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!

It is also a cultural thing. I have lived in the UK for many years now, but I still don't understand why this is so normal here and not normal elsewhere. You would never see a single sex birthday party in Spain, for instance. Totally weird.

It would not be acceptable to say: this is an easy way of cutting down the number of guests (!!).

In the UK it would not be acceptable to invite only blond/brown people for instance. It is fine to invite only girls/boys because there is a widespread acceptance of segregation based on sex here, which is not universal.

Sex segregation is normal and culturally acceptable in the UK. I would love to know why and why the kids replicate it. It saddens me to see my kids following this 'only girls'/'only boys' model, but can't do much about it.

You see them all the time in the US, beyond a certain age (maybe 5/6). This is also the age beyond which children don't normally have the whole class for a party. From 6/7 on, parties tend to be in locations away from home that may or may not accommodate large groups. Some parts of the US are not great for outdoor large-crowd parties due to weather. It gets very hot and humid or very cold -- you couldn't have a large group outdoors for long periods.

Additionally, in US schools that have more than one class per year the children tend to be regrouped every year, so you might not know many of the children you start off the school year with, up to about age 8ish. If your birthday is in the early part of the school year then you might have some friends from your previous year that you would invite in preference to children you don't actually know at all.

By the time children are 7 and over they have most likely had all the children in their year in class with them at some point, but this depends on how many children there are in a year. If three or more classes, then perhaps not.

Plus, children really do prefer the company of their own sex for a few years in the middle of childhood.

I was going to come back and say my DCs both have February birthdays.
Parties in the park or anywhere outdoors would not be a good idea...dodgy enough depending on the weather in the summer ... and museums - struggling to think of one that would appreciate me turning up with a group of almost 30 DCs -and I'd need to rope in quite a few helpers to keep them together, make sure they behaved, not lose any.
(I recently supervised 15 9-10yos at a swimming party just in the changing room. They could all get changed etc on their own in cubicles. My job was keeping them together, sorting lockers/locker keys, finding lost socks/shoes etc etc - it was hard work...)

camaleon how interesting to hear this is a local problem. As you say in a mixed race class it would be unthinkable to say 'lets only invite the whites or the blacks coz that will half the numbers'. People also wouldn't be so accepting of the idea that it would be okay for their DC's friends to be with only the white half of the class - even though there would be some natural inclination to segregate that way, the teachers and parents would be much more active in preventing it.

I wonder if my statement of it being shameful to have children whose friends are all of the same gender sounds as ridiculous to people as a statement that it would be shameful to have children who only had white friends even though their class was half white and half non-white?

I think both situations would show a serious lack of leadership on the part of teachers and parents.

I also wonder if 'its natural for kids to form same sex friendship groups at certain ages' is actually true or is true in the same way that 'girls naturally prefer pink, boys naturally prefer blue' which is that it isn't at all true unless you condition them to that state!

But why though? Why would you condition your children to only be friends with one sex?

Couldn't disagree more with Icebeing above. My dd1 has always sought out female only friendships - as a feminist I certainly haven't encouraged that or modelled that. DD2 is friends with mostly boys.

Would love to see you patrolling the playground enforcing 9 year olds into friendships that are (in your opinion) "acceptable" i.e. gender / race /neutral. I hope your own friendships meet your strict pc requirements.

Kerala1... obviously we cannot change this easily because it seems engrained in the society. My dd only has female friends and my ds only male. It is politically correct/acceptable/normal in the UK for this to happen. Contrary to other points made above, this is not 'natural', or a stage in a normal child's development.

In other cultures, and I have referred to Spain, this would be the exception. I am yet to go to a single sex birthday party in Spain (any age, children or adults). I lived my childhood and teenage years without ever considering a single sex birthday party - and I have never done a 'whole class' one.

Segregated education is also frown upon by the majority of the population. It does not mean Spain is less sexist than the UK (although according to some recent data, the gender gap is smaller there). Relationships between male and female are just more normal and natural. Mixing is the norm. My closest friends are female, but I have male friends I go out with every time I am back in Spain too. A couple of them I know them since I was 5 and two more became very close in a professional environment.

The question is why does it happen. From my experience, it is not 'natural' at all.

Once again, IceBeing, it's sex, not 'gender', and once again, this is not a 'local problem'.

During latency (a Fruedian term) the libido is transferred from parents to friends of the same sex. Latency is an important stage in terms of identity development. Children very much tend to form friendships of the same sex, and there are many psychologists who theorise that the quality of those friendships is as important in formation of the adult as the quality of parenting, for better or for worse.

Sex segregated education is very unusual in the US. Friendship between men and women is perfectly acceptable and happens a lot. Friendship involving teenage boys and girls is also very common, happens a lot. Elementary schools -- while mixed sex, children tend to form friendships with members of their own sex from age 5/6 up to age 12 or so. This is without input from school (children tend to be seated boy/girl and there is no segregation of recess play).

