The bouncehouse birthday party for your kid's preschool pal sure sounds fun, until you note the time on the invitation: mid-morning on a weekday! What's a working mom to do?
It’s another front for the mommy wars: weekday birthday parties for the wee ones. Not an issue for school-aged kids, but if you’ve got a little one, chances are you’ve had an invitation to a mid-week, midday party. If you’re at home, no problem. But if you work, those invitations can really chafe.
On one hand, it’s a cost-saving move – most venues will cut you a significant price break if you throw your tot’s party during the week instead of on the weekend. (Jump Planet, a Seattle-area inflatable haven popular with the pre-K set, offers a $60 savings on parties held during the week.) But it's an annoyance for a working mom, whose kids can’t attend the soiree – unless she does some serious juggling.
“It seems downright inconsiderate,” posted SandiandKirk on a BabyCenter message board thread. “It seems like ‘we know you won’t be able to come but we are going to invite you anyway.’” But MyOwn3 replied that it was reasonable for stay-at-home moms to have weekday parties and invite their stay-at-home-mom friends' kids. “Maybe they thought your feelings would be hurt if you found out about the party and your child wasn’t invited?”
So, are invitations to weekday parties an effort to be inclusive, even if the party-thrower knows the working mom (and child) can’t come? A cheap ploy to get a gift? Or worse, a rub-your-nose-in-it jab from a stay-at-homer? Tell us what you think.