birthday parties

When did birthday parties change so much? I mean from when I was a kid? Honestly. We dressed up nice, took a present to someone's house, ate snacks their mom had made, played some goofy games, got a little loot bag and went home again. Now, you have to drive your kid an hour across town to some whacked kids gone wild type of place where the host parent pays a ton of money for someone else to provide some form of entertainment for the children, some crappy food, and meanwhile I have to hang around at a mall or find some other way to kill 2 hours, because it takes too long to drive all the way home, and then turn around and drive all the way back, and I have other things to do on a Saturday afternoon, like spend time with the rest of my family, and if they had just opted to have hot dogs and chips and play pin the tail on the donkey at their house that is next door to mine I could be home instead of wasting a ton of time and gas money on a child's birthday party. Sorry but I just don't get it. I throw all my kids birthday parties at our house. Always have. Yeah, I have to take a little time to plan things out, make sure I have food organized, some games ready to play. So what? It's my kids birthday. I want to celebrate it with them, spend some time with them and their friends. Isn't that the point? Kids don't really need that much else do they? It's one day a year, surely it's not that much to ask of a parent to put a little bit of time and energy into running a birthday party for their child. Sure sure, I hear you saying, but we don't have a big house, or we both work and don't have enough time. I think it's a cop out. It's just like everything else in society today, "instant". As in pick up a phone and hey presto, instant birthday party. I get that when the kids are a bit older maybe they want to go out for pizza, or to a movie with a couple friends, something like that. Okay, I can accept that. But when they are little like mine are - 7 and 8 year olds - I think a couple hours of fun at home is a good time. I put a little time into something like a scavenger hunt for my daughter's party last year when she turned 8, we made it an "Amazing Race" for the kids. And then just let them run and play and snack etc. My kids love to help come up with some fun stuff for the goody bags to hand out at the end. And they love helping figure out what games to play, what their party theme will be. And I love throwing the party with them. But I feel like I'm in the minority, and I don't get why. A couple years ago I mentioned to another parent that it was my daughters birthday party coming up, and she said "oh really, so where are you going?" and it took me a moment to understand her question. "Well, nowhere, actually, the party is at our house," I replied. "oh really, that's different. Good for you, "she answered back, leaving me trying to figure out what exactly that meant. I'm sure part of it, maybe a big part is that although the party is supposed to be for the kids, more and more it seems possible that it is actually for the parents, as in who can come up with a bigger better version of the birthday party than the last one the kids went to. Hmmmm. So is that it, a combination of keeping up with the Jones's and just sheer laziness, not wanting to take the time to put the party on yourself? That sounds pretty awful. I'm sure there are plenty of parents out there who would take great offense to my opinions on this. That's okay, it is just my opinion, after all. They are just as entitled to theirs as I am to mine. Just please don't expect to drive my kid across town bearing gifts to your kids birthday parties any more - if that's how you want to throw your parties, the least you could do is provide transportation. And that's all I have to say about that!