Can we cancel birthdays?
Or, if not, can we at least agree to some rules? Or maybe some guidelines?
I’m not really sure where to start, but maybe an “is this going to make a kid cry?” checkpoint might be a good place to begin.
I’ve hated birthday party politics since I was a kid. Most of my friends could invite whoever they wanted to their birthday parties and they handed out the invitations at school. In our house, the rules were a bit different. I could invite whoever I wanted to invite, but I had to invite the two other girls my age who lived on our road, whether I wanted to or not. One of them was a friend of mine, so that was fine. But the other one was a popular girl and I was…well…not. Every year, I was mortified to the point of almost cancelling my birthday, when my mom insisted that I invite her to the party. I was afraid that she would think that I thought we were friends. I was afraid that she would tell all her cool friends how boring and uncool my birthday party was. I was afraid that I might do something embarrassing at my birthday party that she would subsequently use to torment me at school. The other rule was that I couldn’t hand out the birthday invitations at school because someone might be hurt that they weren’t invited. I insisted over and over again that it wouldn’t be a problem. Everyone who would want to come to my birthday party was invited and the only ones who weren’t invited were the ones who were too cool to talk to me. But she insisted that we spend an evening driving all over town to hand deliver birthday party invitations to the homes of each of my friends. It seemed a bit silly to me. Even if the invitations weren’t handed out at school, people obviously talked about birthday parties at school. Although I hated my mom’s rules, I know why she had them. She had been left out of things as a child and didn’t want anyone else’s child to feel the same way that she did. Her rules were based on the “is this going to make a kid cry?” checkpoint.
This year for Emma’s birthday, we left things fairly wide open in terms of the number of invites. We were having the party at our house and most of the expenses were going to be the same whether there were four kids there or fifteen kids there, so we let her invite as many friends as she wanted. This seemed like the easiest way to ensure that no one was left out. Of the 10 kids or so that we invited from her school, three came to the party, one said “yes” (two days after the RSVP date) but didn’t show up (no explanation), one politely and promptly declined, and five didn’t bother to RSVP. Emma kept asking over and over again why Julia didn’t come to her party. “Maybe she was sick,” we said when she asked with her sad face, but would it have killed them to call or send an e-mail? As for the five who didn’t bother to RSVP at all, I have no words. We left a phone number and an e-mail address on the invitation. We gave people plenty of time to RSVP. Why didn’t they bother? I don’t know. To make matters worse, when Emma went to her friend Sophie’s birthday party a couple of weeks later, all of the kids who didn’t bother to RSVP for Emma’s birthday party were there.
A few weeks ago, Karen wrote about birthday party politics too:
She found me in the schoolyard, a few days after all the invitations had been handed out.
“So,” she said, smiling, “My son has had his first taste of rejection.”
Blink. “Excuse me?”
“Well, my son said that the some kids were talking about your daughter’s birthday party, and when Paulie* asked Mischa about it, she said that his invitation was in the mail.”
I didn’t track down anyone in the school yard, but I did wipe away plenty of tears. From the first day of preschool until sometime about a month ago, Julian and Josh were best friends. They were inseparable. Recently, Josh hasn’t wanted to play with Julian as much at school. Apparently Kevin told Josh that he shouldn’t play with Julian anymore. These things happen from time to time on the school yard and usually last a few days and then things are back to normal. But when Josh’s birthday party invitations came out, Julian was the only one who didn’t get one. Everyone else in their circle of friends was invited. Julian, the only one he had been friends with for four years, was not invited. He asked Josh why he hadn’t received an invitation. Josh said he just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. He asked Josh’s brother why he wasn’t invited and he said that Josh was still working on the invitations. So we waited. Julian wanted me to call Josh’s parents, but I didn’t want to be THAT mom, so I didn’t. The Friday before Josh’s birthday came around. As we were leaving the school yard, Brett’s dad waved at us and said “I guess we’ll see you tomorrow afternoon at Josh’s party!”. No, we wouldn’t. Instead, we would spend the weekend consoling a six year old boy who couldn’t understand why his best friend hadn’t invited him to his birthday party.
