Kids Birthday Parties

This past weekend was my middle child Prue’s birthday party. Prue was born three days before Christmas, so this year, we decided to have her party a little early to ensure that other children could attend as well. Last year, because it was so close, or rather during their Christmas break, many people were unable to attend. Last year, she ended up with only one kid showing up, and at the last minute, I convinced our neighbor to bring her son as well. I felt horrible for her. It brought me straight back to my oldest daughter, whose birthday was at the very end of the summer, and the same thing used to happen to her.

This year, I decided to ensure she had lots of girls attend. We had it at the beginning of the month and invited 12 kids. But low and behold, only two kids showed up. Thankfully, Prue was happy about hanging out with the two girls, but I still couldn’t help feeling mad about the situation.

We are the parents that let Prue go to every party she is invited to. She loves going to them and always comes home having had the best time with all of her friends. But for us as parents, it's not always the easiest thing to do. For starters, we live paycheck to paycheck, and when everyone on earth is nickel-and-diming us to death, a ten- to fifteen-dollar gift starts to become a lot when she has birthday parties once a month or more that she is being invited to.

Then there is always the factor of whether or not we feel comfortable leaving her there or not. Sometimes, it is just one of us on parent duty for the weekend, and hanging out at these parties with Asher and Hazel is absolutely not possible. However, we also don’t always feel comfortable leaving her at someone else's house. So, we often find ourselves playing the game of judging whether the people we've just met are trustworthy enough to watch our child for a couple of hours.

If we get the feeling that they are not, then we have to force ourselves to make small talk with people we don’t know for two or more hours. I don’t know about you, but I would rather get a pap smear. I loathe this. I am very socially awkward anymore, and this fills me with immense dread at the thought of the idea. My husband is great at this, though. He can enter a gas station and make ten new friends inside. I love and hate this about him. Thankfully he realizes that I have become damn near phobic about these things and takes pity on me most of the time.

So, this week, Prue comes home with yet another birthday party invitation. This time, it is for the upcoming weekend and is from one of the girls we invited to her party, who 1. Did not come, but 2. Also, did not RSVP. I started ranting to my husband about how f’ up I thought the entire situation was and how I couldn’t believe the audacity of this woman. Of course, my husband placated me with “I know, right?” and “Yeah, messed up,” but I could tell that even he was thinking, “Lord, here she goes.”

I mean, am I wrong? I suppose it's possible that the invitation did not reach her parents (through the passing of trusty 7-8-year-old hands). But Prue had said that this girl hadn’t come to her party because her mom wouldn’t let her. All of this makes me want to be petty and rsvp to this woman with something like, “Sorry, Prue can’t make it. It’s a shame ____ couldn’t attend Prue’s party last weekend.” But I know when the time comes, I will end up being the bigger person. But damn.

I feel like the moral of this is that when you don’t allow your child to attend other kids' birthday parties because you're being lazy, cheap, or whatever, it's not a good look. Please take a moment to imagine your child having one or no kids show up to their party. So, stop being selfish and take your kid to the party.