Yeah, I’m just saying, maybe back off on getting personally involved and just let your wife take over the planning responsibilities etc., since it seems like she enjoys this and you do not.
Also, IMO any time you see a big blow-out party being planned for children under age… oh, 5 or so, it’s pretty much an excuse for the parents to get together and socialize, and not much about the kids at all. That’s OK if that’s what you’re into, I guess.
Good on you. People nowadays are too quick to jump up and down like loons at the merest mention of something that might be construed as being taken advantage of. As you say, your wife enjoys every minute of it, and you just want to vent. That is perfectly OK.
Because your friends are totally whacko. Three-year olds just want a couple of other kids (they’re optional actually), some fairy bread, fizzy drinks, sausage rolls, some balloons and to chase each other around the yard for an hour. After that, they’ll get bored and cranky and everybody should go home. For ages four, five and even six, you can extend the time by one hour.
After that, well the kid is definitely at school, and the **Birthday Party Pissing Matches **start: mothers (less so fathers I’ve found) trying to outdo each other in the ‘who had the best party’ stakes. It’s sad and pathetic, but if you don’t want to be cast out as the weird parent, you’ve got to play the game. Fortunately, there will be some other parents with the same mindset as you…just seek them out early in the piece, then you can have your simple parties and bitch about the OTHER parents over a glass of wine while the kids play outside. 
I’m just glad I’m a grandmother nowadays and not a mother. This over-the-top-party-thing seems to be a modern phenomenon (maybe started late-nineties??). So when my daughter suggested hiring a jumping castle, a helium tank to blow the balloons, and inviting the grandson’s ‘friends’ from creche for his 4th birthday this year, I was able to be the voice of reason: he doesn’t even know the other kids’ names for chrissakes. They’re not his friends, save your money for when you will need it later on.
Edited to add: a three yr old does not mind what sort of cake he/she has. Provided it has a candle on it, it could be a lump of cookie dough for all they care.
First-birthday parties are gift grabs FOR THE PARENTS. All the baby cares about is smearing frosting all over itself.
And you know what? If you really think about it, nobody really cares. It’s like a wedding in that you go, everyone has a good time (you hope) and then everyone goes home and forgets about it.
What did your daughter do WRT your son’s birthday party?
My credit union offers high-interest loans (8 to 12%) for - get this - vacations, weddings, and quinceaneras. They probably do them for Bar/Bat Mitzvahs too; we don’t have a large Jewish population here, but there is a sizable Hispanic community. Next thing, they’ll be doing loans for kids’ birthday parties. :rolleyes:
As for fathers and birthday parties, when I was a kid in the 1970s, there was an unwritten rule that fathers didn’t attend. My father would participate in decorating the living room and then leave until the party was over, and more than once, I wasn’t allowed to go when my mother found out that the child’s father would be there. 
She must have been the queen of Bridezillas.
My daughter is two and two-thirds. I think if there would be that much excitement at her third birthday party, her circuits would overload and she’d have a meltdown.
Cite: The Berenstain Bears And Too Much Birthday.
Wait a minute, this is the first I’m hearing about these video game trucks! I’m thinking I’ll rent one of those for my next birthday and I’m in my 30s!
My older kid is four. So far she hasn’t had a birthday party because her birthday’s in summer and the last couple of years her two best friends were away, but my family come over (she has a cousin the same age, and they’re close) and there’s cake. We’ve been to a few of her friends’ birthday parties; they involved four or five friends plus random siblings, cake, a lot of running around, and once in summer a bunch of water guns which totally made everyone’s day.
I absolutely can’t see the point of a fancy organised birthday party for a little kid. Like the OP says, the kid doesn’t give a damn about any of it. I don’t think it’s a matter of growing up in a different time, though - like I said, my kid’s friends have very much the same kind of birthday parties that I had when I was little. I think it’s just that some people go nuts over them.
When my kid turned three she cared DEEPLY about having a cake with a picture of Peppa Pig on it. She didn’t care about presents at all, just about that pig cake.
For a 3 year old? That’s way too much.
If the parents enjoy setting up and waging the party, that’s fine, but it doesn’t sound like they do/did. He’ll never remember it, and wouldn’t care if he did.
I refused to get into these kind of competitions, and my kids did not lack for invitations to other kids’ birthday parties, and those who came to our parties went home tired out, over-sugared, and clutching cheapo party favors that broke after an hour, like God intended.