I don’t know what lesson to teach my kids. Do I teach them that some people are just jerks and that is the way life is? Do I teach them to have a stiff upper lip and take rejection in stride? Do I just let the tears pour out and be there to cuddle them and pass them a tissue? I don’t know. All the options seem to suck.
Real politics make my head hurt. Birthday party politics make my heart hurt.
* Names have been changed to protect the children whose parents didn’t apply the “is this going to make a kid cry?” guideline.
Image credit: dawnzy58 on flickr
About Annie
Ugh. I have no idea how to handle these things. At least “Paulie” was barely a friend of M’s and his mother should never have expected him to be invited. But to avoid hurt feelings, he was invited.
Josh’s mother really should have known better, or, since the boys had been such good friends, should have at least called you. As for the parents that didn’t even bother to rsvp, I have no words. It’s simply rude. I hate this shit.
Yes. I am done. I would like to cancel them all. My middle child has several friends who are girls and is not invited because parents have decided that gender is the socially acceptable place to draw the line. It hurts him. We also have several families that we are close to – and my sons and I are excluded from celebrations b/c everyone else has girls and we have three boys who would obviously destroy all the girly fun of eating cake and icecream. When we add my middle child’s special needs to this equation, he has few invitations while other children have many. And yes, they do talk about parties at school – and not just incidentally. We had kids come into the yard with a cupcake explaining the couldn’t play b/c they were up the street at a party he was not invited to – so, um, get off my lawn?
At our children’s school there is a rule about birthday invitations: If children give them out at school, ALL children in their class are to be given an invitation. Otherwise, invites must be mailed. I think this saves a bit of trouble & hurt feelings.
I do have trouble with large parties though – it sends such a message of excess.
As I’m not interested in hosting an entire class to a party in the future… I imagine the politics will get more complex as my children age & are more aware of birthday parties. So far, we’ve only had very small parties, with mostly family. Wondering for how long this will remain a viable option.
kelly @kellynaturally´s last [type] ..How to Make Pig Snouts from Egg Cartons
Our school has privacy policies (backed by Canadian privacy law) that they cannot give out addresses or other contact information. So, if we did want to send the invitations by mail, we would have to at least leave a note for each of those parents at school in their child’s cubby saying “can you please give me your home address so that I can send an invitation”. Six of one, half a dozen of another, I guess.
I shouldn’t read posts like this in public, I look the crazed lady crying in a corner of the cafe, reading your post Annie. I am so sad & frustrated on your behalf and if anyone tries to tell you that these are just *life lessons* you have my permission to stomp on them ( you are tall enough to do this, quite effectively ;)
Perhaps you could have your kids just invite a few friends over, for an end of school party or a beginning of summer party, where you arrange it as a surprise for your kids (that way they are not expecting a certain friend to show up…heck, bring them here, let me spoil them rotten and show them how they deserve to be treated!!! There are so many things that are unfair, that are out of our control – that parents allowing/behaving this way is so completely unacceptable!
marci´s last [type] ..denial- drugs and hookering…
I am the same way! Crying at work!
Anastasia´s last [type] ..So Fucking Excited About This!
While my kids will probably come to hate their summer birthdays, I love it. We throw a joint birthday party for both of them (they were born 2 weeks and two years apart) at the park and invite tons of people. All our park friends are invited, other friends are invited. Since so many people often can’t come in the summer the number that do is still managable. And since we are outside their isn’t too much work.
I know this arrangement won’t last forever. They will want their own partis with their own friends. But I am holding onto this as long as possible!
