Paying to attend a child's birthday party.

Spendless

fabforty wrote: »

Because it says so on the invites of course, how else?

In the case where the parents have hired the hall, under the address, date, time, it has a line which simply says 'cost: £6 per child' and the parents enclosed a sheet of paper (I thought it was a present list at first!) which explains that the £6 will cover the cost of the booked entertainment including face-painting, balloon artist etc. For the 'tumble tot' type party (it's not tumble tots but I can't recall the real name), the invitation asks for RSVPs and (non-refundable) payment by a given date.

I thought I'd given an example of 'how else' when a previous poster had asummed she needed to pay by asking 'how much?' and the host replying with the cost? and because no-one thought to query it on her thread, why she thought she needed to pay, she ended up not going over something which was likely to have been a misunderstanding.:)

That case isn't the same as yours where the amount has been included on an invite? Is it definately a birthday party? My only other thought is it's more a group gathering to give kids something to do during the summer and as such everyone attending is being asked to chip in with costs. That's something many won't agree with, the view being you host, your idea, you pay but wouldn't be as strange (to me at least)as asking guests to pay to attend your child's birthday party, which I have not come across.

ETA- Do you know any of the other children invited and their parents? What are they doing and how do they feel about being asked to pay for going? That might give you an idea if it's the 'norm' where you live.

jellyhead

Janepig wrote: »

That looked like fun, I didn't know they did parties there where you could make pizzas. DD would have loved that but is probably past that now . When's Roo's big day?

Jx

On Monday ... the kids were a bit rowdy to be honest, I don't know if 8 is too old or if I just don't look stern enough

They didn't roll out their own dough, but they put sauce, cheese and toppings onto a ready made base.

fabforty

Spendless wrote: »

I thought I'd given an example of 'how else' when a previous poster had asummed she needed to pay by asking 'how much?' and the host replying with the cost? and because no-one thought to query it on her thread, why she thought she needed to pay, she ended up not going over something which was likely to have been a misunderstanding.:)

That case isn't the same as yours where the amount has been included on an invite? Is it definately a birthday party? My only other thought is it's more a group gathering to give kids something to do during the summer and as such everyone attending is being asked to chip in with costs. That's something many won't agree with, the view being you host, your idea, you pay but wouldn't be as strange (to me at least)as asking guests to pay to attend your child's birthday party, which I have not come across.

ETA- Do you know any of the other children invited and their parents? What are they doing and how do they feel about being asked to pay for going? That might give you an idea if it's the 'norm' where you live.

Gosh, you really are overthinking this, aren't you ?

'Yes' they are definitely birthday parties, and before you ask, I know this because they are birthday party invitations, the parties are happening on the respective children's birthdays and the parents have described them as birthday parties .

notanewuser

Been thinking about this. DD has 4 close friends that she's known since birth. They will all be turning 3 within the next 3 months. We tend to arrange a day out somewhere fun - last year it was joint for all of them. One turned 3 on Friday and we just went to a local pub with a beer garden for lunch. Each paid for their own food, but took presents for the birthday girl and her parents brought a small cake. It was lovely, and only arranged that morning!

Sometimes we'll go to more expensive places, and pay our own way, but our group I'd so close knot that we mark each birthday with the same importance.

DD only started playgroup in April and so I don't really know the children that are inviting everybody to their parties. In those cases I'm happy to take a gift but no way would I contribute to the costs!!

meritaten

I thought I was being oldfashioned by being horrified at being charged to attend a birthday party for a toddler. I am reassured now - so many of you are horrified too! and think the good old party with jelly and icecream and games is the norm! tbh - the kids don't care! they just want to scarf down food and have fun!

Spendless

fabforty wrote: »

Gosh, you really are overthinking this, aren't you ?

'Yes' they are definitely birthday parties, and before you ask, I know this because they are birthday party invitations, the parties are happening on the respective children's birthdays and the parents have described them as birthday parties .

Nope. I just remember the other thread where no-one asked the OP why she thought she had to pay to attend, no-one discovered that she'd asked the question to the birthday child's parent of how much it was and thought that she was being charged based on their answer, without considering that there had been a mis-understanding leading to child missing out on going to a party. Since I remember asking those questions to the poster concerned and if someone had asked earlier it might have had a different outcome to what happened I thought I'd bring it up here, just in case it was of any help, obviously it wasn't.

fabforty

Spendless wrote: »

Nope. I just remember the other thread where no-one asked the OP why she thought she had to pay to attend, no-one discovered that she'd asked the question to the birthday child's parent of how much it was and thought that she was being charged based on their answer, without considering that there had been a mis-understanding leading to child missing out on going to a party. Since I remember asking those questions to the poster concerned and if someone had asked earlier it might have had a different outcome to what happened I thought I'd bring it up here, just in case it was of any help, obviously it wasn't.

Fair enough and I appreciate the response and the fact that you were just trying to put an alternative view - apologies if I sounded as if I was having a dig .

Janepig

jellyhead wrote: »

On Monday ... the kids were a bit rowdy to be honest, I don't know if 8 is too old or if I just don't look stern enough

They didn't roll out their own dough, but they put sauce, cheese and toppings onto a ready made base.

Well if it was mostly boys then I'd be worried if they weren't being rowdy! If DS and the boys in his class did something like that it would probably end up in that branch of Pizza Hut getting burned down or something. It would be mayhem! Luckily he doesn't like pizza so our local Pizza Hut is safe! I hope you've recovered by now anyway and at least it's over for another year (or is it just me that always thinks that after a party?:D)!

This all reminds me that when he goes back to school in September it's party season again because his class have their birthdays between September and March. I'm hoping it will slow down considerably now that they are going to hit juniors, and become mostly sleepovers and the like. Although DS has already said he wants to go to laserzone for some gun fun with his pals - he never gets to go anywhere near his birthday though, being an awkward Boxing Day boy!!

Jx

raq

cutestkids wrote: »

Never heard of having to pay to go to a kids Birthday party, I think if I were you I would be declining both the invites.

I agree , I wouldn,t go either.

Funny enough, my 12 year old is going to a party next week and the boy who is 13 is having a party and mentioned to my daughter he only wants "Hollister" items. My jaw fell to be honest with you. What happened to just turning up at parties and having a good time ?

susancs

I have never heard of parents of young children charging their child's friends to attend a birthday party before this thread. Very cheeky behaviour IMO, expecting other parents to fund their child's party. When mine were younger there was never any sugguestion of payment to attend a party.

With teens however it seems to be a different matter as I have noticed that they have several get togethers to celebrate birthdays, arranged by the teens themselves and it seems more of a meet up type of invitation where they are expected to pay for themselves e.g. meet up for bowling, ice skating, swimming, a meal etc. However a lot also have smaller get together events in their houses such as BBQs, dvd/games consul with food provided by the parents. They are funny as they seem to regress once they hit 15 and want bouncy castles, padding pools, water slides again in the back garden.