And IceBeing, you can take your silly effort at a race analogy and 'put it somewhere safe'. Your attempt to cast people whose children are behaving perfectly normally as akin to people who accept racism is mean spirited. Sexual development that involves exclusively same sex friendships is normal and natural and it happens in a way that has been extensively described in scientific literature.

Having gone to my ds's party you might not have guessed he wanted it to be a boys only party, because there was a girl there and his female cousin.
Yet, he wanted boys only (his best friends).
I'm in Portugal, btw.

math Firstly how can you know the 'sex' of your children's friends? Are you doing DNA tests? Or asking to check their genitals maybe?

Assuming not, then you only know their gender and not their sex.

So this discrimination is on gender not sex.

Secondly, if this doesn't happen in other countries (which apparently it doesn't) then it is indeed a local problem. Though it may of course be a local problem in multiple possible different places across the world. The point is that it isn't systemic. It can be tackled...we just don't challenge it enough in the UK.

Thirdly discrimination by skin colour is also perfectly natural. We feel more relaxed and secure around people who look like us. Totally natural evolutionary bias. The only reason kids don't think it is okay to only have white friends is if we show by example that it isn't.

So the two cases are comparable. The only reason you think sexism is okay and racism isn't is because you have been conditioned to think racism is less socially acceptable than sexism.

IceBeing, you are being worse than ridiculous. I do of course know their sex. They are either boys or girls, and how they express that is up to them, be it in leaning towards sports or art or music or cooking or fashion. Some are outgoing, some are reserved, some are kind and empathetic and some are more brash. If you asked them they would tell you whether they are boys or girls, because they have a solid grasp of very basic biology and understand how to distinguish male from female in the human species. It's not that hard. You can wear pink shorts and play the clarinet and enjoy creating nice desserts for your family and keep your bedroom neat and pee in a urinal in school, using your penis.

And it is not in fact a local problem. Though it may of course be a local problem in multiple possible different places across the world (lol)
With that remark and your insistence that sex is irrelevant and unknowable and altogether mysterious, I am wondering if you suffer much from back pain, since twisting yourself into a pretzel seems to be a habit of yours.

Thirdly discrimination by skin colour is also perfectly natural. We feel more relaxed and secure around people who look like us. Totally natural evolutionary bias.
You are speaking for yourself and only yourself on that score. You should be utterly ashamed of yourself.

Race is a hierarchical concept based on the artificial concept of race. Its only function is to maintain the oppression of those 'races' considered inferior. Our culture is awash in racism and has been for centuries, but that doesn't mean it is anything but an artificial construct. Or natural evolutionary anything. Same goes for gender. Shame on you as a woman for seeking to carve in stone something that has only done women harm. And if you are a man then educate yourself.

The only reason kids don't think it is okay to only have white friends is if we show by example that it isn't.
And of course you have got that bass ackwards too. Children learn racism from their parents. They don't unlearn it from enlightened adults. There is no 'natural evolutionary bias'.

I am gobsmacked.

I am actually speechless.

Ha ha, are you drunk Ice?

I would like to know at what age is it ok to ask your children who to invite? If can only host 10-15 children and they only want one gender is that ok?

Wow... the level of aggression is quite something. A few among us -ignorant as we are- believe sex segregation is not 'natural'/or at least not only natural. More importantly, we are happy to discuss it.
Are you an academic mathanxiety? Or do you have a better Freudian theory to explain the full-fledge lecture, where you assert your authority, in the worst patriarchal sense of the therm.
After reading your diatribe about race -I imagine trying to distinguish it from gender- I couldn't tell the difference based on your words (I an actually tell the difference otherwise; you fail to explain it yourself)

DD put out the invites to her party yesterday. 11 kids, all girls. She has invited all the girls in her class (including 2 she doesn't really like) and no boys. It's a pool party at a local leisure centre.

She could have had a whole class party if she wanted - I asked her if she did, but she absolutely didn't. In fact her words were "God no!" I don't have a problem with it at all, I understand exactly why she doesn't want any boys there, there are reasons beyond "urgh, boys"...and it's her birthday, not mine.

She's been to 6 parties in the last 2 years. The only time a boy attended was the younger brother of the birthday girl.

She has plenty of male friends outside school, but none in school.

It doesn't seem to be an unusual thing in my area at least.

DS was quite clear about who he wanted at his birthday party in reception. It actually included one girl, and that was about the last time his friends from school who were invited included girls.

Isn't the point about race and gender is that you see what you look for? If you look at external appearance, then yes, race and gender are external ways of seeing difference.

