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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There are a multitude of reasons why we pay $500+ for birthday parties for the kids.

- [b]Parks [/b]are unpredictable, they can be crowded, the grounds can be [b]muddy[/b], there is a lot of setup and take down. [b]Wind, sun, sweat, bugs, dogs, dirty bathrooms[/b], etc. No.

- At home is great except for the liability. We have a pool and a huge yard, we can certainly rent some yard game activity equipment. But [b]I will not want any kids to get hurt on my property.[/b] I will gladly pay for the insurance of renting someone else's facilities. Our kids are well behaved in our home, but [b]I do not want to risk breaking valuables [/b]due to a ton of kids running around. And again, the setup, take down, clean up, trash, pee on the powder room floor. No.

- I want to expose my kids to the feeling of a big party/celebration. When they were young, we had small intimate family-only birthday parties. We still celebrate each of their birthdays separately in private like that, but it's important for them to not miss out on the feeling and atmosphere of large parties. After they've gone to a couple of large parties of their friends, they want to experience the same thing on their own birthdays.

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You sound like a barrel of laughs.

Why did you have kids?[/quote]

I just don't want to be stressed out with having to do all the prep and deal with the uncertainty of having a park birthday okay? We have family cookouts and picnics so we are no strangers to doing that. But I refuse to deal with it within the context of 15-20 screaming children.

The liability issue is serious. People are sue happy these days. You just never know. I am not going to take a chance on getting myself involved in a lawsuit because I want to save a few hundred dollars. It's a different world than when we were kids.

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Lawyer here. Do you not have homeowners' insurance?  With the kind of assets you are insinuating that you have, you should really have an umbrella policy.  if you get sued, your insurance carrier will provide counsel and pay any judgment or settlement. The first thing I did when we started to have any assets at all was to make sure we were well-insured.

Also, FWIW, I worked as in-house defense counsel for a major insurance company for 12 years. During that time I litigated hundreds upon hundreds of cases, involving everything from dog bites to slip-and-falls to an icicle falling on someone's head (literally). I never once came across a claim or suit filed as the result of a birthday party or other gathering of children at someone's home. [/quote]

PP here. I agree that a lot of our fears and concerns are irrational in the eyes of seasoned experts who navigate those waters on a daily basis. We have worked very very hard to get to where we are at, and we do have umbrella policies and very good auto/home policies to help us sleep at night.  I understand that the risk of being sued is low, and lower still to have exposure above and beyond the policy limits. But just being named in a suit would seriously affect our life. We are not strangers to going through the stress of a personal injury lawsuit - an older person was walking on the sidewalk, fell, near the intersection where we were stopped waiting to turn on a red light. She claimed we bumped her. Wife was paying attention to the road, I was riding shotgun and saw her fall. Eyewitness across the street didn't see, but said our car was angled towards her, which it was in preparation for the turn. Back then we had very little assets but even then it was very stressful. Eventually the other side agreed to a small settlement of a few thousand dollars on some minor claims. But until it was finalized, you know how lawyers talk: they only give opinions, and the opinions are never certain and reassuring. Because the last thing you want to do is tell your client something and the result end up being something very different. You always tell your clients what may happen, which always cover a range, from best case to worst case. We all fear for the worst case.

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