About half of the kid birthday parties to which we’ve been invited lately are what might be called “credit card parties” in which a parent gives a credit card to an indoor gym that provides an hour of bouncy fun followed by plain cheese pizza and a nut-free cake served by minimum-wage 19-year-olds.
One of my childhood memories was watching our parents go out at least once a week to a neighbor’s house for a dinner or cocktail party. Virtually every family in the neighborhood was capable of cleaning up the house, putting some frozen pigs-in-blankets into the oven, and pouring out some wine. Today’s young adults don’t seem to be as capable as hosts as were the 30-somethings of the 1970s. I’m wondering if the next generation of adults will be even worse because they never got the idea that it is okay to spend more than 60 seconds of effort to host a group of friends.
What do readers think? And what about those of you with kids? Are the kids more or less enthusiastic about going to one of these commercial events compared to going to an artisanally organized party at another child’s home?
Could it be that commercial kid-party-throwing businesses simply didn’t exist 30 or 40+ years ago? I don’t remember ever seeing such a place when I was a kid. Would your own parents have preferred to take you and your rambunctious friends to such a place if the option was available to them? I don’t know if kids prefer commercially-hosted birthday parties, but I’ll bet today’s 30-something parents who can afford them sure do.
This is where you chose to raise your kids – upper class, aspirational parents, both parents working. Parents like this tend to outsource parties. I raised my kids in a similar environment. I asked my son, and he said he preferred them, even the dreaded Chucky Cheese pizza parties. Minimum wage 19 year-olds who do this all day provide a more reasonable level of care than some of the more narcissistic parents in your circle. It is a good opportunity to let your child exercise some autonomy and social judgement. What parties to attend, which ones not to attend, and when to leave can all be left to the child. Try to keep your opinions to yourself, or write about them here.
I wish there was less junk food and candy at these things. Not sure what to do about it. I bought sushi one year for my kid’s party. Expensive and my wife was incredulous. When I brought it out, one kid yelled, “Wow! Sushi!.”
They had similar things back in the 60’s and 70’s where I was growing up and parent’s who were rich enough had their kids’ parties there. Back then, those places were miniature golf courses, bowling alleys and pizza parlors (pre-Chuck E. Cheese’s).
None of these were all-kids places like what they have now, but they all catered to kids and were equipped to hold kids birthday parties. It’s just more specialized nowadays.
I agree with Brian (#2) that this is likely about the transition to both parents working, which at least in *my* young child household means that it’s a rare occasion for the apartment to be clean and tidy enough to host a bunch of kids. The 1960s version included not only cooking and party preparation (which was likely gendered), but also a higher standard of regular cleanliness at home in general (same).
In our case with girls aged four and six it’s simply about out-sourcing risk: we’re always delighted to have their friends around for meals and play in small numbers but quail at the thought of crowd-controlling the scale of a birthday party (the house isn’t at all “safed” beyond the power sockets so plenty of options for accidental damage to its contents or indeed to the kids). So while they’re of a rambunctious age we’re resorting to parties at the local bouncy fun place (but taking our own food & drink), with the intent to ease the girls into organising their own parties as they get older.
It seems like the parents of today’s kids simply don’t give a damn.
Yeah, they use the “both of us work” excuse, but I guarantee if they needed to entertain their boss or an important client they would surely find the time and appropriate place to do so. And they surely wouldn’t say “we’d love to but are just too busy” jive.
In today’s families, often times the children finish far towards the end of the line.
It’s simply lazy parenting.
The New Yorker’s take on the modern dinner party.
In our circles, parents are afraid to limit the party to a few friends and do the easy thing and invite the whole class. In our case, this would mean 25 kids which would be quite a bit of work to manage at home. Hence the prefab parties. I would say that parties of more kids than approximately the number of years of the birthday child are too large for the kid to enjoy. Also, prefab credit card parties are all the same and not particularly memorable for any of the children.
This is on the new: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-32116506
It really boils down to outdoing the Jones next door.
Whether the kids like it better or worse than a home-made party depends on what the home-made party is like and what the alternatives are. If the commercial alternative is something exciting (and they haven’t been there 10 times already for someone else’s party) then they might actually like it better than a boring home party.
During the baby-boom era, having 25 kids at one kid’s birthday party was the norm, having one with 10 or less kids invited was the exception. And yet most parties were held at someone’s house. Note back then the parents of the birthday child wasn’t the only adult at the party, usually two or three other neighbors would help out with the party and clean-up.
It did help that suburban homes back then came with big spacious backyards that could easily handle 25 kids at a time.
It’s my understanding that, in Japan, it’s considered presumptuous to think that one’s dwelling would be good enough to entertain guests, so all entertainment is outsourced to businesses set up for this sort of thing. Plus, the proportion of the population with weird dietary restrictions/preferences has got to have increased since the 70’s. Who needs to deal with that?
I guess the bounce house is more fun than “Pin the tail on the donkey.”
By the way, from what I read in the news these days, kids birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese seem to often devolve into violent brawls among the adults.
@Peter, how useful were these backyards all winter? I can not imagine inviting kids to have fun at -5F windchill or an icy drizzle. The number of days that kids can play outside for a couple of hours is quite low and even fewer are on a weekend. It’s already too outside dark by the time school finishes. There are still plenty of backyard parties but they all start in May and by mid June school is over.
For those of us who grew up in California (and most of the Sun Belt) that was never really a problem. Our backyards were available for parties year round. 🙂
(BTW, I don’t understand in what way throwing a kid’s birthday party has to do with school being in session or not.)
I don’t remember a single birthday party during summer vacation. Maybe it’s a New England thing.
Growing up in MA, large basement rec rooms made good party and gathering locations for kids during the cold weather months.