Whose party is it anyway?

Last week, small madam was invited to a birthday party.

I am a "drop and run" or "stick strictly to invitations" person so I crosschecked the invite to see that SHE alone was invited, packed her swimming trunks as instructed and zoomed off to the venue.

Getting there, I saw a number of parents seated around the pool and a number of carers and minders too, some of whom knew her and me from school so I handed her over to them and zoomed.

Cut to pick up time, as I was leaving from drop off - the parent of the celebrant had asked me to take my time and come back whenever I could. If they were not poolside, they would be back home - so I drove to their house about an hour after the time stated on the card for pick up.

As the little girl walked small madam out to the car, she stopped and said to me:

"I did not enjoy my party".

Oh no, I thought and turned to her, "why? What happened?"

"The adults were the ones having all the fun. They just left us in the pool and gave us a little bit of snacks and some juice then they were just drinking and eating meat and dancing."

"Awwwwwww. So sorry to hear that," I replied, "but I hope you still enjoyed yourself with your friends?"

At this point, the poor girl was almost in years...

"I did not. I did not enjoy my own party. All the time I have been dreaming of my tenth birthday party, this was not what I wanted it to be like."

Oh dear!

Her mummy was still at "her daughter's birthday party", so I did my best to comfort the little girl. She was not finding it funny at all.

As I left and made a mental note to discuss it with her mummy, I paused and thought a little.

Back then, I used to throw "birthday parties" for my daughter where my friends and I had all the fun, sometimes at the expense of the celebrant and her friends. All those clowns and MCs that would make the little ones entertain the guests with all sorts of games.

I think it was at her fifth birthday that I suddenly came to the realisation that the celebrant was not deriving any benefits from the elaborate parties where we would rent canopies and buy choice wines and set out a spread of exotic food - they didn't know and therefore, just didn't care.

We were throwing all those parties for ourselves and our friends and using the poor kids as a front.

Honestly, if I could re write the criminal code, I would write in hosting a party for your friends and using your kid's birthday as a front, as child abuse. Punishable under section whorreva subsection warreva with some Zamfara styles lashings of the cane.

Anyway, when I came to that realisation, I started asking small madam a few months to her birthday the simple question: "how would you like to celebrate your birthday this year", and the answer ALWAYS amazed me...

Always.

For her 6th, she wanted a class party.
For her 7th, she wanted a house party with her cousins and friends in the estate.
For her 8th, she wanted a house party with a carefully picked list of 10 friends.
For her 9th, she wanted dinner in a Chinese restaurant with a few friends.
For her 10th, she wanted to see the movies with about 15 of her friends...

Two things played out for me while we walked through this process of giving the child the birthday SHE wanted:

1. At no point in time did she choose to have a party in a park with bouncy castles and obnoxious clowns and 700 adults she does not know plus 400 children some of whom she knew vaguely with foods she would probably taste and spit out...

2. As a direct consequence of 1 above, my pocket has gladly gone along with all her requests without groaning and grumbling and having to be coaxed along.

And in the course of (1) and (2) above, I also realised that the child was carefully picking experiences that mattered to her. She was sharing the memories of her birthdays building new memories that made a lot of meaning to her, experiences she could look back on and relate with.

My heart went out to the little girl whose party was hijacked by adults...

We are all guilty of it aren't we?

Parents living vicariously through their children.

Thank God for the economy which seems completely disinterested in favouring anyhow spending. Chopping money anyhow because the thing full everywhere dey troway.

Maybe, just maybe, we can find other reasons to hang out with our friends and do whatever it is we would like to do with them and leave the kids to create birthday experiences that would make meaning.

Maybe!