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!

I have ten nieces and nephews as well as various close friends with children of a similar age to mine. I have had single sex parties since it was the only conceivable way we could manage the numbers. One local hall with bouncy castle hire and sporty games would only accommodate a maximum of 35. With only half of a class, we still pushed it with 38 kids in all. Lazy-brained? It took us forever to reach that kind of compromise, OP.

Reason 103 for home education: No single sex birthday parties.
Bollocks!
How on earth do you link Home Ed with no single sex parties?
No parties at all maybe?
Surely friends (even home educated ones) might still choose a single sex party, maybe from the friends at football club or dance or rainbows?

My kids went to a mixed local school, never once did they attend a single sex party - they were all mixed. There were some single sex parties that happened, but they tended to be small groups of boys or girls who enjoyed particular activities.

If you tell child thatvthey can invite 10 kids and they choose all girls, that's fine. If you say you can invite ALL the girls in the class but no boys. That's not fine.

Surely no child is friends with all the children who happen to be the same sex and MORE so than they are with all the children of a different sex. Yes, it's lazy.

If someone said their kids went to a school that was 50/50 white/ Asian but weren't going to invite the Asian kids "because it was easier" or "because Asian kids don't like Make A bear" we'd think they were racist fucking idiots.. but sexism is fine.

My son would be very to the poser who thinks boys can't like princesses. And I know many little girls who be like this at a princess party.

Home school parents can better decide the children their children hang out with, obviously. They will also usually know the children and their parents better as they hang out in groups.. All the ones I know are vehemently against sex segregating toys and learning.

Dd had a single sex birthday this year as 3/4 of the boys
in her class are nightmares and she didn't want them there.

For my DDs I did big whole class parties till they were 7 ish then (in theory) smaller just girls parties. When you invite the people they play with (both mine mainly girls) and ones from activities etc you start getting to the point where it is all the girls except one or two anyway - it is purely a way of controlling the numbers without obviously excluding anyone...(although both mine have had all girls plus a couple of boys they played with parties)
No pamper/craft parties here though!
When they are smaller you can do church hall type ones but then you get venues that have a max number of children. Also as they get older you start looking at more expensive things things - like cinema trips ...too expensive to do the whole class ...

DD1 class was a smaller one and more or less 50:50 split so 10 girls...just about doable until she started secondary (and more or less organised her own parties...)
DD2 more of a headache - much bigger class and mainly girls -16. I really debated this time whether to make her choose 10 - but she is a social butterfly, gets invited to lots of parties/sleepovers etc (opposite of DD1). So I would probably have to make it 12 girls - then you are leaving out 4. And I know the ones who would have been excluded are the ones who rarely get an invite - are quiet, new, have special needs or for financial reasons don't really get birthday parties so aren't at the top of the list for reciprocal invites...all the girls is fairer...

I don't understand why you assume it's ''lazy brained' of the parents to only invite one gender, they may be working to a budget and are only able to invite a certain number of children - do you know for sure the birthday child and their parents didn't discuss the guest list or that the parent insisted only on one gender of child? It's much more probable the parent said 'you can invite x amount of children, who would you like?' and the child gave the names of his close friends who also happen to be the same gender. Sounds to me like you're assuming a lot and you haven't got the actual facts.

I think OP is long gone!

When isn't it lazy to divide a group by gender rather than by aptitude, interest or actual friendship?

Sounds like the definition of lazy sexism to me.

What a message to send to children...it doesn't matter what your interests are or even your who you actually like or get on with - genitals are all that count.

They aren't kidding when they say parents are the source of sexism in the next generation.

logical oh just actual experience of HE. In our local group children invite all the kids in a specific family regardless of gender or age, or more usually invite the whole group.

IF you can't afford to put on an activity for all the kids in the group then you just go to the beach or a (free) museum for the day and add cake.

It isn't hard to be inclusive if you aren't lazy.

gerbo and seafood well as long as you aren't bothered by casual sexism I guess it must be fine.

I doubt 99% of parents are actually perfectly happy to have their children excluded from any given activity purely on the basis of gender though - I am pretty sure that more than 1% of parents have fucks to give about that.

Ice, by definition, HE children have a parent around all week who spends a lot of time planning children's activities. It's not lazy of other parents not to have this time.

As you can arrange meet ups in the week, assume you could eg all go to soft play without a booking - a weekend party package tends to cost more.

Parks, beaches, museums all free at weekends too.

You can invite the children your child is actually good friends with and leave the others...you can invite them all somewhere free.

If you honestly don't have the mental headspace to do anything other than casual sexism - maybe you should not have a party at all, or just invite family or something.

It genuinely isn't rocket science.

Quite amazing (and not in a good way) how many people are backing the idea of one gender only parties. Would you similarly back, say, white only parties? Able bodied people only parties? No? Then ffs stop discriminating on the basis of gender.
If your child genuinely only plays with children of the same gender, ok (though one might argue that you have some searching questions to ask yourself. But maybe it's society, not you. And you've done what you can to challenge it, in which case, fair play).
But if you are using this gender discrimination as an easy way to manage numbers, just cut out an entire group, then ffs! Catch yourself on! Do you do the same with regards to class, race, etc? This nonsense that boys like sport, girls like craft... Are there no male craftsmen? Are there no female sportswomen? Can't everyone see how patently absurd this argument is?
Fwiw, dd (4) is having a predominantly craft-based birthday party, with predominantly male attendance. I imagine there will be some crafting, some crying, some hitting each other with balloons, and much consumption of cake! Dd is mainly bothered about the fact that I MUST NOT award her best friend a prize in pin the tail on the donkey this year if she cheats again, as she did last year. But as they are both girls, and competitiveness is not a stereotypical female trait, obviously my brain cannot compute what she is saying, so I just tell her to go off and look at pink stuff, and know her place.

