Thanks to cheeky school mums I had to pay £150 more for my son’s birthday

WHAT would you do if the cost of your child’s primary school birthday suddenly skyrocketed – all because of the actions of a school mum.

Well, this happened to Lauren Libin, 42 from Brighton, and mother of two children aged 10 and 6, when she was planning a party for her youngest.

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Here she tells everything to Fabulous…

I recently organized a birthday party for my son at a large soft play venue in the city to celebrate him turning six.

Because his birthday is in the summer, our class has never thrown him a big party and always opted for smaller family events.

But this year he really wanted to celebrate with his school friends in a big adventure play attraction.

So we decided to do it after his birthday in September, to make sure there were more children present and not on holiday.

He’s in a class with twenty kids, so we thought it would be fairest to invite them all.

I quickly put together a WhatsApp invite and sent it to the class WhatsApp group.

People responded by adding their child’s name to an ongoing list, after which one mother, who was the tenth person to confirm this, added both her daughter’s name and her younger sibling’s name to the list, without messaging me first to check whether this was in order.

I was immediately shocked, because I thought it was obvious if you invited a child to a paid party (not a party at your home) that only the child would be invited, and not their sibling(s).

Even though I was irritated and somewhat irritated by this, I decided not to respond (because my husband told me it would come across as petty) and say that this was only for the child in my son’s year, and not for their sibling .

What came next was even more annoying, however, as everyone else in the group who had additional children added them to the list as well, regardless of whether they had already answered or would do so.

Some people may think I’m being petty, but this message from a parent, which others saw as a sign that it was okay to add their other children to the list, cost me an extra £150!

I wish I had messaged the parent right back
added the first sibling and said no.

British politeness took over and I said nothing.

Laurens

But I guess British politeness took over and I said nothing.

Personally, I don’t think it’s okay to add a sibling to a list without first consulting the birthday child’s parent.

Not only do you pay for the brother or sister to attend the party (which wasn’t cheap), and for feeding and watering them, but you also have to provide them with a party bag.

Plus, most six year olds don’t want an extra ten younger kids who aren’t friends at their party!

Because all the siblings were younger (one to four years old), the dynamic also changed, as the bigger boys wanted to play rough in the soft play and had to constantly watch out for toddlers at their feet.

Ultimately, he had fifteen friends from his class and ten of their siblings.

Children’s birthday parties are already ridiculously expensive, a survey shows
recently released stating that an average child’s birthday party costs a
a whopping £524.

The average price of £524 includes decorations, venue hire, food, gift bags and entertainment.

Nearly 50 percent of those surveyed said that organizing a birthday party for their child was one of the most stressful things they have ever done.

I’m not surprised as this party cost us just under £500, which is a lot more than we originally planned to spend, and I think it has put me off having a big party in the future.

Lesson learned, next year it will be strictly a name at the invitation party!