Brie´s last [type] ..Reminder
How awful! I’m thankful that my girls’ birthday is in the summer, as that has allowed us to avoid a lot of the politics surrounding parties. Our school does have a rule about invitations (under which circumstances they can be handed out, for instance), and I have a few other rules that I expect my girls to follow–e.g., never talk about birthday parties at school because you can’t know for certain who has or has not been invited. I also tell them not to accept an invitation to attend a party unless they plan to invite that child to their own party. This rule has occasionally rankled with the girls, but I think it’s important for them to understand that parties are about the birthday child, not just about getting together with some (other) friends they might like. (In other words, they should be attending the party for the right reason–namely, that they like the birthday kid, and would want to invite him/her to their own party.)
As for how to deal with the hurt feelings, that’s the tricky part. I think encouraging a stiff upper lip is not helpful in the long run. Hurt feelings usually cannot be willed away. One approach that has helped with my two (in addition to simple comforting) is talking about *why* certain people might act the way they do. We’ve talked about how people are often mean out of insecurity, for instance. In your case, I think you could be forgiven for pointing out that not everyone has parents as wise and caring as you! ;)
northTOmom´s last [type] ..Is It A Boy or a Girl
I remember for my 11th birthday – my mum said I had to invite my whole class. But there was one boy I didn’t want to invite. It is still so vivid in my mind – I walked up and down the aisle of my classroom handing out the invitations – but I didn’t give this particular boy his. I bumped into him two years ago. Twenty years later and he still remembered. I feel so guilty.
Ugh. I don’t look forward to this when my sons are older. No one could make M’s 2nd birthday party this year so we just skipped it because hey he’s 2, all he cares about is a slice of cake anyway. I never invited my whole class growing up, but invites were mailed and I think in elementary school Mom made me invite all the girls in my class at least (suppose she assumed the boys wouldn’t want to come to my party, except whatever boys I wanted to invite). But, I remember the sting of not being invited to parties. My husband just never was allowed to have parties growing up but I love them, so we’ll learn navigate the party politics waters (unless my sons don’t want parties of course).
MarfMom´s last [type] ..June IFSP
The flip side of the “invite everyone in your class rule” is what often happened to me as a child. I was profoundly unpopular, and bullied to the point where arrests would be made today. Also, our classes were quite large (32 kids or so every year) and I lived in a small town where all the parents knew each other. We had the same kids in every extracurricular activity as were in our grade at school, so the unpopularity seeped into every single aspect of my life.
I MUCH preferred the kids who only invited a dozen or so friends to their party. When I didn’t get an invitation, I wasn’t the only one, and it wasn’t really mentioned. On the other hand- the kids who were forced to invite EVERYONE, would frequently stop at my desk, invite in hand, glare at me, and drop the thing on my desk making it very clear to everyone else that the LAST thing they wanted was to be stuck interacting with me at all. Sometimes, they would even go so far as to loudly announce “I didn’t want to invite you. My mom MADE me.” One girl once capped that with “So, either be (airquotes) SICK (airquotes) or bring something really good as a gift.”
My mother routinely invited the whole class, and most years about half of the kids would arrive (mainly because our parents were friends) but the first year that we were generally treated as having a vote in whether we would attend (8th grade) only ONE child showed up on time for the party. The rest arrived en masse 20 minutes before the end, just long enough to drop the gift their mother had bought and get a slice of cake.
With my kids, we handle birthdays differently each year and for each kid. I discovered that the community pool has a ‘lifeguard cap’ of 25 kids, which works out to pretty much the class, plus the birthday child’s siblings, and has a very inexpensive rental fee for an hour in the pool and an hour in the party room, so that is pretty much our go-to plan unless a kid wants something different.
Oh, dear. I stopped having birthday parties for my son that involved anyone outside of family members four years ago. It appears that people are unable to fathom what R.S.V.P. actually means, and even when they do reply in the affirmative, eight times out of ten they don’t bother to show up because “they didn’t feel like it that day”. It’s sad when you invite seven children and only two show up, and those two an hour late. Nuts. My son is twelve now and quite enjoys our intimate family birthday celebrations, because at least he knows that we’ll all be there and be sincere about it…
As well, I’m starting to find this “birthday party one-upmanship” culture increasingly disturbing. Where is it stated in the Constitution that “all children are entitled to huge celebrations surrounding their birthdays, and the aforementioned celebrations must be overwhelmingly expensive bashes because, darn it, all children are so special just for turning another year older…”? It’s a real money-making industry out there because parents are foolishly buying into it. Why set the bar so high? It only makes for unrealistic expectations and serious delusions of entitlement on the part of the children in question. It’s what my late mother used to refer to as “making a stick for your own back”.