That this difference has meaning, though, is socially constructed - in what other way can it be constructed? To paraphrase Dorothy Sayers, humans are most like each other than they are like any other species in the world. So what evolutionary purpose is there in looking for difference amongst humans? There is none, only a social purpose.

The point math makes if I understand correctly, is that you can impose external markers of gender but that does not change born sex. A boy is still a boy if he behaves in a way society deems 'female'. My son wants to wear nail varnish, he is still my son.

Race - my neighbour is still my neighbour regardless of whether she is racialised as white, Asian or Black. In fact, if I tell you my neighbour is kind, also a working mother and very bubbly and positive, do you have a clue as to her skin colour? No, but you know her sex and the kind of person she is. You maybe even have some idea whether you might like her for a neighbour from what I have said about her personality.

ahha I see math so racism is a learnt behaviour from adults...but sexism is an entirely natural and an unstoppable force of nature....that other countries apparently manage to combat quite well.

What utter bullshit.

Does this assessment, have anything to do with the fact you have been called out as sexist and not as racist I wonder?

Back in reality the cases are identical. There is a nature element, some evolutionary based mechanism for the existence of both intrinsic racism and intrinsic sexism. Then there is a massive dollop of nurture in both cases.

The UK is curiously accepting of institutionalised sexism, as can be seen by the huge amount of sexism shown in advertising to children, and the sexism seen in many aspects of school including uniforms.

I personally don't find it any more acceptable that a parent would reduce the number invited to a party by arbitrarily excluding all female children than by arbitrarily excluding all black children, or all Muslim children.

camaleon yeah people do get aggressive when you point out they are facilitating and encouraging sexism don't they?

I prefer Math's sensible and clear posting far more than your Passive Aggression Icebeing.

oh no...so sorry.

are you sure it is my posting style that's important here? Maybe it is more that you don't like being called sexist either?

IF your DD has 'plenty of male friends' why didn't she invite any of them to her party?

Smacks a bit of 'I'm not racist, I have a black friend' really.

Because it's a swimming party and:

1. Some of the girls invited are going through puberty and are uncomfortable around the boys.
2. 3 of the girls invited have cultural reasons to prefer being seperate from the boys.
3. 4 of the boys in the class cannot swim at all (1 of the girls can't but she is happy to wear a float vest and the other girls won't take the piss).
4. 2 girls would not be allowed to attend if boys were invited.

Also:

DD doesn't play with the boys in her class, not at all.
DD has 4 boys in the class that are absolute horrors and she doesn't want them spoiling her birthday.
The leisure centre has stated that attending children must be supervised in the changing rooms. DH is not available and I am not comfortable supervising 10 and 11 year old boys - I wouldn't want to embarrass them.
DDs 'out of school' male friends are mostly older and wouldn't want to attend an 11 yr olds birthday party.

Oh and most importantly - it's DDs choice.

it is hard to know where to start with all the implicit sexism in that post.

girls would feel awkward around boys? then they are being sexist.
You would feel more uncomfortable supervising boys than girls? then you are being sexist.
Some boys in the class are horrors therefore you exclude all boys? definition of sexism.
2 girls couldn't attend if boys were there? They or their parents are extraordinarily sexist.
You give more importance to the sexist requirements of a few of the girls than the sexism of excluding all the boys? You are being sexist.
your DD doesn't play with any of the boys in her class? She is being sexist.
You claim girls don't take the piss as much as boys? You are being sexist.

It isn't rocket science. People are sexist. Society is sexist.

The only decisions you can make are whether or not to facilitate and encourage it. Apparently you are happy for all this sexist reasoning to go into a decision. I wouldn't be happy with that, and I wouldn't be happy to support such sexist decision making on the part of my child either.

Girls with growing breast buds who have already had the piss taken out of them by the boys? Nope, not sexist, just uncomfortable.

Me being an unaccompanied female in an open changing room with naked boys? Nope, not sexist, just following safeguarding considerations.

4 boys not being invited would lead to accusations of bullying and 'leaving people out' especially by those parents who do not believe their children are anything but Angels. Not sexist, pragmatic.

2 girls who could not attend due to cultural considerations? Not sexist, being sensitive to their cultural beliefs and not discriminating against them because of them.

The boys in DDs class do not want to play netball, nor do they want to choreagraph dances or write songs for performances. Not sexist, simply playing with people who have the same interests as her.

The girl who cannot swim (for a very good reason) is well liked amongst her friends and comfortable enough to be open with them. The girls won't take the piss because they understand.

Don't invent sexism where none exists.

The leisure centre has stated that attending children must be supervised in the changing rooms. DH is not available and I am not comfortable supervising 10 and 11 year old boys

I'm surprised by this.

At our local swimming pool children are allowed unsupervised in the changing rooms from 8 years old. Surely it should be the centre's responsibility to keep an eye on changing rooms regardless.