Human Rights

[goddlefrood]

The Universal Declaration on Human Rights states that everyone has the right to life. The last time I looked it did not say that everyone has the right to be invited to their classmates' birthday parties. Let the BBC tell the next part, its headline:

Birthday party snub sparks debate

The introductory paragraph reveals further:

'An eight-year-old boy

Comments

[ms_arithmancer]

My son's preschool tries to encourage parents to invite either the whole class, or all the students of the same gender as the birthday child, to parties. Though I did not gather they couched their justification in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but in not wanting to adjudicate disputes between peeved 4-5 year olds...I think I ignored them in favor of asking Josh to invite what I thought was a reasonable number of boys, last December.

I find it pretty silly myself. Josh, for example, has been verbally inviting and disinviting people to his birthday party for months now, which has doubtless resulted in an altercation or three. Said party will, most likely, take place in December - and the invitees will likely be kids he does not know yet, a subset of his new classmates from primary school.

[goddlefrood]

I was pretty good this year. I just sent a cake to school and let the teachers get on with divvying it up. They all got a wafer thin slice, or so Sean told me :-D

I don't think it's right for kids to be forced to invite people they don't want to invite or to be made to feel bad about not inviting people. Kids will be kids and they have these petty little arguments. If that means they don't want little Johnny or little Jane to come to their party then so be it.

[macloudt]

This nonsense is happening more and more frequently. All I can think is that the morons (and I'm being nice) who force this upon parents either have no children of their own, never throw parties or earn well above the average wage. A party for an entire class is not only asking for chaos, it's asking for bankrupcy. Thank heavens my two older kids are at the stage where they only want a maximum of 4 friends over for pizza and some movies. And that can still cost £50 per go.

[goddlefrood]

Sounds like you have good kids. I've so far thrown two biggish bashes and nearly crippled myself both times. Luckily, I wasn't forced to invite everyone in Sean's class (last year's, for instance, contained 78 children - they did have three teachers and it was kindergarten, but still). If they'd all come I'd have been in the madhouse long ago.

[anonymous]

I thought it was a joke when I saw this entry of yours yesterday, then I reread it today and gathered that it was not a joke. WTF.

I just imagine my poor niece having been forced to invite the entire class when she is off to school in two years and that ending up in her not talking to anybody and crying hysterically and that talking to anybody would be including teachers. Sigh.

I also am remembering myself being always extremely selective whom I was inviting to my birthday parties, for the reasons similar of my niece's, hehe.

Oy oy oy. Nonsense indeed.

[anonymous]

Anonymous is me Alla, LOL, no clue why I am

[goddlefrood]

Forgot to sign in, maybe :-?

Don't let your niece fall into this crud. I'm not encouraging Sean or Esther to kowtow to idiots such as these, and there are many of them around methinks.