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Why Friends are more difficult than when my mom was young..
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Anonymous
I'm the pp who started the tangent about both parents attending. A 1yo birthday party is totally different. 1yr is for the parents, not the kid. My my child's 1yr, we invited close family and friends and had a big event with a tent and tons of adult beverages. However, for the 3rd birthday it is about the kid and I still cannot see why both parents attend and as a PP mentioned bring along their other kids-it is rude. I'm excluding close family friends from this arguement. I guess if you have unlimited funds and unlimited space, the more the merrier, but I do not feel so merry after I end up spending hundreds of dollars and countless hours prepping and cleaning up my 1100sq foot tiny house after all the non-3year olds, the entire time praying it does not rain and have to squeeze all the extra people into the house. For those that don't have a problem with the crowds, they obviously don't have space constraints. I agree it is nice to get to know everyone, but its hard to get to know everyone when your running around trying to wait on 25 people and corral all the kids up for the festivities. I think a smaller crowd and not on my kid's birthday would be more appropriate. We've done such "get to know everyone" with a few buckets of fried chicken and a nice day at Clemyjontri Park and it was a lot less stressful. |
Anonymous
Could I bring my husband if we promise not to eat anything or drink anything and try to take up as little space as possible? We're rather petite people. My husband sometimes like to come along because he doesn't normally get to participate much in preschool or see ds's school friends. I've suggested that he take ds alone, but he feels a little shy about doing that, because he doesn't really know the other parents well. But I hear you - it can quickly turn into too many guests. I think once you get into school age - 1st grade and up - kids can attend parties alone and you won't have to deal with parents too. But when they are 3, it's still a family package. |
Anonymous
| So, if you want a small birthday party, have a small party. Tell the friends you're inviting . . ."we're doing a small party at homes this year. . .inviting just five close friends and not including siblings." Schedule it during naptime to discourage sibling attendance. Take cupcakes for the "school party" and make the party at home for your non-school friends. None of us are forced into big parties. We're choosing to do them because our kids whine or we feel compelled to keep up with the Joneses or because we see it as an opportunity to see friends we don't see much. The choice is yours. Decide what you want to do, get your dear child on board, be direct and don't worry about what people expect of you. |
Anonymous
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Poster 10:10: I'm the poster you were responding to. Yes, I agree a 1-year-old is for the parents and it's different. Her "friends" are the kids of my friends. Anyway, the point of the post was more that maybe you should outsource because I do think having a party at home is harder. Not just the space, but cleaning before and after! Ugh. And then providing food for all the people. I think it's probably easier and not *necessarily* more expensive to have it somewhere else. It's not as expensive if you get creative with price and shop around a bit. Not that it's easy to do with kids, but this board is really a great resource for ideas. I agree with the poster who said maybe you can just tell people that you're not inviting everyone. Every Parent of multiple children particuarly is sick of birthday parties! They'd probably be relieved!
Anyway, I think maybe we should take this to the party thread. I'm sorry OP! |
Anonymous
| This has gotten a little off-track from the original post, but I wanted to chime in another voice of agreement on the both parents-plus-siblings deal with birthday parties. I would have loved to invite my son's friends from school to his birthday party but after attending a few we realized that we couldn't fit all his classmates plus 2 parents, siblings and even grandparents! It's a bummer because we have no nearby family and my son's circle of friends (as opposed to our friends who happen to have kids) is relatively small except for school. I totally get wanting to get to know the parents of your child's classmates -- but in the end, traveling en mass means that fewer families can invite the whole class to their parties, which ultimately translates to fewer opportunities for everyone to get acquainted. My son's getting ready for kindergarten, so we've kind of ceded this battle, but I hope it gets better once the kids are in elementary school! |
Anonymous
I think this answer the OP question about why it is difficult to make friends as adults. |
Anonymous
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"I think this answer the OP question about why it is difficult to make friends as adults. "
Ja. |
Anonymous
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Well, thanks for that. We are invited to our first birth day party with DD tomorrow, she's two and the party if for her favorite boy at day care.
DH is the one who does the drop offs/pick ups so he knows the parents, I'm hoping to get to know some tomorrow and see DD interact with the boy. Now I'm feeling like a third wheel... |
Anonymous
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1) No internet--so you had to talk to people in person or on the phone
2) Birthday parties were much less formal--I can't ever imagine my mother saying that someone's SPOUSE wasn't invited to a kid's party. You all are control freaks who have lost all perspective. It's a kid's birthday party for crying out loud. Cake and ice cream. No catered affair. No build-a-bear. Maybe Chuck-e-Cheese--when we were young, this was awesome. 3) Suburbia explosion--everybody drives, you hardly see anyone coming and going, no main street; who actually uses their front door these days? 4) Mean neighbors who can't deal with neighborhood kids playing in their yards sometimes. (See recent post.) 5) Longer working hours for less relative pay--both mom and dad have to work to make the same income to maintain the same standard of living that our parents' generation did. ONE major positive change since the 70s (when I grew up)--my child is growing up with many more ethnically diverse friends than I did. |
Anonymous
If you're inviting more than 3-4 kids to a 3-year-old's party, it's NOT about the kid. Your kid would have just as much fun with 3-4 friends rather than two or three times that number. If you want to have a big party, more power to you, but understand that 3-year-olds don't travel without parents. For many families, weekends are the only times they get to spend as a family, and between naps and errands there isn't much free time. Why should mom or dad be cheated out of that just because it's your kid's birthday? I do agree that it's not right to bring both parents AND other children, because the other parent could just as easily be doing something special with the non-invited child. |
Anonymous
This phrase makes me want to vomit as does your inane post on how much easier it was for your mother to make friends. To have a friend you need to be a friend. |
Anonymous
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No party favors when I was kid. No huge piles of gifts
(in my hood). Sigh. |
Anonymous
| It probably has more to do with your mother's personality than the time period she lived in. |
Anonymous
Totally agree. Especially about #1. But OP, I do disagree with you as a whole. I have great friends around DC. Most of us don't live near family and instead have become very close to our friends. You mention so much about neighbors, being friendly, worried about if your house is good enough - either get out of this mentality or find some new places to meet people! |
Anonymous
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"4) Mean neighbors who can't deal with neighborhood kids playing in their yards sometimes. (See recent post.) "
Mean neighbors have been around forever. |