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November 30, 2005
Party Psychology. (No this is not a Tory leadership post)
Ever since I remember I’ve hated parties. They follow the same formula whether you are 3 or 33; massive egos competing for attention, Billy-No-Mates in one corner sobbing into his or her drink, constant bitching, fighting, overindulgence and vomiting. And one of the most annoying thing about being a mother (especially at this time of year) is that it becomes less easy to avoid the bastards.
There is of course no rationality behind the psychology of parties. When I was my daughter’s age, despite the fact that I loathed parties from the core of my delicate stomach, I would still accept any invitation with pride. Yet when the day actually arrived I would be standing there in my pretty frilly dress, beautifully wrapped gift in one hand, grabbing onto the doorway of my house with the other, sobbing and crying at my mother that I didn’t want to go anymore and my mother would say something along the lines of ’Why didn’t you say earlier? Like for instance before I forked out for the present.’ (Swap mother for husband and the situation is pretty much the same as an adult.)
Well the answer is that there is a certain amount of honour felt in actually being invited to a party that for a while smoothes over the natural fear until about 1.3 seconds after you have said. ‘Thank you! I’d love to come!’ And of course all this means that there’s only one thing worse than *going* to a party and that’s *not being invited* to a party.
Yesterday morning in the playground the whole horror of the situation rushed back to me rather like a tidal wave. Picture the scene, a girl is handing out invitations to her fifth birthday party, now this girl isn’t one of Littleone’s best friends but I know she plays with her every now and then, so shall we say she fits into the in-with-a-chance category. One of Littleone’s best friends is given a shiny pink envelope. Now I thought this was one of the unwritten rules of parenthood injected into you at childbirth along with the pain killers, thou must not spilt up groups of friends, if thou invit’st one thou must invite the other. Maybe this particular mother had a natural birth or something, I don’t know but after a while it became obvious that Littleone and her other friend were not invited.
Oh the pain! If you too could have seen the way my daughter hovered hopefully around the pile of envelopes whilst trying to make it look like she wasn’t hovering at all; if you too could have seen the way her other friend turned to her dad and said expectantly, ‘maybe mine will be the next one’; and if the last sight you caught of your daughter’s face as she disappeared into the classroom was that stoic I’m-not-disappointed-really-I'm-not look; then you too would have had to stuff your clenched fists into your pockets in order to stop yourself from walking up to birthday girl’s mother and punching her goddamn lights out.
And because after I dropped her off I couldn’t get the picture of her face out of my mind, what did I do? Why of course I headed straight round to the school office to buy some tickets for the after school Christmas party. Yes that same one I was going to avoid like the plague this year, the one I blogged about last year where the cheap and very very nasty sight of 3, 4 and 5 year olds doing the Kylie-wiggle-arse dance nearly ruined my Christmas.
To be honest I think it was that ticket rather than my novel which caused her to tell me that she liked me better than conkers when she got home from last night but in these harsh times I grab my credit wherever I can.
Posted by purple elephant at November 30, 2005 09:28 AM