They show up with an inexpensive present, play six games that last ten minutes each, stuff their faces with kid food and cake and ice cream, open presents, and then get the hell out of my basement.
Regards,
Shodan
Whenever we have one of these kinds of threads where we shake our heads at the excesses of others, I always secretly hope that someone who is one of these folks will chime in. While I don’t understand the big party thing either, surely someone enjoys these affairs and believes their kids do too.
It’s not fun if none of us hear from the other side, dammit! 
I’m a heckuva lot older than 3, and I’d love to have a Peppa Pig cake! 
Has anyone else noticed that their heads all look like hair dryers?
“Dinosaur!”
ETA: I have the news on right now, and it just said something I had forgotten: JFK’s funeral was on John Jr.'s 3rd birthday. I don’t think anyone cared about a birthday party for him right then. 
We once paid for my son to have a birthday party at Magic Mountain, complete with extra skee-ball tokens for all partygoers, and sausage pizza by the truckload. If that counts, I would be happy to stand up to represent the opposition in this case.
From about age 4 on, we always had a huge party for my daughter. The biggest one was 50+ people, when she was about 10. She was an extremely social child who hated to leave anyone out, and invited everyone’s younger siblings, her adult friends, kids’ parents, etc., and did her best to make sure everyone felt included and entertained. When asked what she wanted for gifts, of her own accord, she assured them that no gifts were necessary, she just wanted them to come and share her birthday.
I found these events a bit stressful, as I am not crazy about directing crowds of people about, but why the heck would I not have wanted to encourage her generous nature?
my son’s last two birthdays were pretty excessive. Not in the spending so much as the preparation. We don’t go for the pre packaged party, it’s a backyard affair, and we design everything.
This year was a science / despicable me theme. We setup a bunch of science experiments and the kids earned parts of the shrink ray to turn the three foot paper mâché moon into a moon piñata. Had to design and buy stuff for the experiments, balloon cars, balloon rockets, geodes, volcanos and tops. Had to test the experiments, and build props like a giant moon, shrink ray and piñata.
This crafty crap takes forever, but everyone had a good time, and way better food than some dried out pizza and flat soda.
Around here, this is called a marriage, and it can’t be celebrated when the kid is 3.
when I was a kid the term “birthday party” meant dinner at home with the menu of your choosing. Mom and Dad got you multiple gifts which meant clothing you needed and some toy or other gift you actually asked for.
I truly don’t understand parties for a 1 year old. I can imagine friends of the parents invited over for drinks while everybody watches a clueless baby play with a Betty Crocker cake. It’s pointless to buy a 1 year old a huge pile of toys.
It’s a darn good rule. It’s hard for little kids to play well with a big group of their peers. If there IS a large number of toddlers or preschoolers, then usually they have to be put into smaller groups.
I was rather fortunate, because my daughter’s birthday is in the last part of June. When she was a toddler and in grade school, we figured out how many kids to invite and which ones, and told the parents to send the kids over wearing a bathing suit and carrying a towel and possibly have a bag with casual clothes (shirt and shorts). We set up the sprinkler and Slip’N’Slide, a couple of games, provided other outdoor activities, and served BBQ chicken thighs, hot dogs, fries, ice cream, and cake. No ponies, no bounce houses, no clowns…but the kids had a lot of fun with mostly unstructured activities. The parents all thought that it was great, too. It wore the kids out. When she got older she mostly wanted to spend time with one or two particular friends.
A party can be as simple or as complicated as you want to make it.
Agreed
I think it would be a blats as well. I have a friend who would love an adult sized ‘human habitrail’ like McDonalds does for kids.
I think if you could franchise an adult oriented play area like McDonalds with the ball pit, bouncy castle, a climbing wall, all the games and the tunnel habitrail thing it would go over big in some markets.
My son’s 3rd-grade class had the ingenious idea of pooling the birthday parties - all of the kids born each month celebrate together, with the rest of the class invited, and no presents. It lets you have a pretty big party at a lower cost, and it also means that there are just 10 parties per year (the summer vacation kids are screwed, as usual, but what can you do). My son has 39 kids in his class, so we;re taking about significant savings here.
Anyone else hire Nipples The Clown for their kid’s party, cause I’m having second thoughts.?