The rise of social media has changed much of the parenting landscape, and this is especially noticeable with birthday parties for kids. In this article, you’ll find a plea to return birthday parties to their former simplicity, information on how to host an at-home birthday party, and a thorough FAQs about kid parties. Let’s turn back the clock on birthdays.
What happened to birthday parties for kids?
I believe birthday parties for kids has been one of the great casualties of the Social Media Parenting Era. What used to be as simple as inviting a few friends over for games and cake is now a Keeping Up with the Jones’ moment of trying to equal someone else’s standard or outdo another.
Where simple parties with minimal decor used to reign supreme instead elaborate, crafty, Pinterest-fueled, “will look so good in pictures,” parties have taken over. I apologize for being so frank here, but the pressure of families to overextend themselves for a birthday party is real.
It sometimes feels like it takes the fun out of planning a child’s party and replaces it with a pressure that other parenting generations didn’t have to face.
These “postable” parties take attention, time, and money and put parents on full display. It’s normal to see giant, intricate parties on social media feeds. So normal we’ve come to think it’s the only way for a party to look.
But just because something has been normalized doesn’t mean it’s always the right call, best call, or a must-do for every family.
Disclaimer: If you love a giant party, can afford them, and truly enjoy it for your children: AWESOME! I’m so happy for you. But if giant parties and big budgets aren’t working for your family, I hope this post helps.
Let’s put a magnifying glass on birthday parties
The part that gets lost in all the feed posts showing glamorous birthdays is cost.
There’s a time cost: parents spending hours they may or may not have to curate and craft a themed event.
And there’s a monetary cost: I’ll break this down for my family in the Seattle area.
A large party at a play space would cost well over $500. No joke: the bouncy place is $455 to rent on the weekends… and that’s without any food costs. Here’s the math: I have 3 kids so that would be $1,500 a year on birthdays, minimum. By the time my kids each reach ten years old, I could easily have spent $15,000 on birthday parties.
This doesn’t work for me.
Again, if it works for you – fantastic! My kids love going to bouncy place birthdays. Feel free to invite us.
There is nothing wrong with a giant birthday party, but there is something wrong with feeling we have to do this every single year.
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My plug for simple birthday parties for kids
There is something so beautiful about the intimacy of a home party. Your home doesn’t need to be fancy, large, or lavish. Home is home. Children love to show off their space.
Invite a few kids over. You do not need to invite the entire class (I’ll dive into this more in the FAQ section). My Mom said that when she was parenting in the 1980s and 1990s, the rule of thumb was to invite the same number of kids for their age.
Again, there is absolutely nothing wrong with these giant Pinterest-worthy parties, but we have got to change the narrative from those being the norm and expectation back to those being rare and exceptions.
The party is about the child, not the place, the decorations, the food, the guest list, or the expense.
It’s about the child.
All our kids want on their birthday is to feel loved and celebrated, and that can happen no matter how big or small the party is.
A walk through of my daughter’s 5th birthday
I’m a visual learner so I’ll walk you through my daughter’s old school 5th birthday. Think 1990s style. A few friends, some easy decor, endless free play, and cupcakes.
Theme: Pajamas and Pancakes
Time: 9:30 am to 11:30 am
Location: Out house
We made breakfast for our wee guests and all the kids came in pajamas. A morning party is great for my daughter who gets very nervous for events. Early morning meant she didn’t have much time to stew on things.
The Guest List:
We had 10 kids at the party: 6 from preschool, 1 neighbor best friend, 2 brothers, and 1 birthday girl.
We do not invite our extended family to birthdays. We did for each child’s first and from then on, it was about the child, their birthday, and their friends. It’s helped to simply things.
We also stated on the invite that parents were free to stay or drop off. All parents dropped off, except for one (whose child was only 3.5 years old). We had a 10:3 kid to parent ratio and it was great.
Here’s a quick look at the set up
This wasn’t an elaborate set-up and yet, the pictures are still adorable for social media (wink).
Activities:
My daughter, whose Mom runs Busy Toddler, wanted Rainbow Rice at her party. Sold. We made up a few extra bins for the guests to play with to go along with the bin that we pretty much always have sitting out.
Here are the quick and easy directions for Rainbow Rice.
Favors:
Normally, I don’t do favors. It’s not my style to give out candy and tiny toys, and party favors expensive. I didn’t even do favors at my wedding. BUT, my daughter wondered if each kid could make a jar of rainbow rice to take home.
The idea was too cute, too sweet, and frankly, too on brand to pass up. Sold.
During the party, I pulled each kid aside and helped them put together their own, personalized jar. It was also a fun way for me to meet each child since I only ever saw them at preschool drop off.
