Girls v mixed birthday parties

[NoGoodOptions]

I'm trying to organise a birthday party for my soon-to-be 6yo and her friend. She's quite girly, and the mum I'm splitting the party with would like to have girls-only to keep numbers and cost down. I think this makes sense. My husband and I are both feminists and he's uncomfortable about dividing the class between girls and boys. He thinks the division is arbitrary (it is) and not a model for how he'd like society to be. We don't have all the money in the world, so can't rent a hall, etc. to be able to host 30 kids. The other mum at the moment is offering to host in her house. Beyond the obvious and practical, any arguments I can convince him with? I'm really quite annoyed!

So a man is telling two women - who it sounds like are doing all the work - how things should be run.

And he's doing this because he's a feminist....?

I'd say that to him with a face.

Personally if the friends mum is refusing to invite any boys purely on the basis that they are boys, I would do seperate parties. It's a very unfair way to decide who gets to go and who doesn't, IMO, and there's no reason to do it unless your child genuinely doesn't like any of the boys and is friends with every single girl in the class.

Has your DD expressed an opinion on who she wants to invite?

@BarbaraLoganPrice

Personally if the friends mum is refusing to invite any boys purely on the basis that they are boys, I would do seperate parties. It's a very unfair way to decide who gets to go and who doesn't, IMO, and there's no reason to do it unless your child genuinely doesn't like any of the boys and is friends with every single girl in the class.

It's a convenient and kinder way to split the class. If you solely invite based on friendship groups, that might be hard on the less popular kids. Plus we either have to invite the whole class or just the girls... to invite a random 15 kids wouldn't be ok with the school for the reason I note above.

@Aroundtheworldin80moves

Has your DD expressed an opinion on who she wants to invite?

She's not friends with many of the boys in her class - though is very good friends with a couple of boys from outside her class who is look to invite.

I did a boys only party for the same reason. I cant afford a party for 30 kids and splitting it this way hopefully avoids tears from non-invited kids.

It kind of sounds like you’ve already made up your mind and you’re looking for validation. Personally I think there are enough boy/ girl divides in this world and I wouldn’t be encouraging differentiation based on sex. But it’s your party, invite whoever you want.

I wouldn’t do a girls only or boys only party, I think it sends a terrible message. I would however limit it to close friends only if space / cost is an issue.

We asked who she wanted to invite from the class, it was about 2/3 girls.

DS6 went to a girl classmates party. I made him, he didn’t want to cos she was a girl and none of his mates would be there. There were about 20 girls and 4 boys he doesn’t really play with. The boys ran round hitting each other with the balloons (except the pink and purple ones) He looked and felt pretty uncomfortable most of the time and we went home. Wished I’d not bothered and would’ve saved me a £10 pressie.
On his last party it was all boys in our garden, DD is 10 soon, she wants a girl only party.

@Zarene

So a man is telling two women - who it sounds like are doing all the work - how things should be run.

And he's doing this because he's a feminist....?

I'd say that to him with a face.

Agree!

Figure out how many you can afford to invite.
Ask your dd to invite that number of friends.

I have two boys we always just invited friends at the time . So more boys generally but ds2 had a couple close girl friends who always came , to his football parties
They also got invited to boys and girls parties , they also didn't get invited to parties as well as they were not friends with those children
My bf has 2 girls as well who my 2 were friends with so they always came to their parties too ( not at the same school)

Basically we based it on who they wanted to invite wether that all boys/ girls or both
Never could afford whole class parties so handed out invites discreetly

How odd!
Surely just split the numbers between you then ask your daughters who they would like to invite.
Why would sex even come into it?

There’s a massive difference between doing something that’s small in numbers, inviting just a small number of close friends to a sleepover or activity based party and they all happen to be the same sex, and inviting all the girls, or all the boys in the class to a single sex party.

Inviting all girls just reinforces the stereotype that girls should only be friends with girls. Especially if you haven’t even asked why your DD would like to invite. I’m with the DH on this one.

In my case I did an all boys party age 5. My DS wouldnt have been able to pick out 15 kids to invite. He was friends with everyone and yet noone! When they get older they can state a preference and invite accordingly.

This is so sad and disappointing tbh

I have to agree with those that say there’s enough division already without us reinforcing it as parents. We’ve always encouraged DD6 to have friends of both sexes and are doing so even more energetically as she comes across more of the ‘you can’t do / like / feel x because you’re a girl’ type attitudes at school.

I get the numbers thing - I’ve always set a fixed number and she has to pick friends accordingly, just as I would as an adult if I was organising my own party.

What is it with whole / half class parties.

No one is friends even with every girl in the class. Ask her who her friends are and invite them.

BTW what is a girly girl?

Don't do one gender. We just asked my daughter to pick her 10 favourite friends. It was a mix of boys and girls.

We’ve never done whole class parties. My children both have friends outside school (Cubs etc) as well as cousins so we can’t invite 30 plus. We’ve always just asked “who do you want to invite” and made a list. Usually it’s a mix of boys and girls. If they laid everyone under the sun we try and whittle it down a bit. Can’t you just ask the two girls who they want there? Plenty in our school do that and then set up a what’s app group for invitees. It’s fine. My daughter isn’t friends with all the girls and my son isn’t friends with all the boys. In fact, there are some boys who he doesn’t like due to bullying etc so wouldn’t want them at a party. Just invite who you want. You can still keep it small. Tell dd “you can invite 6 guests” or something and ask her for names.

And I also don’t like the boy/girl division and don’t see how that makes it fair. Already on reception my dd tells me that the boys won’t let her play football as “it’s a boys sport not for girls”. So depressing. Boundaries need to be broken down not built up.

Sounds like you need to have two separate parties. Your DH can organise your DD's if he's that invested.

I used to be a TA in year 2 and even by that stage the friendship groups were single sex.

Is your husband arranging the party, sending invitations, planning activities, preparing food and clearing up afterwards? Or is he happy with the stereotyped division of labour... he dictates the vision and you and the other Mum do the work?