Happy Birthday - Cha-Ching!

(photo by Johnny Blood. http://digital-photography-school.com)

My daughter is turning four soon, and I suppose I began planning her birthday party the day after her last one. I tend to plan elaborate, fairly complicated, grand events. Oh, and expensive, too. My eldest son had 22 kids at his last birthday party which we had at Chuck E. Cheese's. Thank god for Grandpa. His present to my son was the party itself, which clocked in at an exorbitant amount, even by my standards.

So as I was running through the options for my daughter's shindig, my husband casually said, "Are you sure your doing this for Gigi? You know, she's four, right?" Apparently, 'them's fightin' words!'. I got my back up, he stood firm, he got righteous, I got self-righteous, he got indignant, I honed my obstinance. Oyve. Three hours later, when we were able to speak to each other again, and I had realized divorce was not a reasonable response to the question, we actually began to discuss the party - why we were having it, what the options were, how we would make the decision.

Is it reasonable to spend upwards of $200 for a preschooler's birthday party? Should they have anything outside of family celebrations at all? When I recovered from the sticker shock of my son's party, I spoke to a couple of friends about it. One mom of three, whose opinion I respect on all things, told me her daughters hadn't had birthday parties until they were 8 or 9, and then only with 2 or 3 friends. Another friend only started having parties once her kids were in school, and then only at her house.

I contacted a variety of service providers - animal wranglers who come to your house, indoor playgrounds, tea party hosts, cooking schools, plush animal stuffers, and without fail each event was in the neighbourhood of $15-20 per child, meaning $150-$200 for 10-12 kids, plus taxes, loot bags, and cake. Is this really reasonable? What are we teaching our kids by having such elaborate affairs every year? Why am I compelled to enter into this hysteria and pathological consumption?

I really don't have any answers. I think in part the providers recognized a viable market and are exploiting it - more power to them. It's a sweet gig, it makes kids happy, and hopefully pays the rent. But am I creating little monsters who will feel entitled to massive celebrations each year? What happens when we don't have a blow out? What will the fallout be?

I justified my son's extravaganza, after the fact, by rationalizing that our family doesn't have extended family in our community. We adopted friends and neighbours as our extended family and we don't really entertain except for two birthday parties a year, so they aren't really birthday parties, but really, really large family get-togethers. That carried me for six months, but now it's down to brass tacks. If it's really true that the bashes are more than just birthday parties, then my husband's question is valid: who am I really doing this for?