My husband, who enjoys reading up on the subject of personal finance, told me about the Free Money Finance blog about a year ago. I too have become a regular reader and feel like I've learned a tremendous amount about how to be wise with money.So what does this have to do with my blog? Well, today one of his posts really caught my attention: how much some parents are willing to spend on their kids' birthday parties.
One of the more interesting quotes from the original article that spurred on his blog post came from a mom that spent $3000 on her one-year-old son's first birthday. She said "she knows such a large party for a child so young may sound odd to a lot of people. But she wanted to make it memorable for her first child." Umm, perhaps I missed something, but does anyone out there actually remember your first birthday party?
First birthdays are more for the parents and photo opportunities than anyone or anything else. When else do we encourage our children to make a mess with bright blue or pink icing and then laugh when they proceed to smear it all over everything else? Now of course I want my son to feel honored for his birthday, but not enough to spend $3K on something he won't remember (or even something he would remember for that matter).
This article got me thinking about how I'd like to go forward with celebrating birthday parties for my child(ren) in the future. It's hard in this competitive society NOT to get swept up in the my-child-will-have-the-biggest-party-on-the-block fever, but what does that teach our kids? That mom and dad have to spend a lot of money on a party so the kids feel valued? Seems to me that these huge parties have more to do with the parents' insecurities and not much to do with the kids!
My experiences with birthdays as a kid were generally celebrated with a family dinner and some girlfriends over to spend the night. It was great! How about you, how did you celebrate (or not) your birthday as a kid? How do you (or did you) celebrate your kids birthdays?
1 comment:
We had a lot of people for Ryan's first birthday - like you said more for the parents than the kid. But turning one is a big deal - even if they won't remember it. We didn't spend a lot of money on it though. This year (he'll be two in a month - i can't believe it!), we are just doing a family dinner. He doesn't know any better and we certainly don't need any more toys in our house! :)
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