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There are 2 issues here
1) Parties what's appropriate and price - well that depends on individuals and circumstances. I totally disagree with the whole class option but can see the theory. (However my daughter was invited to one of these and I went to drop her off and was so horrified at the sight of so many kids running amok in a church hall that I decided to refuse further invites like that. Quality vs quantity ? )
2) Ex partners and financial issues - Mrs DoT could end up seeing this as a completely different issue and take it as a refusal to pay for childs party or provide the sort of party that she believes is essential for a child............ I'd wish to avoid that misunderstanding
If I wanted to throw a party for a child and my ex wanted to come I think I would probably appreciate a donation. It's a bit like having a family holiday and him expecting to come ? (Different I know but similar financial issue -just because you pay maintenance does not not give you right to events it's spent on) Would I stop him coming ? ......... I can't imagine myself doing that but who knows - I'm not in that circumstance to make comment
The bottom line is that she realises why you think the party is inappropriate and your son gets to be the people he loves at a special time with no 'atmosphere'
The least important is probably who, how many, what and where or how much it costs
31 DV is common and not awful at all (unless you're the teacher I guess!)
My eldest are thriving, doing very well, both now top of their class at selective educational schools and survived such a poor start in life.
Even better they have mixed with a real range of kids and this has had many benefits for them. School is all about preparing for life.
School is all about preparing for life.
Are we talking about the kids or the teachers?
not £180
i have spent £70
Like Beebs I am genuinely puzzled over this "whole class" approach... When I was that age and was asked by my parents "and who would you like to invite?" - my response sure as hell would not have been "everybody" - and nor did anyone else invite "everybody", you invited your friends.??!! I wouldn't have wanted everybody there cos I didn't like everybody.
MY friends, were a handful of kids from my class and a handful of kids varying ages from the village where I lived... not the whole class and the whole village. I can't remember ever feeling upset if some child, who wasn't my friend anyway, didn't invite me to a party... And had someone said that my friend could not invite a lot of people but only have a couple of friends over (and I wasn't one of the chosen three) then that would not have been a drama either...
But then then I wasn't one of those kids who always got everything she asked for when she asked for it... my parents had to tell me from a young age why we couldn't afford certain things... like when you wanted something special, you had to either wait for it (for chrsitmas or whatever) or earn some of it yourself... Being raised like that certainly helped when I was at uni... when I watched other people spend their whole student loan on a stereo and go back to their parents for further handouts cos there wasn't any money for food...
Nam - you had the lessons in life I want my kids to have.
You can't and don't have to like everyone. Not everyone will like you and this is OK (healthy in fact)
You can't have everything you want in life.......... and this is also OK
Society expects a huge amount from life nowadays (owes me a living attitude) and we encourage each other in that view by presenting the 'look at me and my perfect life'
Think a big lesson in life is accepting it's not perfect and it's not down to either someone else to make it so or x amount of money spent on something .
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In them days we was glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
A cup o' cold tea.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Without milk or sugar.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Or tea.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In a cracked cup, an' all.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we never had a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Because we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son".
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, 'e was right.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, 'e was.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in t' corridor!
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Cardboard box?
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.
i can remember my son being absolutely gutted not to be invited to the party of a lad in his class and that was in nursery
i think inviting the whole class when it is only 15 is reasonable - especially in a small village, you have to do it small - just 4 and go to the cinema or something - or everyone
the scale of the party however i do not agree with - bouncy castle and dj seems a lot of money
nam - i didn't either
i think things have changed though - when i was at school people didn't have organised parties, in fact i remember the first party i went to that had party bags - we thought it was well posh! (i am 45 btw not 90)
lol JB - that's exactly what i thought - now you can get the pasting from nam when she sees you
G's 5th birthday party cost about £200 we hired the Scout Hall and booked Mr Boots a childrens entertainer and inivted about 50 kids.
Chaos but great Chaos
I don't see what the big deal is about inviting the whole class - they wont all show up anyway. If you make the food yourself and just play party games the additional cost of another 10 kids is about £15 - and I don't see how having 20 kids at a party is going to spoil a child more than having 10kids is.
