Parents at kids' birthday parties?

[turnip]

I vaguely recall that in one of the first threads I posted to here, parents were accused of being 'rude' for _staying_ at a party at a 'paint your own trinket' place, since the location charged per attendee.     Evidently there is no sure-fire way to please everyone on this subject!

If that happens, adult pays for themselves.

But would they be rude for leaving?   Or is it supposed to be understood that if my child is invited to one of these parties, I need to plan to cover my own admission.

Honestly - I think if someone here got a party invitation:

"Please join us for little FooFoo's party at PaintItUp in Grass Valley*" 


"*The cost will be $$ per adult, please make sure one adult can stay for supervision"

Well, I don't think that would go over well. 

[Sharnita]

Turnip, I might lift an eyebrow but I think I would politely decline and just tuck it away under "isn't that interesting/funny".  I might also decide that they have different ideas about hosting/entertainment and that we might not be the tightest of friends.

[Rohanna]

Where I live it seems to run that for "friend" parties (as opposed to family and close family friend parties) that the parent usually stay until the kid is in grade 1, and then the expectation is generally that the child is dropped off. Even with quite helicopterish parents in the 80's, my folks never stayed at McD's or such once I hit grade school. It was expected that the birthday host either asked the parents to stay (on the invite) or that they would arrange adequate supervision themselves.

I was a little surprised to have a couple of the 3 and 4 year olds left at my sons birthday last year, because in my mind strangers or relative strangers shouldn't have to help a child with toileting, and a 3 year old often needs help in the bathroom. The average healthy 7 year old won't, and they are already, in most cases, used to going to school where the "supervision" may only be one adult for 25 or so kids. I would have no problem leaving my seven year old at a play center for a party if he knew his home phone number, how to approach a responsible adult for help, who to go to if he was lost, and how to go to the bathroom independently. I could do all that at 7 and had no problems going to friends parties at homes and public places- I would have been the scut of much playground teasing if my mom had stayed with me!

[Danika]

She replied that parents were free to leave because they have the place all to themselves. Saying "the place" was when I realized that it might not be at their home. I had to search on the internet to see what was at that address. Google said it was a store that sold antiques. That didn't make sense. I did more digging. That antique store went out of business a couple of years ago. So it was a building in a commercial district but I didn't know what it was. I had to dig more on the internet and found that it's a new kids' party place with bounce houses. There will likely be tons of other strangers there. No way am I leaving my 5-year-old alone in a place like that.

Poor communication!

Actually, if she said she they had the whole place to themselves, I would think she'd paid extra to rent the entire party space, and there wouldn't be any strangers other than the employees.

That said, yes, it was poor communication to say just "3794 Whatever Street" instead of "the Discovery Zone at 3794 Whatever Street." (Does Discovery Zone still exist? I remember they had a horribly catchy commercial back in the nineties.)

True. I think I was skeptical of the "having the place to ourselves" bit when I researched the party place more online. I think it's one of those places that has "Bounce Room A" with 4 separate parties going on in that room and another room called "Bounce Room B" with 4 more parties' worth of guests in that room. Then, there are smaller, individual rooms for eating cake, and those are the things they have to themselves, for the individual parties. But that's not for the entire time. That is, if it's like all the other party places I've been. And then the restrooms are in a separate corridor, so adults and kids from any of the 8 parties, plus the folks who work at the place use those.

You all have brought up good points. DD doesn't have our address memorized or my phone number. I think I'll err on the side of helicopter parent and hang in the wings anyway instead of leaving.

[Emmy]

I vaguely recall that in one of the first threads I posted to here, parents were accused of being 'rude' for _staying_ at a party at a 'paint your own trinket' place, since the location charged per attendee.     Evidently there is no sure-fire way to please everyone on this subject!

If that happens, adult pays for themselves.

But would they be rude for leaving?   Or is it supposed to be understood that if my child is invited to one of these parties, I need to plan to cover my own admission.

Honestly - I think if someone here got a party invitation:

"Please join us for little FooFoo's party at PaintItUp in Grass Valley*" 


"*The cost will be $$ per adult, please make sure one adult can stay for supervision"

Well, I don't think that would go over well.

I think if the birthday child's parents expect other parents to stay for the party and help out with the kids, they should pay for the adult's food/admission to the place.  It would be rude to expect parents to stay, but not feed them and have them pay admission.  If only the child's name was on the envelope and there was no hint in the invitation that the parent was invited to stay, I think it is a bit silly and unfair for the LW to whine that the parents left and accuse them of wanting 'free babysitting'. 

As a parent, if I wasn't technically invited to a party, but wanted to stay, I wouldn't expect food and would stay out of the way.  However, I think it is rude for a host to expect parents to do this.