The lesson that I’m teaching my daughter is that you should always do the right thing even if someone else doesn’t. Just like Julian, she wasn’t invited to a friend’s birthday party but all her circle of friends were. I was shocked because we know her parents, and she has been to our place for playdates as DD has bee to their place. Her mom is even a friend of mine in FB and posted pictures there… I just couldn’t understand and that’s what I told DD, that I didn’t know what happened.
Next week we’re having DD’s birthday party. DD didn’t want to invite this girl and 3 other kids from her class but we told her we were inviting all the kids in her class, that it was rude to leave people out and she understood that. She also wanted to invite other kids from other classes and didn’t want to invite some kids whose parents I know and who are also in the classes she was inviting, so I told her we were inviting them too or we were not inviting any kid from any other class. We ended up inviting 32 kids. But from those 32 kids just 5 have called to RSVP. We’ll see how many show up :/
I really really dread this birthday party crap. My oldest is in grade one next year, and up til now we’ve had family only parties. I’d like to keep it that way – but she’s already asking if she can have a birthday party “with school friends” next year. I’m hoping I can talk her into a special dinner out or going somewhere fun – just us – instead. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but we don’t have room at our house for a whole class of kids and we probably couldn’t afford to take them out somewhere. When did birthday parties get to be such a big deal? When I was a kid, we used to have two or three friends over and rent movies or something. I have until December to convince her that that’s a better option.
Jessica´s last [type] ..They Grow Up So Fast!
I always hated the navigation of birthday party politics as a kid. Then as a parent, came the awareness of parental competitions of who could spend the most on their kids birthday. In their younger years, we did just family/close friends/all ages parties. When my kids hit school age, we dropped parties all together for ‘birthday events’. Around their birthday my kids got to pick one friend to share a major event with. We’ve had years that were as simple as mani/pedi’s, to as major as seeing ‘Phantom of the Opera’. My kids are now teenagers and they pretty consistently choose concerts with a good friend every year. Followed by a special family-only birthday dinner on the day of. Wouldn’t have it any other way!
My kids are still quite young so we haven’t run into these issues yet. But, his preschool just got out for the summer. On the last day, there was a note from one of the preschool parents handed out to ALL the kids saying that her daughter would be having a birthday party over the summer, and if our kid wanted to come, to email her and she’d send out invites. So…no hurt feelings on anyone’s part. Since the party will be at a local park, it’s not a big deal to have a ton of kids there. I’m still trying to figure out how we’ll handle my son’s upcoming 3rd birthday…
As the parent of the resident socially-awkward kid of the class, I know all too well about birthday party politics. We have an extra wrench thrown in the works in that my son, who does not absorb social cues very well, always insists that he go, whether invited or not. And of course this leaves me trying to find a tactful way to tell him that, no, they didn’t just “forget” his invite.
I hate it when children hurt.
Andrea´s last [type] ..Toddlerhood Or- I Totally Forgot This Part
So, Julian came home with a birthday party invitation yesterday for Mike’s birthday party. He also mentioned that Josh is not invited to Mike’s birthday party because Josh didn’t invite Mike to his. The politics continue…
Oh no, I hoped it would get better!
Our son turned 2 this year. We sent out the invitations early and got no replies. We don’t know a lot of people where we live so gave them to people we know that he works with who also have children.
As it turned out, his boss’ son also had a 2nd birthday they planned on the same day. Two hours before ours. His party was renting out a a bouncy-house facility. Ours was a homemade party.