Food:
Going with the pancake theme, we made up mini homemade pancakes for the guests, scrambled eggs, and a fruit salad. We also had juice boxes because we are fancy like that. I kept the eggs warm in the oven and my husband made the pancakes in record time.
Later we had cupcakes and sang to our new 5-year-old and here’s my favorite tip: Make mini cupcakes. One recipe (I always use this one) will make 72 mini cupcakes. I let each kid have two and I looked like a hero.
What did the kids do?
Play. They played. We opened the house to free play and our little birthday girl bloomed. What a gorgeous moment for her to share her toys, house, and life with her friends.
A breakdown of the timeline:
9:30-10:15 The kids played for about 45 minutes throughout the house.
10:15 – 10:30 Breakfast
10:30 – 10:45 More playing
10:45 – 11:15 Cupcakes and opening presents
11:15 – 11:30 (Guess what?) More playing until pick up
It went by FAST!!!
A breakdown of the cost:
A few notes: My MIL sends up $20 for each kid’s birthday party because that’s her way of helping out and being a part of the fun. We always use that money for decorations.
I absolutely could have skipped the rainbow rice party favors and if I had, this party would have cost under $50. The rainbow rice was a complete extra, add-on and was more a fun thing to do because I own a website that’s basically dedicated to rainbow rice.
The bottom line about birthday parties
Make the best decision for your family, but don’t for a moment think that a simple birthday party with a few friends and some store-bought decorations isn’t enough.
Don’t let that be a take-away from social media.
If your family loves doing an over-the-top party and it fills your bucket, fantastic. Have the most magical time creating those events.
If your family would prefer to do something small but you’ve been led to believe large parties are the only way, please remember this post.
And remember who the party is about. Remember your budget, your family, your needs. You’ll make the best choice for your crew, I’m confident of that.
The birthday party for kids FAQ
On the e-vite, I wrote “Drop off or stay – depending on what is best for your child.” Since I didn’t have a ton of space for extra guests or siblings, I wanted to let parents know that this could be an independent event for their child if that works for them.
Extended family adds a lot of guests and for us, this made it harder to focus on the birthday child and their friends (who are the stars of the show). We set a boundary with our family that birthday parties would be for kids and their friends only.
We did invite all extended family to the first birthday party, then made this boundary before our oldest turned 2.
My parents live in town so they typically come over for birthday dinner on the night of the child’s actual birthday.
Cousins: We do not invite cousins to parties either. We think of it as “world’s colliding.” We try to stick with one group of friends (all the neighbor kids or school friends, for example) so it’s a harmonious group of kids who know each other.
On behalf of all teachers everywhere, please do not pass out invites at school UNLESS you are doing a birthday party with the entire class. As a teacher, I was always happy to help give out emails/contact information (with permission) for small parties.
Absolutely not.
I say this with all the love in my heart: you do not need to invite the whole class of kids (unless for some reason there is a school rule about this or you truly want to/can afford to). Most school have rules about invitations at school (see above), but not typically about the actual party.
Even ten years ago, when I was a teacher, I would only have 1-2 kids per year host a full class party. The rest had small parties with a few kids. Those kids got to learn about tact and social decency to not talk about it at school or make a big deal about it. These are necessary life skills.
It is totally up to you, your family, and your cultural norms if there are gifts or no gifts.
I, personally, like the idea of gifts (in theory) because I like making my kids have to think thoughtfully about that person, what they like, and what would be good. I also like that the gift-opener has to have great social skills as they open and are excited/gracious.
There’s a lot of lessons in social skills and manners rolled into one little present.
I do understand that obviously when you invite 30 people, that’s an overwhelming amount of gifts. But when it’s a small party, it’s a very powerful learning opportunity.
Especially for a small party, this is a 10/10, 100% yes from me. I’m big into kids having this chance.
I love letting my kids open gifts at the party. It’s so beautiful to watch the gift giver’s excited face and having a chance for the birthday child to practice being gift-receiver.
I love this moment at a party. It’s such significant learning for all kids involved.
There is always a concern about inequities in gifts between what families can afford. As a parenting team, let’s all resolve to keep things small ($10-15 is more than enough). Just like with parties, lavish gifts are not necessary
Susie Allison, M. Ed
Owner, Creator
Susie Allison is the creator of Busy Toddler and has more than 2.4 million followers on Instagram. A former teacher and early childhood education advocate, Susie has written two home learning curricula, Playing Preschool and Branches. Her parenting book “Busy Toddler’s Guide to Actual Parenting” is available on Amazon.
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Megan says
Just booked my daughter’s 4th birthday party today, of all days. This post is very relevant as I reflect how to approach parties going forward. Good to know it doesn’t have to be a big to-do, stress fest.
I absolutely love your content!
