When you become a parent, the ability to organise and run a child’s birthday party is a terrifying new challenge to be tackled and mastered. There are lots of surprises in store, and you just have to learn how to deal with them ‘on the job’. After a while, you become something of an expert. You start seeing patterns emerge, you learn some handy tricks, and develop a robust set of child’s party throwing skills. Not only that, but you start to develop a party-persona for when your child goes to another child’s party … do you recognise yourself as one of these?
OPPORTUNIST
Gets the invitation and thinks: “yippee! Two hours free childcare!” She / he is the first to arrive, dumps, runs, and is the last to pick up.
RELENTLESS COMPLAINER
Accepts every party invitation, stays for the duration
and then moans the whole way through.
SUPER HELPER
She / he instantly offers to help with the food, comforts the child who has fallen over and starts filling a binbag with rubbish 10 minutes before the end.
SOCIALISER
He / she rarely gets a chance to go out nowadays. Beggars can’t be choosers and a kid’s party is better than no party. Chats to everyone, laughs the loudest, suggests nights out and wishes there was wine.
FUNNY BIG KID
This party person mucks in with everything and has a brilliant time playing with the kids. He or she can be spotted doing embarrassing dances, supervising the bouncy castle or sitting cross-legged in a circle, playing Pass the Parcel.
INVISIBLE MUM / DAD
She or he drops their child outside, avoids all eye contact with the other parents, and disappears without speaking to anyone. Nobody sees their child leave.