Single sex birthday parties

[15thaugust]

My daughter who is only 5 came home a bit upset as she hasn't been invited to one of her classmates parties 'because he's having a football party and has only invited boys' she likes him, likes football and also said to me 'I invited him to my party' so feels aggrieved. Another girl in her class is having only the girls for a craft party. I am furious with the lazy-brained parents who can't see anything wrong with this! I haven't said anything yet to either child's parents, but it's only a matter of time and opportunity!

Sorry, forgot to refer back to this:

"" I just think that parents should be aware that a lot of development is nurture."

A hell of a lot of that "nurture" at this age will happen at school. If the boy in question plays football or goes to football club every week with 90%+ boys, no amount of his parents saying "girls like football just as much" will hit home.

Also IME, as kids spend more time at school, they can identify certain children as friends more than others and whole class parties reduce, even in the course of reception year.

I'm a serious feminist mum, we don't have boys and girls toys, we just have toys. My ds2 loves my little pony and frozen, dd likes minecraft and horrid henry. They are free to play princesses or pirates or dolls or lego. All 3 of them do trampolining lessons.

But you know what, I can't choose their friends. If they mainly play with just the boys or just the girls that's ok. It's their choice.

I can and do teach them that boys and girls are equal, and that excluding people is not ok but I don't get involved in their friendships.

Ive never done whole class parties as my kids aren't friends with the whole class and I don't have anyone to help supervise 30 kids. The most I've had is 10 and I had to fork out for an entertainer whose prices depended on number of kids.

OP, you describe the boy as a class mate rather than a friend. If your DD could only ask 15 kids (or fewer) to her party, would this boy be high on the list?

OP the more I read of your posts ..The more I think you are going to find school very tough...Your DD will not receive an invite to many parties.. I have had parents tell me how there child likes mine.. My child certainly doesn't always share the same opinion..

You can raise your child how you like but I am not sure why firstly you assume this is a sexism..It may be boy doesn't particualry put your DD near top of his friends list..

But go ahead and talk to mum and be that mum... Your DD still won't get an invite.You need to just teach DD to deal with she won't be invited to every party just because she invited the whole class.

Not all parents can invite the whole class or want to, I certainly won't be this year. Life is full of disappointments and we have to help our children cope with them.

Lazy brained is a tad unfair, and if you challenged me as a parent on this I'd think you were psycho freaky and avoid you from then on!! 😂

DS has been to swimming lessons with an equal range of boys and girls, music lessons with similar range, school and pre-school.
Does he socialise much with girls? Not really.
Even though he was given toys rather than boy or girl toys.

Maybe you should enroll your DD in football lessons and she gets invited to "boy" parties. :)

VestalVirgin
There's about two reasons to exclude one or two people of a large group: a) those people are nasty bulllies or b) the rest of the class bullies them and your child avoids them to not become a target.
So you think it is acceptable to invite the whole class but not the child who gets bullied?
That is just fucking shitty and makes you an adult bully.
Just ask any parent of a child with special needs how it feels when your child is the one child who doesn't get a party invite when every other child in the class does.

My 7 year old son would love a Princess craft party. Some boys really like craft and sparkles.

Ds 1, all parties until he was 12 had mostly girls and a few boys. Stopped having parties at 12

Dd, all parties til she was about 10 were a fairly even split between boys and girls. Last 3/4 years she has invited her two female best freinds

Ds2, all parties til he was five were mixed. From 6 it was all boys

They invited the children they wanted to invite and to be honest it would have made me very angry if a mother of a girl in ds2's class had trotted up to me in the playground and told me that i was being sexist

Not that i am accusing you of doing this op

Surely it's the child and parent choice, it might not be everyone's but if that is what the child chooses and he chooses friends to come along then it's the same as issue as every birthday party invite list. I think we have to accept that people have different views and it is for anyone else to dictate , just as we would not like people to tell us who to invite to our party or what activities we should have.

I am feeling your issue, OP. My DD2 is Reception, and we've been talking vaguely about who she might like to her 5th birthday (thinking small group at home), and all her suggestions are girls. In fact she only seems to play with girls - she's only 4!! I've been at great pains since she was a baby to have all kinds of toys in the house, to be very conscious of my language (eg not focussing on her appearance too much, complimenting her for when she is brave, strong, good at maths etc etc), and am very much a feminist. But then my 4yo still only has female friends. Why?!

My delicate flower of a seven year old son would be equally horrified by the idea of a football party, and gleeful at the idea of a craft party. Just because "most" of a gender do or don't like something, don't presume they ALL think the same! Geez...

Equally, what gives anyone the right to ASSUME their child will be invited to a party? If they're not one of the closest friends of the child in question, I don't care what type of party it is, or what gender the child is, it's just tough.

Another thing I truly hate is when the parents "vet" their child's friends. This has had a devastating effect on my daughter and it's nasty, childish and vicious.