Eileen says
My house is tiny, so a party exactly like Kate’s wouldn’t work- but I’m lucky that my kids have warm weather birthdays. My daughter (May) has 5-8 of her friends to our backyard for beading, crafts, our tree swing, make your own sundaes…and for my son (July) a few of his friends meet us for a swim at the town pool and I order pizza and bring along brownies so that they can sing to him. Each party costs less than $50, I can handle the details/responsibilities involved (I’m a single mom) and most importantly, my kids have a blast 🙂
Shantasriram says
Nice article. You have covered everything for kids parties.
Bianca says
I am in the middle of planning my soon to be 5 year bday party. We are having it at an indoor play place. But it is her first actual bday party. In prior years it’s always been a family party (also bc her bday is Feb and it’s cold). We also recently moved across the country so we figured we’d do a big party for this one. She’s my second. But we recently explained to her and her older sister that we do friend bday parties every other year. It’s what my family did growing up. So this year it’s a big party (we did invite her entire prek class – but again we are new to the state and it’s her first year doing prek and having friends other than her older sisters friends) my oldest who has a summer bday has had the most “parties” but it was honestly just park play dates for my mom friends and their kids of all ages and I brought lots of snacks and we sang happy
Birthday. (No gifts). but I am definitely on the no party favor team. Thanks for this post. It helped me remember why we plan on doing the occasional BIG party and then smaller celebrations the other years.
Currypartyoffour says
I have two girls that are 6 years apart. For us setting the time that not every birthday is a big party (cause that is what is true as you get older) we do a friend party on the 5’s. So when the girls turn 5,10 &15…this works for our budget but also just make the parties and fun all the more special. It does me we don’t do fun things on the other birthdays, they are just more family focused and include small celebrations,
Mihaela Echols says
I agree! Walmart makes the most amazing cakes! We go simple and super personal over here too! We like to do a fun activity instead of a party.
But for my sons fourth birthday he wanted one with his friends so we had them meet us at a kids museum. Told everyone gifts are optional cuz I didn’t rent out a room just said everyone has to pay for their own tickets so I didn’t have to keep track of attendance. Then we all had cupcakes and he opened gifts from everyone! And everyone said it was the most laid back kids party they’ve ever been to.
Kelli Refer says
I really love and appreciate this! We just had a small party for my 5 year old at our house and she loved it. A balloon and birthday banner and cake. Our family also doesn’t attend all of the birthday parties we are invited to, either in large part because it takes up a lot of time and our weekends feel full.
Gem says
So if you have the small party, and then your kid gets invited to loads of parties… Or worse the other way around… How do you deal with the politics?
Susie says
Budgets and home spaces don’t allow for us to reciprocate every party invitation. We can’t create a larger birthday budget, make the birthday child more extroverted, or build a bigger home… limiting is fine. I find it challenging even as an adult when we live under a weight of obligation. I’m trying to be very strategic about how I handle that for my children. Some children will naturally be invited to lots of parties, but their family doesn’t need to feel compelled to then blow a budget or family value because of that. This is at least how I’ve always viewed it.
Aleks says
Thanks for sharing this! It’s exactly how I remember my birthday parties and recently made one for my 3 year old son. Only then I realised that apparently there is a WHOLE new format where you need large theme parties, gifts for everyone and you shouldn’t open presents during party. So glad to see it’s not mandatory and old format still works!
Jill says
I LOVE this post! My sons 3rd birthday a couple months ago, we had pizza and 4 friends. We did not invite our parents and my older nieces did stop by at the end for a cupcake. The kids just played! We had coloring pages and crayons set up at the dinner table to play with as well but it was super low key! My thought was yours exactly, skills to be learned (along with having fun!). How to play with others and share, open gifts and say thank you, have the fun party experience of singing happy birthday and blowing out a candle. I love that others also love giant parties but this was so good for me!
Ambar says
I love decorating and making a big fuss about bdays..for our fam its the person’s “special day”..but during the pandemic since we couldn’t get together with a lot a plp at the same time we did 4..4 parties for my 4yo..i got burned out..we do “kids place” bdays now..no thinking no stressing..i love your idea..but i for the love of me i cant make “simple” i end up drowning in over elaborate cakes, dyi decor ect ect..
Susie says
I love this comment – I love that you have found the best path for you and your family. That’s what it’s all about! Finding that path without obligation or feeling compelled – you’re making a choice based on your family and I’m just delighted to read about it!
Katie says
Thanks for sharing your honest ideas!
We did our 5yo bday at a local playground. Still simple & even better no cleaning pre/post party required! We did cupcakes too & they were a hit! Kids played on the playground & ate food. Simple as!
Kate says
I love all of this! This is what I remember from my childhood and what we have done for the majority of our kids birthdays! Also a Mom of 3 and not in our budget to have expensive parties. We do celebrate separately with extended family but it’s usually just the birthday persons favourite meal, cake, presents and a visit!