Tuesday, October 23, 2007

What Would Miss Manners Do?

Recently, Andy was invited to a birthday party for a friend of his who will be turning three next month. Shortly thereafter, I got an e-mail from the hostess to the guest list telling us that the party location is relatively small and therefore other siblings (mostly youngest) are not invited. She copied all of us so that we would know who else was invited to make babysitting arrangements.

Having only one kid, it didn't really occur to me about not inviting the other siblings, but upon thinking about it, I did recall a friend complaining that her four-year-old daughter's party at the Little Gym ended up costing $200 extra because parents brought other siblings and they went over their allotment of kids at the group rate.

The whole thing was interesting and made me wonder what Miss Manners would do. I know for adults, the deal is you put on the invitation the names of who you want to invite. So if Bjorn and I are invited to a party and Andy is not, the envelope would be addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Awesome, not Mr. and Mrs. Awesome, Mr. Andy Awesome.

But for kids this age, obviously the parents have to be invited, too. Do you get that specific on the envelope? And what if you know the kid, but not the parents? I'm glad this isn't a problem we've run into, but it made me think. You're thoughts?

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:22 PM

    We run into this all the time. Usually Susan and I take the "divide and conquor" approach. It is a rare occasion that there's only one of us to handle it. WRT the invitation, the way I've seen it handled is that additional info about either "Come one, come all" or "By Invitation Only" is on the last line, right before or after the RSVP.
    Chris
    www.ChrisMoreau.com

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  2. Hmmm...this type of problem has never occurred to me, but I guess that makes sense since Jack hasn't had a birthday yet so we haven't encountered this type of situation before. I guess I never would have even thought someone would bring along other siblings to another person's birthday party. I assumed that one parent brings the child to the party while the other parent stays home with the siblings. This is what always happened when we were growing up. I guess if this is a concern for the parent (like in the case of limited space or cost), it should probably should be mentioned on the invite in some way, like "By Invitation Only" in order to prevent extra guests in the form of other siblings. But to be honest, I really don't think that it should be mentioned at all because if I'm inviting Billy to a party, I'm inviting Billy (and his mom or dad) and not his four sisters and their dog and I think it's rude to assume someone is okay with you to bringing your entire family.

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  3. Anonymous1:19 PM

    What does a single parent do? Jenn's type of thinking is typical of the parents of an only child. We have had to miss birthday parties because we couldn't bring the sibling and the hosts (parents of an only child) didn't want a drop-off.

    Funny how we've never run into an uncomfortable situation regarding a party thrown by parents of more than one kid...

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  4. Anonymous11:28 PM

    If you don't have a spouse or relative to leave the siblings with then you need to get a babysitter. It is not polite to bring uninvited siblings.

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