My 6 year old girl has always played with unisex toys and my DH and I have tried not to force her into a pink pigeonhole. She likes dinosaurs, Minecraft, insects, and sports. She is not interested in fairies, Frozen or playing mummies and daddies. As a result she only plays with boys. She gets referred to as an honorary boy. She gets invited to all the boys parties and is regularly the only girl. Her last birthday party she invited only boys.
We might have avoided heavily gendered toys/activities but school and her classmates have decided she is a boy because her interests are deemed masculine.
So... Not sure what my point is but you really can't complain your daughter hasn't been invited to a friends party. It's the child's choice.

I have a DS and a DD close in age - they play with each other, each other's friends and each other's toys. I hate gender stereotyping, and neither DC has ever had a single-sex birthday party (although they both have been invited to them).

I still wouldn't dream of taking such a parent to task, or presume to know why they had chosen to have just one gender to their child's party. It's beyond presumptuous and rude.

You cannot 100% know anyone's reasons for doing anything, and even if you did, telling a parent off for not inviting your DC to their kid's birthday party is too cringeworthy for words.

Would you have a go at a parent for not inviting them for any other reason - - or is this the only one that deems it OK to behave like a social buffoon?

With siblings we would always have mixed sex anyway. Our chidlren from age 3 or 4 to 18 went/go to single sex schools so many of the parties once school age were single sex but that was because the school was for that sex.

However our chidlren have been brought up in gender neutral ways so a party at which girls might be attending is as likely to involve mud and running around as a boy one. I hope all parents act like that. It is the way to bring up children in an equal fashion.

I wasn't aware this bothered anyone? It's just a party and it's up to the parents how they run it, I can see how halving the numbers would be appealing when the costs can run very high per head. For our sons party we invited the whole class plus their siblings as we hired two entertainers to do lots of activities/dancing etc, he'd only been at school for over a month so it was impossible to have invited only friends, next year we may well have a list depending on what he chooses to do.

A girl in his class I've just found out is having a girls only dance party, I'm not bothered, if anything I'm glad it's one less party to buy presents for.

Not sure I'd invite your dd to future parties if you were to challenge me over invites. Pushy parent. Just need to accept not everyone gets invited to everything. Making a big deal out of it is not cool. Do something exciting with your family the same weekend so dd has something else to think about and talk about at school.

We just had an all boys party for my 6 year old boy. He'd asked for the boys only and that seemed fine to me. From year 1 onwards gender splits seem totally normal where i live....Halved the numbers (money is tight ish) and made for a really easy party.

Most of the boys play footie on a Saturday together in the morning so it seemed natural. And to be honest I'd highly recommend it as 15 was a lovely number. Easier and much less stressy that the 24 whole class thing last year.

I think you are way over thinking it. Is your dd your first child? I work in Early Years and am the first to support both genders playing with any toy or playing any sport they like - my 8yr old dd loves football, for example.

I think it's actually a non issue. Just explain to your daughter that the boy wanted it to be a boys party, end of. Move on to a different subject and she won't think twice about it. If you are "furious" then that will clearly come across to her... And I think 'lazy brained' is rather rude.

Totally agree seafoodeatit. It's a non-issue for 99% of parents, I'd say.

This is quite common in my DD's class. The split is around 2/3 boy and 1/3 girl.

I had whole class parties for a couple of years, but its a lot of hard work and DD didn't get invited to many parties as most people didn't do them.

Last year we invited all the girls to soft play, as only 10 of them and I didn't feel we could leave any out, but we also invited 2 boys that DD likes.

There have been a lot of parties where its boys only or girls only and it seems more common as they grow older.

I don't think it's just lazy parents, my daughter wouldn't want boys at her party and she has three brothers. She doesn't like boys, she's nine. She finds boys her age tedious and babyish. She is very female. My sons aren't the same, they like both and have friends of both sexes. My daughter has never had a male friend.

Do understand your point 15thaugust ... particularly as explained in your 3rd and 4th posts.

However, it really does not sound as if you definitely know, for sure, what circumstances brought about the situation regarding this particular party.

For example, I could imagine this situation arising if the parents had told their child he could have a themed party ... so he picks a football themed party. The parents then book and pay for, say, ten children and tell their DS he may invite 9 friends. It seems to me perfectly possible that the child (with his football themed party in mind) might pick the 9 friends he's closest to from, say, an after-school football group, rather that the 9 friends he's closest to from school.

Is that possible? That it was simply down to the child picking a strictly limited number of children, with the theme tying in with, for example, an out-of-school activity group uppermost in his mind?

Although desirable, I think it's probably not always possible for parents to guide their children into picking a fair mix ... especially when numbers are limited.

good grief. What a horrible sexist situation. No wonder school produce such gender biased results.

Reason 103 for home education: No single sex birthday parties.