Party on?
30 Sep 2008 by Paul Northup
With our oldest boy just starting school it’s brought a whole new rhythm – not just to our weekdays but to our weekends. Surprised? So are we.
On the first day at school his drawer contained two birthday party invites. And that pattern has continued. He’s got parties to go to for weekends as far as we can see. It feels like this is the shape of things to come.
Now we’ll be away sometimes and we can plan other things to do and, of course, a party is no a bad thing. But the relentless round of all the class being invited, presents being expected, halls being booked and heated, party food being half-eaten and binned, the infamous ‘party bags’ and finally the thank you cards … all makes me a little queasy.
Queasy, because on one level, it’s so consumptive, wasteful, unimaginative… and unnecessary. But I realise this sounds deeply grumpy. Sorry about that.
Maybe when we’ve got a bit of history with his class and the parents and the school, we’ll be brave enough to broach alternative ideas so that we don’t – all of us – continue to be trapped by party tyranny.
Perhaps we could pool our resources and creative ideas and organise one big party for the whole class once a year and then be left to have family-sized gatherings for our own children? Perhaps we can go a step further and set up links with communities who don’t enjoy what we take for granted and think of ways of diverting funds and energy that we would have lavished on each party in those directions.
Whatever we end up doing, it’s going to take time. To build relationships, to think through the alternatives … and to think of the best way to try to introduce these ideas without sounding deeply un-Generous! Or setting our little boy up at school as “the weirdo’s kid”!
For the time being, we’re caught up on a new social conveyor belt and it’s tricky to see how to get off. At least we’ll have to try and make ours, when it’s our turn, as Generous-spirited as we dare.
(Image taken from here.)
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About the Blogger
Paul Northup
Reading a few lines before sleep, listening to Elbow, inspired by Stanley Hauerwas, on the way down with the Rams, trying to hardly ever use the car, hopeful and fearful for my children, tired but usually happy.