Charming, Ice.

I hold the parties my DSes want and always remind them to ask girls. If numbers are more than about 10, they might. Their closest friends are boys, though.

I'm pretty comfortable that I'm not casually sexist, thanks.

spot on. I would be frankly ashamed if my child only had friends of one gender. I would feel I had fucked up in a big way. I am not saying it won't happen to me as DD gets older..but I WILL be ashamed..and I WILL have fucked up.

The idea I would actively push them in that direction to what...save time on working out who their actual friends are?

Surely no parent is actually too busy to find out who their child's friends actually are?

Hence lazy.

I am glad you are comfortable bare

bare given you have just stated you promote mixing and invite the actual friends of your DS's rather than specifically the half of the class with testicles, I am at a total loss to imagine why you think the attributes lazy or casually sexist are being directed at you?

There are many people on the thread who have said 'It is the easy way to cut down numbers'. These are the people these accusations are directed at.

HTH

I always had single sex parties. I didn't have a great many parties.

We had a 'make your own pizza' party at home and several bowling parties at a local small bowling alley, plus one at a bead place. The pizza and beads were girls only and the bowling parties were for some of the DDs and DS.

Turns out my girls were friends with girls and my son was friends with boys beginning about age 5 or 6.

And it's sex, not gender. They are not fungible terms. Gender is a key part of an artificial hierarchical structuring of society designed to keep the patriarchy in power. Sex relates to genitals/biology.

'What a horrible sexist situation. No wonder school produce such gender biased results.'
Yes, girls tend to do better than boys.

'Mums and dads aren't really helping their boys by narrowing their friendship circles.'
Tough. And also ridiculous.
Why should boys be foisted on girls at an age when girls prefer the company of other girls? Should girls have to put their own fun second because some socially awkward boys need to learn the social graces?
In my own experience, boys do perfectly fine playing with and socialising with other boys. When the time comes, assuming their parents haven't been gormless twits, they do just fine in mixed company.

Once again I am so happy that we are not doing UK schools. DD is in a class of 15, fairly evenly mixed. The town doesn't charge to use the park for a party if you child attends the local public school.

This means that every single child can have a party at minimal cost of a cake. You can get a cake for $30 and the charity DH and I support will cover the cost of party supplies for parents who can't afford to have a party for their child. Our only stipulation is that the whole class is invited.

math are you saying it is okay that girls do better than boys at school? Is it okay that teachers systematically underestimate girls abilities at maths and underestimate boys abilities at English?

Unnecessary gender segregation promotes sexism and helps maintain the status quo.

Are you actually for or against the patriarchy?

Quite amazing (and not in a good way) how many people are backing the idea of one gender only parties. Would you similarly back, say, white only parties? Able bodied people only parties? No? Then ffs stop discriminating on the basis of gender*

Well firstly the division is by sex, not gender.

Secondly this is not a fair comparison. I always did whole class parties at primary, as did, as far as I am aware, the other parents. These were usually activity parties in leisure centres. Involved a smallish class at a private school, costs weren't an issue for me , nor I imagine for other parents.

However, if cost and numbers had been an issue dividing by sex, is far less objectionable than excluding children on any other basis.

It will even out over the year- in your examples if exclusion were by race it would be the same children being excluded from every party. If divided by sex all children go to 50% of the parties.

Turns out my girls were friends with girls and my son was friends with boys beginning about age 5 or 6

As was my son; as was I. Children do (or did when I was a lass ) segregate themselves anyway in the playground. Girls played skipping games (ropes and "Chinese" skipping) and hopscotch boys kicked balls around.

I did all class parties as that was the school norm and it wasn't a big deal for us to do it, but several posters have made valid cases for single sex parties.

Surely no parent is actually too busy to find out who their child's friends actually are?

Oh how sanctimonious. Birthday parties as far as I was concerned were big fuss events, special friends came round to play ,go to the cinema, sleep overs without the need for it to be a big event.

And if you are going to lecture please get your terminology correct- the distinction was being made on sex, not gender. Your child might have friends of both sexes or one sex.

IceBeing, are you seriously suggesting that the natural preference of children in the latent phase of development for same sex friendships should be fought against so that boys can get some of whatever it is that girls have that enables them to do better in school, or learn some social graces?

Girls and boys alike who are from well off homes do better than all children from poorer homes, with girls edging boys in all categories. This still doesn't make life a bed of daisies for girls from poorer homes. Perhaps we should cast our party invitations wider therefore.

And it's sex segregation, not gender segregation. Gender is the harmful notion that makes teachers biased against girls in Stem subjects and makes boys think they are inadequate if they like English Lit. Biology is what gives us all brains with the same potential, and our genitalia.