Birthday Parties for Kids: how much is too much?
The forum on MomDot started talking about birthday parties for kids. You know you have seen them…kids that invite 50 people to the gymnastics studio, full out ChuckECheese (*throwup*) parties, and even MTV has made an entire series on 16 year olds that get BMWs and 100K parties to celebrate their birthdays. *sidebar: I drove a 1978 Chevy Chevette-HATCHBACK* When I was 16, I got my drivers license and went to the movies and saw Maverick. I think its nice to do something special for your kids, but how much, is too much?
When Charlotte turned one, my DH was in Afghanistan and my family lived 10 hours away. I put a little cake on her high chair and let her go to town on the chocolate. That was our party. Her and I and cake. The hardest part was getting her to the bathroom and into the tub without too much chocolate on the walls from her tiny hands. I still remember how hysterical it was.
When she turned 2, we had some neighbors over, let her pick out her own cake, and had a Happy Feet at home bash. We lived in Ohio and her birthday was in January, so no outside for us! When she turned three, it was so insignificant, I cant even REMEMBER what we did. I know it was about 2 weeks after we had a fire in our home, so I can imagine it was spent in TLF, but thats all I remember.
Now, in january, she will turn 4. She goes to school, so she does have a few friends now, and we have some neighborhood kids we will invite over, but I just feel no inherent need to go out and spent $500 on my 4 year olds birthday.
My neighbor, whom I will say right now is totally nice, came over and gave us a birthday invite for their 1 year old this past week. Its a circus theme and they are having clowns, a magic show, and three PONIES they will be parading up and down the street. Now how do I not feel inadequate after all of that over a 1 year old? Charlotte’s going to start telling people we are not her real parents and we don’t love her if this is what we have to look forward to our whole lives in comparison.
Am I doing the wrong thing? Homemaking a cake, opening some presents, and celebrating my daughter with the ones that love her the most…or should I be sucking it up, bring her out to something much cooler then moms backyard.
Thoughts?
~Trisha
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32 Comments
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I think parents nowadays are training their children to be little midget materialists. I was a child not too long ago, and somehow I survived even knowing that my parents couldn’t afford all the things my friends had. What I DID get was the knowledge that I was loved and cared for, and a sense of what is truly necessary/important in life.
That having been said, not every kid is like that. Some kids really do need to be similar to everyone else in order to feel good about themselves (read: my sister) and the parent has to know their child really well. As my baby gets a little older, I think the level of materialism in a given community will greatly affect where we choose to permanently live.
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