Gone are the days when children have their birthday celebrated with a simple birthday cake, maybe a pasta dish, preferably spaghetti (as they say, noodles for long life), plus chicken and/or other finger food and of course, ice cream for dessert. Games were included so guests were entertained and had some fun. Then clowns, performing animals, magicians, mascots, costumes, face-painting, balloon art, bubble show, pinata, chocolate fountain plus of course giving of loot bags (not necessarily all of them in one party, but if its possible, why not?) were included in the parties.
Of course expect the expense to be outrageous. Not to mention that this trend will certainly breed jealousy and the feeling that parents (and their children as well) must outdo the other families to prove that they are better parents. For them, maybe this is one way to have their child’s fantasy of being a princess or a pirate come true, even for a day only. But…I don’t know. Having been to these kind of parties, I have observed that guests are just sitting down to watch the performers instead of socializing. Some children even get terrified with those clowns for goodness’ sake. Still the questions that nag me are: Do parents feel they become better parents when they do this? Do parents do this for their child or for themselves?
Click here and here to read about these parties.
This entry was posted on Saturday, February 3rd, 2007 at 12:03 am and is filed under Bits and Pieces, Interesting tidbits, My Thoughts, Parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
