I have so many rants about birthday parties I could write a dozen articles on that subject alone. However, none of my rants are helpful or empowering to other moms in any way so I’ll kindly hold my opinions to myself. What I will say is this…Always remember to be courteous and consider other children’s feelings.
I have a rule. This isn’t a statement of judgement or me telling anyone else how to parent. This is just one of my house rules. With my daughters, we either invite all of the little girls in class or none at all. In that case we have a family party or we just invite friends who don’t attend school with us.
This has worked well for us. My oldest daughter whose birthday falls over Thanksgiving, gets a family party when we travel home for the holiday. She then gets to pick an event. She has chosen Chuck E. Cheese and play castles in the past. We take her and her best friend who attends another school, we let them play, we buy them pizza, bring a few cupcakes and they have a great time!
My youngest daughter’s birthday is in the summer so I’m off the hook for worrying about hurting kids feelings. I grab numbers before school gets out, send out a few text messages and throw her a small party with her group of friends.
Unfortunately though, with all my rantings about birthdays and mighty opinions, I’ve discovered no matter how I go about planning a birthday, somebody gets their feelings hurt. This just happened to me!
There is such a thing as age appropriate friendships. We have an an eleven-year-old neighborhood girl who spends time at our house, usually playing with my older daughter. For the sake of this party, we only invited my daughter’s first grade class. All seven-year-old’s.
We are about thirty minutes into the party, when the neighbor girl, bless her little heart comes knocking and wondering if she could play. I open the door and she sees we’re having a party. I invite her to join in because why wouldn’t I? I would never leave a child standing at my doorstep feeling left out. She has a great time and plays with the younger kids.
When the party ends, her mom walks over and confronts me about not inviting her in the first place. She is ready to fight with me for leaving her daughter out. I nicely and directly tell her that this was a birthday for my daughter’s 1st grade class. This was a chance for her to get together with all her friends from school. It’s a seven-year-old’s birthday party. For younger children! I stress the last phrase.
She looks at me, blinking and questioning my every motive. I expertly change topics to that of the flowers she just planted in her yard. She accepts my explanation, though I know she’s still angry. Her daughter is eleven. She’s in middle school. My daughter is in first grade. She’s a little girl. It’s not unreasonable or mean for me to not invite her. A first grader and a fifth grader have little in common to begin with. It’s not an age appropriate friendship. It isn’t! There’s no questioning that logic!
Thankfully, I’ve mastered the art of owning a conversation! As for birthday parties, it’s difficult to please everyone but I will continue to do my best in the future.
