Why skipping the children's birthday is a good idea

Within our family, we have a code. Not a heavy code of honor, but the code of children's birthdays. You go to your father's or mother's party, you join at grandma and grandpa's, you are also present at your brother and sister's, but children are not an obligation. With that knowledge, I grew up, always found it very efficient. And if I then wanted to make a lot of noise and still go to the celebration of that one niece, I would just go stay over there. Problem solved. Only then you grow up with the idea that children's birthdays do not exist, except for your own and your brother or sister.

I looked at a good friend over my glass. What I thought of children's parties. Whether he wanted my real or polite answer, I asked. His reaction was honest, so I had a GO. I find children's birthdays complicated. Complicated busy, especially with more than three under three. Difficult with gifts, because is retro in or are we just going for plastic nonsense? Complicated with limbs, because something always sticks out or they seem to have no control over a limb in question. Complicated at what time there should and shouldn't be crying, but I think it is mainly under a deep heartfelt concern of a childless guest. Also complicated is that it is often in the afternoon, because what time do you have to go home again? And it is also complicated that fathers or mothers consume just a bit too much, or even worse: that it is all quite a bit of consumption reduction. Complicated, I find it, but I already said that.

Just for nuance: even though the kids are not at the top of my wishlist and I get a quickened heartbeat from such a party, I am not a child hater. I find children particularly entertaining. The one from my best friend always looks so delightfully naughty and through him, I even see the ingenious sides of blocks. I find some specimens amusingly wise, cute, and rarely dragons, but really rarely. Only in hordes are they a bit too much for me. And there you have it... At children's parties, children come in hordes.

Now wrote NUweekend about adult friendship and how it often falls apart when babies come, because you are no longer number one in your life and because the arrangement of your house and hearth changes. In that piece, social psychologist Beatrijs Ritsema gives what I consider the very, very, very best advice: do not invite friends to a children's birthday party, because a) most people absolutely hate that and b) they have to drink lemonade instead of wine. Family, friends with kids, and the people you are really, really close to can be invited, but further: nothing. Just celebrate your own birthday for friends, that makes them satisfied people. Amen, Ritsema, amen. You happy, they happy, the children happy.