Competing Parents - Keeping Up With The Jones

Birthday Party Overboard! When Did a Kids' Party Get So Out of Control?

By
Relationship Advice Expert April Masini

Q: Dear April Masini,

My son came home from a birthday party recently where the boy (who, by the way, is in preschool) had a petting zoo transported to his backyard. The kids spent the day playing with animals and learning about the different kinds from a Crocodile-Hunter-type guide. Then they got PONY rides! 

I'm planning my son's party now. I had thought I was going to keep it simple: pizza, cake and ice cream, some fun party games, a couple of hours in the backyard. But I almost feel like I have to plan some sort of blowout to compete with what the other kids in his class are doing. Where is this trend coming from?

Sincerely,

Longing for Simpler Days 

A:

Dear Longing for Simpler Days,

Parents have gotten so insecure about raising their children, that they use their kids to compete with each other. A recent New York Times article about talented kids who didn't get into Harvard echoes this sentiment of competition. Rather than accept that life isn't "fair", parents and then their children, who are insecure, strive to make sure their children get "the best" -- whether it's too many lessons after school, admissions to Harvard or admissions to a hot pre-school. 

And it doesn't stop there. 

Birthday parties for children are no longer a cake, a goody bag of candy and a game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey. There is a prerequisite entertainer at children's birthday parties in every expanding fashionable circles. And when Gymboree parties or hired out-of-work actors masquerading as Barney or Cinderella became trite and passe, parents dug deeper to be different and better by way of their kids parties. 

Educational parties where insect, reptile and petting zoos, science guys and other entertainers keep tykes busy until it's cake time, are employed are just another pawn in the "I'm better than you game" that parents play among themselves. While these "educational" parties are usually preferable to "mindless" fun parties to most parents, I am afraid that the point of them is not education, but competition. 

With so much technology and disposable income changing families around the globe, keeping up with the jones' still exists.

April Masini -- nicknamed "the new millennium's Dear Abby" by the media, is author of the best-selling books Date Out Of Your League and Think & Date Like A Man, the two (just released) step-by-step dating and relationship manuals, Ideas for a Fun Date and Romantic Date Ideas, and the critically acclaimed dating and relationship online magazine www.AskApril.com.

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