The bouncy castle and DJ are probably a bit over the top but some people (not me) dread having to entertain kids and would rather pay £100 than play a few party games - it's their choice again I can't see that one really spoils the kid more than the other. At least Do2s wife is doing the organising herself rather than just paying some soft play place or MacDonalds a fixed fee to do it all for her which is what the majority seem to do now.
LOL JB (and Lurker re the pasting
) 
No honestly, I just don't understand the concept of having to like everybody (even as children). And I suspect that the need or desire to invite everybody often doesn't come from the kids themselves.
There was an interesting programme on not that long ago... It was called somehing like "school gate politics" and looked at the competetive dynamics of some mothers in terms of their kids achievements and general social standing, and how they felt that reflected upon themselves... I thought it was a bit disturbing in terms of what it tought the children....
I don't see what the big deal is about inviting the whole class - they wont all show up anyway.
Yes they do Popsider well G's lot did and lots of their parents stayed as well
It was called somehing like "school gate politics" and looked at the competetive dynamics of some mothers in terms of their kids achievements and general social standing, and how they felt that reflected upon themselves...
I have seen this.. it is quite true... the children are on the periphery to the parents trying to show off...
This is turning into quite an interesting thread about values now ......
Having not long ago dragged my backside out of bed I have been trying to catch up with the thread....there have been some interesting points made, many of which I have to agree with
Someone was talking about not getting everything you asked for and having to earn things - thats how I was brought up too - there simply wasn't the money to get things just because you wanted them, you had to wait until Christmas or Birthdays (and mine are together!) and then wait and see - or when I was older, I worked from the age of 14 to be able to save up and sort myself out. It makes you value things, both material and other things, far far more. From the age of about 12 I understood far more than most of my compatriots do (even now) about budgeting, balancing and managing to make money go a long way on what actually mattered - like feeding 4 on £5 a week (involves a lot of bread and potatoes....!)
Oh yeah and helps survival as a student too
We invited the whole class in reception for our first kid - she has her birthday in the first week of school - Sept 6th - so it was just about impossible to say who her friends were or who they were going to be. It was probably about 22-23 kids and about 20 turned up - didn't cost much and probably got her a few invites to other parties over the year which was nice for her.
Our twins are born in November and we didn't invite quite the whole class but it turned out to be just about all of them as they invited about 8 each - plus themselves - plus one other lad who the teacher asked us to invite because she thought he would be upset and to be honest one extra kid wasn't a hassle and if it made him happy why not.
I can honestly say that we didn't even consider school gate politics or whether we were going to impress other parents (are people impressed that we can afford a £20 rental for a scout hut, some jelly and balloons?) - there was no need to invite everybody - it was just the easiest way of doing it. Probably still cheaper than taking them to a leisure centre and buying them food there KK which is what I think you said you did ? Certainly cheaper than our eldest's last birthday where she went bowling with about 5 friends. Some of the analysis on this thread is way off the mark - what's wrong with just having a party and inviting people because the hall is big enough and there's enough food to go round ?
i was brought up the way nam and barkong describe their upbringings
i am a total spendthrift
useless with money - fortunately my husband is not - and he was brought up by parents who thought the sun shone out of their children's bottoms and gave them everything they could not have in their own impoverished childhoods - so it doesn't always work out so neatly
and i do not want my children to throw away the school trip letters like i did because i knew it was pointless taking them home
but i think there is something in between
i definately do not consider school politics when i organise parties - i have no interest what the other mums think of me - i am old enough to be most of their mums anyway - our parties are a compramise of wat ewe can afford and what they want - we have had trips to the cinema and party tea at ours and we have hired sports halls for football and bouncy stuff parties
sorry - barking
and i do not want my children to throw away the school trip letters like i did because i knew it was pointless taking them home
I think I must be getting old tho cos school trips seem to have gone nuts in my mind too. We went for two-day trips to some city of interest, night in a youth hostel... not abroad. Today its a week skiing somewhere...