Number 5 and 6 are both in preschool.
Number 5 is in a 4’s class, and Number 6 is in a 3’s class.
If you have kids this age, you know what that means.
Invitations to at least 197 birthday parties throughout the school year.
Back when Number 3 was in preschool and I was totally clueless, I took him to every party he was invited to.
He spent his time at every party clinging to my leg for dear life, refusing to participate in any of the activities or play with any of the kids.
I would push and prod and bribe and beg, and leave each party sweaty, exhausted and completely frustrated.
But nothing ever got him to release the death grip from my leg.
It has taken me a good five years to come to my senses, but I’ve finally developed my own policy regarding these parties.
Here it is:
I don’t go to them.
Unless, on a very rare occasion, if my child actually happens to be friends with the kid having the party.
Why parents want to shell out two or three or four hundred dollars for a 3-year-old’s birthday party, I have no idea.
I don’t think they actually pay attention to what goes on at these things.
Number 5 has three girls in her class that she really likes.
Yesterday one of them had a party, so I made my yearly exception and took her to the party.
It was at one of those awful, germ-infested, bounce house/zip line/trampoline places.
There were about twenty kids at the party.
The birthday girl played with three of them.
The other seventeen kids spent the whole ninety minutes dragging their parents around, forcing them to watch while they slowly submerged themselves in a pit of plastic balls covered with snot, fecal matter, and every communicable disease known to mankind.
Then, for the lastthirty minutes, all twenty kids sat around a table, most of them suddenly rendered unable to speak and devoid of all social skills, instantaneously unable to put their own straw in a juicebox and apparently even incapable of wiping their own mouths.
It is the same thing at every single one of these parties.
Hundreds of dollars for that.
Over and over and over again.
I don’t get it.
Why not put $300 into a savings account and blow $100 on a fun day with those three friends your kid is actually going to play with?
Do that every year for her birthday instead of the Yearly Germfest,
and by the time she’s sixteen you’ll have saved up enough to pay for a party that,
one, your kid might actually appreciate (and remember), and two…
I won’t have to go to.
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This is great! I wish you wrote this 15 years ago.
So much YES!
This post is quite timely. My 3 year old just got an invitation to a party. I actually kicked around going but then I thought “what the heck is she going to be able to do at Chuck E. Cheese?” …..so I declined. I will, however, get the birthday girl a gift because she’s actually friends with my kid…..
I kind of hate the policy that my son’s preschool had, where if you invite one kid, you have invite EVERY SINGLE ONE of them. He was invited to 3 of them last year, but only went to one before I realized he didn’t really play with anyone there, he just did his own thing. I did a bit of a happy dance when I realized that his last day of school was the first week of June, and his birthday isn’t until June 30th, so by the time it came time for his birthday party, I think he’d pretty much forgotten about having anyone from school come.
This. Is. Hilarious! 🙂
Laughed way too hard than I should have 😛
Hug,
Cathy
Agreed! My twins are 5 and I haven’t had a kid party for them yet, just family ones. What you’re saying makes perfect sense to me!
THANK GOODNESS! FINALLY! Someone else who feel the same way i do about these things! My number 5 probably hasn’t even talked to every kid in her class yet this year & there’s only a few months left! Such a waste of my time & money. Thank you for this!