins will miss Saturday or Sunday clubs for that.

The only time I'd see my parents on their birthday would be if it was on a weekend. They wouldn't come and see me on my birthday either - I'd be at work.

Sounds you are mixing values (caring about others) with a specific way of doing it (skipping clubs on the specific date).

Have a small celebration at home on the date and arrange a fun "birthday day out" with others on some other day which will work for everyone you want there.

Yes this is how I feel!

I honestly thought this was the norm, but perhaps not on MN!

Thanks for the replies everyone!
im honestly so shocked to hear I’m such a minority but like is aid early, I’m happy to be!

I guess it’s just important to do what you think is right and how you’d like to be treated in return 🙂

Birthdays can be celebrated on any day, though, whereas clubs can't really be moved about.

We’re very close to my in laws and live 10 mins away. But no, we don’t see them on their birthday if it’s a weekday.

My parents live hours away so not an option, but we wouldn’t see them either.

I agree. It’s not “we have different values” as if some people care less about family.

On the flip side, I’d never expect people to put themselves out on a busy weekday evening just for me!

Mine no as they are 200 miles away. PIL are 1 mile away and still probably not unless it was on a weekend. We'd do something on the nearest weekend. Seeing people on their actual birthday isn't a big thing in general I don't think.

I wouldn't expect DC to skip their own clubs on their birthdays let alone for someone else.

Well, I suppose it depends. If there's 20-odd cousins then you're going to missing a lot of clubs, whereas if there's only 3 it's not such an issue.

Also, it depends on the club. How seriously does the child take it, is there an exam, a performance, or a competition coming up soon, how much does it cost? A 15 yo in competitive gymnastics preparing for a potential career right before a competition is very different to a 7 yo at Brownies.

Inhave a small family. If i wanted to eat cake with everyone directly after school (so 4pm), i would have to take 6 days of holiday (12 times 0.5 days) just for that. No, not happening.
we have our family (4), BIL and family (4), 2 sets of grandparents.
For bigger families you easily end up with 20 -30 people, so 10-15 days off jyst for birthdays!

OP - how much time do you think people have on weekday evenings to be spending several hours with family cutting cake, playing games and ordering takeaway?

You celebrate the birthday when everyone is free, or not everyone comes.

I don’t mind missing their weekend swimming lesson if they are invited to a friend’s birthday party, so certainly would for cousins.

I pick mine up from school every day, my DS has one football commitment, and he could definitely miss that for a family member’s birthday, no problem.

I was brought up seeing my grandparents, auntie, uncle and cousins every weekend, so for us family always trumps any other commitment, either friends or clubs. I still always attend meals out for both my siblings’ birthdays and I’m nearly 40. Unfortunately neither yet have children, but when they do their children’s birthdays will be high up in both mind and my DCs priority list for sure.

Ours would continue to go to their activities.

'Birthday Tea' with the extended family has always been at the weekend, when no-one is doing activities. You know, so it suits everyone and then everyone can go.

Mine loved having 3(or 4) x celebrations

• presents and cards from us when they get up (when little would also often mean a birthday badge to wear to Nursery or school)
• candle in a cake at tea time at home (carry on with normal life around that)
• 'Tea' - incl more cake and candles - with local extended family at the weekend
• 'Friends' Birthday party on a convenient date, quite often a couple of weeks apart from actual birthday due to birthdays being in school holidays

We all know it doesn’t take several hours to cut a cake so you don’t need to word it in a way to try to sound funny.

I’ve also not said at any point in this thread that we spend several hours together on birthdays. Where did you get this from?

We all invite eachother round in birthdays - even my sibling invites us to theirs. We know every year when someone’s birthday is, the date doesn’t change funnily enough. It’s not hard to not forward plan with rhat in mind.

Also just to note, when some of you are talking about cousins being extended family, that isn’t the case for us. We are very close. We see eachother all the time, help other with childcare and school runs. I consider us my immediate family.
I wasn’t close with my cousins growing up so I know this isn’t the case for a lot. But for the family I’ve mentioned in this thread, we’re lucky enough to be immediate family.

This is almost never an issue in our family as no local relatives, but we would only miss clubs if there were special circumstances (e.g. recent family bereavement or chance to see elderly granny who might not be around for too many more birthdays).

As a pp says, swimming is £10 a week ish. Multiplied by 3 kids. Every week we go gets us incrementally nearer to the point they complete Stage 7 and I can stop shelling out, so we don't miss it unless we have to for illness or our own family holiday.

Even taking out the logistics that our families aren’t local, DS would be sad to miss his activities and in the case of a sport competes at a high level in a team so he’s aware of the commitment and what it means.

My parents would probably come to ours on a weekday birthday so they could cut a cake with DS but generally we aim for the weekend closest to the birthday. It’s important to us that we celebrate it though but two parents working full time with commutes and a child competing in sports means weekday evenings don’t allow for much spontaneity.

I think it's odd to have birthday celebrations mid week at that time. Have them weekend or later on in the day, surely?

Oh - do you not remember your own post where you said:

we’ll go round to whoever’s birthday it is and have a little celebration. Sometimes a takeaway, games, just cake etc.

A takeaway and/or games will easily take up an hour or two out of someone's evening.

At the end of the day, you do you, but your sister's choices are just as valid.

I do remember posting this, but I must’ve missed the part where I said it takes several hours. (Spoiler: I didn’t). In fact thanks for quoting that so everyone can see in no place did I ever say anything about several hours.

Trying to be funny works better when it makes sense.

Mine don't even miss clubs for their siblings birthdays

We will always find a bit of time in the evening to celebrate and do cake and presents. And them we will do something like a meal out or day out some time around their birthday

So how are you all ordering takeaway, eating and playing games in less than several hours?

We also wouldn’t see extended family on their birthday, or have family to us for our birthdays, during the week - we would see them at the weekend (or not at all depending on who it is!!) I don’t like missing paid for clubs