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!

to invite a random 15 kids wouldn't be ok with the school for the reason I note above

Birthday parties are literally nothing to do with the school. They don't have a say on who your child has at their party held outside of school time. How ridiculous.

As for who to invite, just ask the child who they want to come and make a list.

Why on earth would it have to be girls only or all 30 kids?

Don't over-complicate things.

@whiteroseredrose I teach Y2 currently and friendships are most definitely mixed!

Both my dc had best friends of the opposite sex and were seldom at parties together because of the standard boy/girl split.

I don't understand this but then have only done parties where I invited DS' 'best' friends. So 4 or 5 boys. I would have invited a girl/girls if DS asked to invite them

Is he organising it at all? Or leaving it to the mums and interfering as he's such a feminist?

Just the girls or just the boys is absolutely fine imo.

If most of your DDs friends are girls anyway then I would be practical and agree with the other mum. However I would ask if you could include a couple of friends from out of school who just happen to be male. That wouldn't have an impact on class fairness or anything.

Imagine suggesting that only white children were invited, because your child is white? 3 grown up children later (so many parties, shared, solo, house, event) our children were asked who their friends were. Never were they single sex. All boys do… and all girls are… is adults simply reinforcing incorrect stereotypes.

Don’t invite “15 random kids”

You’ve said your dd doesn’t play with any of the boys in her class anyway, so don’t invite them. Ask her who she wants to invite, ask the other girl who she wants to invite, merge the lists and assess. If there are 15 girls in the class and the party will include 8 of them then crack on, if there are 15 girls and the party will include 13 of them then invite the extras so it doesn’t look like they are the only girls not invited. Tell your DH to organise the fecking party instead of holding court in feminism. It’s FINE for little girls (and big girls and women) to not centre men in their friendship groups. If she doesn’t have friends who are boys she doesn’t need to spend her birthday hosting them so her dad can feel rad.

Of course sex comes into it.

You can have a mixed party.

What you can't do is invite say 12 girls and 3 boys from a class and leave 2 girls out. That is incredibly hurtful.

If you are desperate to leave 2 girls out then cut down the numbers and invite fewer guests overall.

I agree with you OP - all girls is simpler and fairer on the less popular kids (who might otherwise not be invited to many parties). Tell DH that if he doesn't agree he can organise the party himself.

@Bouncealot

Imagine suggesting that only white children were invited, because your child is white? 3 grown up children later (so many parties, shared, solo, house, event) our children were asked who their friends were. Never were they single sex. All boys do… and all girls are… is adults simply reinforcing incorrect stereotypes.

Don't talk daft.

There are girls schools and boys schools aren't there. We accept that. We wouldn't accept schools for just white kids or black kids. Its totally different

‘We’ accept single sex education? I don’t think the majority do, otherwise why are most co-Ed and more and more independent going co-Ed. Also why shouldn’t dad have a view about his child’s party?

Also why shouldn’t dad have a view about his child’s party? is he organising it?

He can have a view. He just can't expect his view to overrule everyone else's.

It's as good a way as any of limiting the numbers, without targeting less popular kids, you need to work out if that works for your DD though. It doesn't work if they mix with boys at school playtime.

My DS1 always had a few girls he was friendly with so most parties had a mix of boys and girls, but often fewer girls.

The girls also really loved the more boisterous 'boy' parties we held as they stood out of the sea of 'pamper' or 'princess' etc parties that were doing the rounds.

But, if we edged to over half the class then we did whole of class parties to avoid leaving out children. (Easier at smaller schools and if they don't mix with children in other classes.)

The only time we had boys only was when they only invited a handful.

A bit of a stretch to say ‘he can't expect his view to overrule everyone else's.’ OP is suggesting they hold differing opinions and was asking ours. Don’t make partners help organise children’s events post Covid!

Hmm. She says "any arguments I can convince him with? I'm really quite annoyed!" which sounds like more than him having a hypothetical differing opinion.

The other Mum is host. She wants a girls only party therefore that's what you have.
If you want a mix of boys and girls have your own separate party on another day.

The argument would be ‘my daughter wants these people to come, let’s see what overlap we have’ and hand her the list. Whether they are boys or girls.

Well this year we have done two half-class parties for our two boys. In both cases we drew up the list together and it comprised mostly boys and a small number of girls.
Was all totally fine. One was a football party.

I agree that half-ish the class is a good number and it means you don’t annoy people too much. But I really don’t see why it has to be on girl or boy lines.

It would perhaps be difficult if it was a really “girly” party but I wouldn’t be a fan of that anyway.

My kids always tell me names and I invite those kids. For ds it is usually 80% girls, that is who he plays with. For dd it is 50%. What a terrible shame to encourage your dds to only mix with girls.

What a terrible shame to encourage your dds to only mix with girls

You see, you probably think you're being very progressive. I think just the opposite. I see no issue in kids preferring to stick to same sex friendships. Why shouldn't girls have mainly female friends? I see it as quite a positive, strong statement

They can choose whichever friendships they like but ruling out all boys for them is a shame.