Kids Parties

Today, I read an article on the ABC news. It was about parents going all out on their kids birthday parties. Spending $30 to $40,000 is nothing on a six year old's birthday. This one particular 6 year old started the day before her birthday at the spa. Then her parents let her pick out her own cake and had 300 dresses for the other kids at her party. They had 2,000 flowers and 40 something center pieces. She had hair dressers and stylists. She and her parents were even arrived in a horse pulled carriage.It was princess themed, and of course she was dressed like an extravagant princess. Then the girl started crying when one of birds on her cake was blue instead of purple. The grand finale was a brand new car. For a six year old. A social worker said that having parties like these for children sets the bar even higher when they get older. Every milestone, every birthday, everything, will require a party, and each one will have to out do the previous one. It not only costs so much money, but it sets the kids expectations so high. She says it also makes the parents feel like they are doing a good job. Its an opportunity for the parents to show off and be the center of attention and seem to be the best parent in the world. I think the parents are crippling the children and not setting the right example. That's not how the real world works. If you do that to your children, they learn no sense of value and expect every one to cater to their every whim. Which make them unlikeable. I had a big party for my first son's first birthday, just friends and family. We had cake and he opened his presents. We felt the need to not leave anyone out. His second was immediate family only with their great grandmas. For his third birthday, I decided to have a pool party, for our closest friends and family. That was the biggest party we've ever had. We'd rather go bowling or swimming than have lots of presents.  Well, that didn't work out in my favor. My husband has a huge family and we didn't invite all his second and third cousins. We did invite the ones that my kids were close to and played with all the time. I got my butt chewed by my mother in laws twin sister for her grand daughters not being there. So my view on parties is if you can handle the slack of doing thins your own way, that's the way to go, or as my husband wanted to do with our youngest, was just not do any big parties like we'd had for our first. I put my foot down with that one. They weren't going to be treated any differently. If I get another ass chewing, I can handle it. These are my kids. I'll raise them my way, and anyone that doesn't like it doesn't have to be around us. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/parents-spend-big-bucks-outrageous-kids-birthday-parties/story?id=12961352&page=2