All I can say is that one person showed up 30 minutes late, two more came nearly 2 hours late, and the rest we never saw or heard from.
I take it that instead of getting better I won’t just be hurt about the outcome, but soon my son will understand to. What am I supposed to say then?
Lauren´s last [type] ..A breakfast hike
Oh thank you for writing this! My daughter’s first birthday party with her school friends invited is in two weeks. One person has rsvp’d. and she keeps talking about how her school friends are coming and my husband and I look at each other in pain. He keeps having to remind me that it’s not us or her it’s that some people are just jerks.
Anastasia´s last [type] ..So Fucking Excited About This!
Oh gosh – I know I am late to ‘this’ party but had to comment. I was desperately hoping that your story would finish with you, years later, running into your ‘cool’ street girl and her confessing that she dreaded your parties in case you found out how ‘uncool’ she really was. And how she secretly admired your parties because they were much more fun than her ‘cool’ friend ones. Ok – in my head that is how it is going to be! That is much more satisfying.
best wishes, Julie.
Julie´s last [type] ..Printable Blank Bridal Shower Invitations
Annie, again you hit the nail on the head. This is a topic I think about often (unfortunetly). As a Canadian expat in Eastern Europe I can attest that we have the exact*same*problem. And the politics and race to one-up someone else’s party seriously make me want to vomit on a regular basis. Nevermind the wastefulness and consumerism and load of gifts that someone’s parents paid money for but I’ll never likely need or my child will break within a few days/weeks. My kids are still small (2 and 5) and thankfully both have summer birthdays, but I expect that it’s only a matter of time before we’re forced to take a family stance on the situation – maybe stating that birthdays are for family or doing something such as Liberty wrote above about birthday events with a friend or two.
As parents, since we don’t do big bashes for our kid’s birthdays we are not invited to some neighbour’s birthday parties while others invite us. I don’t feel like being rude but also don’t want to propegate the endless cycle of invitations, waste and consumerism or make my kids feel left out. Definetly a hard one :/
This is a great discussion! My husband and I are figuring this out as I write this comment. Our almost 4 year old just switched preschool classes………two weeks ago. The school rule is everyone in the class or no one. We were already inviting his old class, now we have to invite the new class too. Parents have already said things to me such as they heard he was having a birthday soon (hence why he changed classes) and one already said we were invited to hers. We already had put a deposit down at a nearby fun center, as we dont have enough room in our home, nor any other home nearby we could use. It is an extra 24.95 per child. It just went from 16 to 32 children from school, this does not include our family friends with children who do not go to this preschool. From what the teachers told me, everyone goes to everyone parties, as we are on a military base and well, it is the thing to do. This is insane, expensive and we are not sure what to do. Not everyone has room at a house or free location…..it has been raining here so we cant have it at a park where it would be free. We dont want to make other kids cry either or feel left out, but at the same time……..what will happen when they get into the rest of the world where it does not work like this and they will get left out? It doesnt matter at this point anyways, as we dont have a choice due to school rules. Everyone or no one. Im just hoping it works out or we may have his bday a few months early next year to have it outside in a free location!
I just started reading this website. I really appreciate it so far and have sent it to a few friends. It does seem quite a different tone than some of the writers personal websites though. Annie’s…the PHDinparenting seems as though her whole philosophy is judgment on her “better” parent style so Im confused as to why she writes on this website where the idea is not judging others. IDK, maybe Im just reading this sites philosophy incorrectly. No matter, this website rocks!
I found this website as I was searching an answer to “Why some kids don’t want to have birthday parties”… because I asked my soon to be 8 yr old what she wants to do for her bday this year, and she says she just wants to have a family party– no friends. Last year was her first and only friend bday party; it was fun but she’s just not into it this year. My older daughter is the same way; she had only 2 bday parties and she’s now 17. After reading a lot about the complications and expense of throwing children’s parties, I guess I should be relieved. I will put the money into their college funds instead, I guess. :-)