MM Rocks again!

http://lifestyle.msn.com/relationships/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=15406676

Dear Miss Manners,
I have quite a few friends with children between the ages of 1 and 5. Most of my friends have at least two children each. My husband and I do not have children. It seems that every year our friends invite us to their children's birthday parties. I thought it would just be the big 1st birthday celebration. But since then, I've been invited to every birthday party, year after year.

As much as I love my friends and their children, I find it very costly to afford gifts for all of their children every year. Plus, we don't have kids that would make it fun to go over and play. And the parents are so busy that we don't get to spend any real quality time with them either.

I don't want to be rude, but honestly I would rather spoil my own nephews rather than pay for gifts for other people's children. But I continually get a formal invitation in the mail each year which obligates me to purchase something (even a card) for their child whether I can make it to the party or not.

Then I feel guilty for not attending the party. You can only make so many excuses. It is hard enough to remember to buy cards for my family, my husband's family, and our close friends. At some point, I need to draw a line and not feel this obligation.

Can you please suggest a proper response to my friends on this matter? Or please advise me if I am being rude for feeling this way.

Gentle Reader,
Rude for not spending your free time playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey?

What Miss Manners finds questionable is your friends' assumptions that this is suitable adult entertainment. Let us hope that by the third invitation you decline, they think of a more agreeable way to entertain you.

But respond you must, as long as they keep inviting you. You have no obligation beyond adding, "but please congratulate little Egbert for me."


Amy or Abby would have said "But you MUST take an interest in your friendz kydz because you would expect THEM to be interested in YOUR fyooture baybeez!" or [insert favorite bingo here].

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"I have learned that pleasing everyone is impossible, but pissing everyone off is easy and fun as hell"

:eatu

Completely off-topic here, but my kitty's name is Egbert!

Back to the post, the only purpose served by inviting adults to a children's birthday party is for the gift-grab, as no one over the age of 10 enjoys playing kiddie games, and it's questionable if even the under-10s do.

Seeing cake smeared onto every imaginable home surface, sugary red punch drink spills everywhere, and being accosted by sticky, screeching toddlers on a serious sugar high is certainly not my idea of a fun time.

Yea, Miss Manners kicks ass. Despite the fact that she does have 2 sons, you can be guaranteed that 1. they are proper adults and 2. she will continue to hand out sound advice when it comes to other people's kids because she is a real parent, not a breeder.

"Egbert" is a very good name for a cat. So is Ethelred, Eadwig, Edmund, Alfred The Great, and Edward The Confessor.

http://www.britannia.com/history/h6f.html

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"I have learned that pleasing everyone is impossible, but pissing everyone off is easy and fun as hell"

:eatu

Bravo, Miss Manners...

And I love Eggbert for a kitty. Nerdy human names are so cute...just ask my Henry and Stanley. Hehehe!

ANYONE who is related to a breeder, works with a breeder, has a breeder neighbor, friends who are breeders, KNOWS when the kyd's birthday is every year and does NOT need to be promted to give a gift or card, IF they so choose. I think that inviting adults to a kiddie party, even if they HAVE KYDS, is the highest form of gift solicitation. Aunts, grandmoos, close friends, etc.......already know about little Shitina's birthday party with the pony rides and clowns, and unless they ask for an invitation for a scrapbook or something, none should be sent to an adult. The invitations should be addressed to Miss Ashleigh Breederson, NOT her parents.

I don't care if it's considered "rude" or not. Whenever I have received a kiddie party invitation, I do NOT respond and usually don't give or send a gift either. The only kyds I give gifts to are neices and nephews, and a couple of cousins' kyds. The first time I got an "RSVP" invitation to a second cousins' 1 y/o birthday party which was 3 hours away and CLEARLY a gift solicitaion, I was appalled and I did respond. I left a massage saying that it was a bit too far to travel back alone at night, but I hoped the day was happy, but I never sent the kyd a gift. My mother though, (unbeknownst to me ahead of time) went to the party AND took a gift, and of course EVERYONE wanted to know why I just didn't ride with her. So, I shouldn't have even responded OR I should have just said I would NOT be there and left it at that.

I never will respond to such nonsense again. Here's my rationalization of it; THEY are rude to send me an invitation to start with, so IF I respond, then I am acknowledging their rudeness.