Even in a World of Apathy, Your Child Should Come First

Is going to a birthday party for a 5 year old going to kill you? Is it really going to ruin your day that much? Maybe you need to get a clearer focus on what really is important vs. what really isn’t in your life and make the effort to change some things.

I started this website as a play on words concerning our children based on the well known phrase, “Child of Mine.” I did this for a reason. I did it to make the point of putting our children first.

Gun’s N Roses and Carole King wrote songs with this title. The songs are about how we feel as though our kids as precious little beings, and make sacrifices to show the love we have for them.

How often to we actually take those lyrics to heart? Do the words have any relevant meaning in the way in which we raise our children? If this is the case, why is it that we can’t make small sacrifices for their benefit?

Make time for him

If your child is attending preschool, and you receive an invitation to attend a birthday party of a child in your kid’s class, you aren’t going to make even the smallest attempt to go? You aren’t going to have the common courtesy to make the minimal effort of calling the parent having the party to RSVP to say if you will or won’t be attending?

Everyone has obligations and prior commitments in their lives and we all understand that. But to ignore an invitation and not have the decency to show up to a little kid’s birthday party is completely ridiculous.

I think people are so apathetic, selfish, and wrapped up in their lives that they can’t be bothered with thinking about how their kid might benefit from a little outing for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon.

How difficult is it? All you have to do is buy a small gift for the birthday child and you have a free ticket for your kid to do something fun for a few hours. Not to mention gain invaluable social experiences kids of today desperately need.

Maybe I have to chalk it up to living in Las Vegas. When you work in the casino industry, unless you’ve been there awhile with good seniority, you don’t generally have the luxury of having holidays off. Most of the time, they aren’t even acknowledged since you have to work right through them.

Well, too bad for you, but why do your kids have to suffer also?

My son, as well as 40 other kids in his school, was invited to a birthday party for a little boy in his class who was turning 5.

I’m a busy parent and always have many things to attend to. I had contemplated not taking Matthew to this party because I didn’t know the birthday child. When I thought about it, it seemed ridiculous since attending the party would be for my child, not for me. Of course I wouldn’t know him - what difference would that make? My son knew who he was. He goes to school with him 5 days a week.

His mother had rented an inflatable jump house to host the party for a couple hours of jumping fun for 40 little kids. The kids were going to have pizza, cake, and ice cream, which were included in the package. These things run about $275 just to hold the rooms for the kids for an hour.

I gathered my son up, bought a gift, and went to the party.

The mother greeted us when we walked in. The place was empty with only a handful of kids running around. I caught her checking her watch every few minutes and watching the door for more people to arrive.

The look of sadness and disappointment on the mothers face was disheartening. Thirty minutes after the party had started, when she realized no one else was going to show up, she started to tell me how she thought there would have been more kids coming. She kept wondering why no one was coming. We were the only family that showed up.

I think what bothered me the most was walking into the birthday cake room and seeing a medium sized table for gifts for the birthday child and seeing only two gifts on it. It was the most pathetic thing I had ever seen. I felt so bad for the little kid and for the mother.

Was it the mother’s fault for planning her son’s birthday party over Labor Day weekend? Am I supposed to believe everyone invited to the party was out of town, camping, or spending the weekend at the lake? I find that to be highly improbable.

The aftermath is always unseen

Another thing that really bothers me is that every one of those kids will return to school on Tuesday as if nothing happened. A little boy had a birthday party, and parents and kids will assume he had a great time with lots of guests and gifts. The typical birthday party image would be portrayed and not an eyelash would be batted.

Unfortunately, this is the opposite of what really happened, but they will never know.

The bottom line is this. I made a sacrifice for my child when I didn’t really want to go and went anyway. It was actually a lot of fun for my son and I’m glad he enjoyed himself. I didn’t know the other two parents there, and you know what?

I had a really good time, met a few people, and made a few friends - at least for the day.

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