Kids’ birthday parties, now with more stress and less fun

Even parties for toddlers now come with attendant pressure

Icould barely sleep all last week, what with the stress and guilt building day by day. The source of my duress? My children’s third birthday party.

Why all the stress and guilt? We had close to 50 (50!) people attending a “Filipino-style” party (read: a full buffet meal would be provided). My mother-in-law offered to provide the majority of the food, which you think would calm me, but I had no knowledge of what dishes and how many would be served.

Despite her reassurances that everything would be fine I felt nervous. I also felt guilty because she was genuinely surprised I wasn’t taking the day off work to be with the twins on their birthday. Wasn’t the big party on the weekend enough?

Apparently in Toronto, many Moms take the day off to visit their child’s daycare or classroom with baked goods of some sort. I don’t recall this ever happening as a kid in Cape Breton.

Sometimes I just have to shake my head at how overthe-top some Toronto Moms can be. (I say Moms, but I’m sure there are Dads schlepping homemade cupcakes to their kid’s class too). To sidestep any future guilt, I’ve made a mental note to request a vacation day on the twins’ birthday next year.

I spent the night before the party assembling many loot bags full of sparkly, noisy stuff that my friend Laurie describes quite accurately as “crap.” Then I started baking cupcakes ( from a mix… Betty Crocker I ain’t) for a decorate-your- own- cup-cake table. I assembled a variety of dress-up items from my tickle trunk to create a do-it-yourself photo booth. Bernard downloaded some tunes for the party and couldn’t figure out what I was so stressed about. Cut to me biting my tongue.

I can’t be alone in my birthday party anxiety. Billions of dollars are spent every year in the U.S. on kids’ birthday parties. I’m sure Canadians aren’t far behind. And these aren’t the parties of yesteryear either.

In a recent Daily Telegraph column, author Anna Maxted wrote, “Certainly, holding a party for young children has become a nerve-shredding production. Entertaining 30plus excitable small guests is only the start. For no longer do their parents drop off, wish you luck and scarper. Nowadays 30 adults lounge and gossip, while the host ferries tea and coffee like a geisha.”

Gone are the days when a kid could assemble her closest six pals and head to the Burger King in Sydney (or the Ponderosa. Nothing says Happy Birthday like a flat, yet very tasty steak and baked potato). Or even a quaint party at home, with hotdogs, cake and Pop Shoppe pop to look forward to. A little Pin the Tail on the Donkey, a little hot potato or musical chairs, some food and a quick gift opening and people were on with their day. When did birthday parties go off the rails?

Well I am happy to report Gavin and Lauren’s third birthday party went off without a hitch. Folks enjoyed the buffet lunch, they posed enthusiastically for photos wearing boas and oversized sunglasses, and some of them even ate cupcakes covered in horrible purple and green icing. The twins freaked me out by popping balloons with their fingernails in my vicinity. That night as I sipped some alcohol and recovered from the mayhem, I tried to push a horrible thought out of my mind, but it was persistent: “How can we top this party next year?”