Dad Thinks It's 'Pointless' To Throw A Party For His 3-Year-Old Son's Birthday & Told His Wife They Should Wait Until He's '6 Or 7'
He just wants his son to be able to remember it, but she wants to celebrate.
PeopleImages.com - Yuri A / Shutterstock Having a child should always feel special — it should be something to be proud of, and often something you want to celebrate about…I don’t know, once a year?
Ever since their child was born, one woman keeps trying to throw extravagant birthday parties for him, but the only man standing in her way is the one who should be just as excited about their kid — her husband.
Posting on Reddit’s “r/AmItheA--hole,” the husband actually shares his side of the story, explaining why he doesn’t think they should have huge parties for their son.
The dad thinks it's 'pointless' to throw a party for his 3-year-old son because he won’t remember.
He starts the story by getting right into it, explaining how his girlfriend loves having parties. “My girlfriend liked to host parties, and when he reached his first birthday, she wanted to have a big birthday party, but I managed to convince her to massively downsize to just us, our parents and siblings, and just have some cake, little guy was still too young,” he claims.
Understandably, a one-year-old is a lot of work. They’re unpredictable and need a lot of attention — it would be hard for party hosts to host a party, catering to guests, while having to be parents. But next year, the same thing happened.
Photo: Reddit
“The next year she again talked about her plans to have a big party for our 2yo, but again I told her it would be just close family and a cake and a happy birthday song,” he explains. Are you noticing a recurring theme? Next year, once again, but this time, his wife pushes back.
“This year she told me about her plans and again I told her to just do something small, but this time she was frustrated and told me to let her do something bigger for our son for once,” he writes, getting to the reason for the post. “I explained that it is ridiculous to have such big parties for toddlers, they will not remember anything.”
The truth comes out, and he tells the story about how he had parties when he was young as well, but never actually remembered any of them. His wife thinks that’s the point, though, and that the party would be for others to take pictures and have memories and celebrate, but he thinks that’s “pointless” and even says it’s at the expense of the child.
His family thinks he’s in the wrong, and his dad tells him that “Dad's word is not that important and I should know my place as a father,” but he wants to know what Reddit thinks.
Everyone criticized him for not wanting to do anything fun for his kid.
It seemed like no one was on his side. With nearly 1000 comments on the post, everyone seemed to be against the dad for his strange logic.
Photo: Reddit
According to one mother from Parenting.com, the best age for parents to throw parties for their kids is actually “Around 4 or 5. By then, a child has friends, a distinct taste in toys, and some experience with cake and ice cream.”
She tells the story of a woman who actually threw a party for her 1-year-old son, Jack, and it didn’t go very well. “Some 50 friends and family came, but it was too much for Jack, who cried through the puppet show and wouldn’t touch his cake.”
“She learned the hard way that for a more pleasant celebration, it’s smart to keep the attention off your baby and work around his nap and feeding schedules,” she explained.
Despite that, however, the people of Reddit argued against his point of view in general, thinking that it’s ridiculous not to do anything fun with your kids until they remember.
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics.