Kid’s Birthday Party Etiquette
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Eh… I don’t think it’s being a dick to NOT want to entertain some clingy helicopter mom when one is busy throwing a god damn birthday party for a bunch of kids.
Christ. It’s parents like this that keep churning out all these none functioning useless adults.
Yeah. My patience is at an end with helpless twentysomethings. For fuck’s sake I keep dealing with twentysomethings lately who find work related phone calls to be too emotionally taxing. Too stressful. Heh. I bet they were never left alone at birthday parties either.
Let your kids fucking grow up.
I’m dealing with a 23-y/o intern and it’s exactly like babysitting. She’s a child.
Anyhoo, I do think this is what parenting has become. It’s not like the 70s and 80s when we were left alone for hours at a time. Accommodations probably do have to be made for some people. But I definitely wouldn’t entertain this mom and would let her know what she can help with.
Whatever.
I’ll still be going to parties for my 6 and 7 year olds at homes I don’t know the parents well because I don’t want my kids to be diddled by your weird uncle Al. If you have kids in this day and age and seriously look around and trust all the parents you don’t know…I doubt you exist.
I haven’t actually been to any kids party yet where everyone drops them off. I did it that way to have less people breathing air in my home. I let a few parents stay. It didn’t kill me.
I think people also need to remember, those who grew up “back in your day” with being left alone for hours, little to no supervision, etc. those are the people who grew up and decided that’s not how they wanted to parent their own kids.
I also don’t understand why it’s such a big deal to let this woman stay and visit with you and the two other parents who are staying. Ask her for assistance if you need it, but i mean how long can a birthday party for 6/7 year olds be? She’s not going to over stay her welcome this time because it’ll be very obvious when the party is over…and you’ll say “Thank you for coming, Bye!”
I don’t know how you even let her stay for dinner the last time. Maybe she thought you were both having a pleasant time and couldn’t figure out how to get herself out of the situation either. You might just both be socially awkward.
I will say, I think Gen X had a high rate of being sexually abused because we were left on our own so much. You’re lucky, Mark, if that never happened to you, but we were actually not very safe. So yes, it is people who grew up like that who are going in the other direction.
Eh, you’re really fearing the Boogieman here. The amount of children molested at birthday parties must surely pale to that of those molested by mom’s new boyfriend / stepdaddy. Not to mention — the Clergy.
And to add to my last point, we Gen X we’re raised by Silent Gen and Boomers who, yes, also roamed a lot, BUT typically had parents who stayed married and moms who were at home. People’s moms were keeping an eye on things. But a lot of our parents (not mine, but many) were divorced, and our moms went to work. Until dinner time my parents were genuinely not there, or were busy with work (they could work remote bc they worked for tech). My friends and I were latchkey kids from a really young age, which I think was kind of unique to that generation, and we got in all kinds of danger, right? Yeah, we’re self sufficient now, but we were pretty neglected and a lot of us got hurt. So I get why parents became a lot more vigilant. There are other socioeconomic factors at play too, like needing to work a lot harder for your kid to go to college and succeed.
Mark you’re talking out your ass. Pretty much everyone here was touched inappropriately by someone. Sure, some by priests, but a lot more likely by a family member or mom’s boyfriend. Get out of here with your bullshit.
AND we were pretty unsupervised at birthday parties and did things like bully each other or OD on Tylenol.
The people who messed with me inappropriately were older kids, not adults. That type of thing absolutely happens in the home.
LW – I’d like to suggest putting outdoor/indoor video cameras in your home that parents can easily get access to during the party.
If these kids are young enough that they need supervision than this would be a great way to make the parents feel more at ease. And not to mention, they might feel less likely to hang around.
Cameras around your home is a bridge too far I think for a lot of people. I’d take a bunch of needy parents in my house a thousand times over them randomly watching from a room in theirs.
