My birthday party policy

In an effort to encourage “inclusivity,” many schools have all-or-nothing policies: Invite everyone in a class or no one. It seems especially thoughtful for parents – postponing the dreaded day when we will have to explain to our children why they were not invited. But these policies impose a scale on these events indifferent to family budgets or the desire for an intimate gathering.

It all starts with assembling the requisite gift bag. As one member of the Parents Against Goodie Bags Facebook group laments: “Isn’t spending $100-$1000 on entertainment & food enough? Do we really need to saddle our friends with more pencils, erasers and plastic trinkets that inevitably find their way into the trash?”

On the big day, the party is 90 minutes of carefully choreographed fun (set in a contained, well-supervised space) that shuffles kids from arrival to playtime to pizza, capped off with a hearty rendition of “Happy Birthday,” a slice of cake, and a friendly escort to the door. Fill-in-the-blank thank you notes arrive within 48 hours.

Our family policy is simple: one party per weekend per kid, which seems fair to the three of them and to us.

It’s not just the sheer volume of these events that wears us down. It’s the need to find some errand that will take exactly 70 minutes and be within a 4-mile radius of the party so you can be back promptly for pickup. It’s telling younger siblings they can’t go (online discussion boards are flush with rants about parents who bring uninvited “extras” – once known as “siblings” – thus incurring an extra fee for the host).

These parties are often wonders to behold, and our kids have a blast seeing their friends and eating a pound of icing. I know that the parents want to do something memorable and sweet for their kids, but should we feel guilty if we want to keep ours home sometimes?