# Cost of Bday parties for kids

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-bday-parties-for-kids/388411>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [January 18, 2007, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-bday-parties-for-kids/388411 "2007-01-18T03:10:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\
**Post date:** [January 18, 2007, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-bday-parties-for-kids/388411/21 "2007-01-18T20:27:13Z")

</div>

My last kid’s bday party: about $40 in Walmart for water sprinklers and a slide. Plus the food for 15 kids and their parents (all family) which we normally do once a month or so anyways. He got about $300 worth of presents from the guests. Not a bad deal 🙂

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\
**Post date:** [January 18, 2007, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-bday-parties-for-kids/388411/22 "2007-01-18T20:59:56Z")

</div>

I don’t really see why, if you have a pretty good kid and you have the money, it’s such a big deal to throw him/her a big party. I mean, come on - if not in childhood then when? Isn’t that the time we’re allowed to have people make much of our birthdays?

I mostly had fairly small parties, no more than 5-10 people. However I was a mostly good kid, and had a lovely Sweet Sixteen - about 150 guests. However they came for the fun. We had great eats and lots of dancing. And they were kids & adults. I would have loved to have a “kids-only” expensive party, like a trip somewhere, but my parents would never have let me go anywhere without them, except maybe Gita camp. ☹ I think as **LilyoftheValley** says, as long as they are already learnign responsibility and charity it’s a wonderful thing to do.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![DaddyTimesTwo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@DaddyTimesTwo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaddyTimesTwo)\
**Post date:** [January 18, 2007, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-bday-parties-for-kids/388411/23 "2007-01-18T21:52:00Z")

</div>

This past year both kids got “big” parties outside our home. My son turned 7 and had a karate party, ~$150, my daughter turned 5 and had a Chuck E Cheese party, ~$200. We’ll never do Chuck E Cheese again, it was too much everything. The kids have been talking about where they want to go next year, but my wife and I decided that, even if we could easily afford it, we wouldn’t have big parties for a few years, if ever. We’ve had parties at the house with a bunch of people and kids, those are a lot of work but are also a lot of fun. And that’s what we tell the kids.

A co-worker, who is Indian, had a party for his daughter’s first birthday. There was easily 100 people there, and I know it cost more than $1k. And his daughter cried almost throughout the entire party. But first birthdays are a big deal in his culture so that’s what you gotta do.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cost-of-bday-parties-for-kids/388411.md?page=1)