Life

Party on, dude

Children's birthday parties can be excruciating as well as great fun - and some parents take them very seriously. But threatening legal action for not turning up is taking things a bit far, writes Leona O'Neill

MUMS and dads are a great bunch of lads, most of the time. But once in a while one of them will inevitably go rogue. And one went a spectacular level-seven rogue this week when she sent another mother an invoice for a no-show at her son's birthday bash.

Tanya Walsh was appalled when her five-year-old Alex came home from school with a £15.95 bill for missing a classmate's party at a ski centre.

At first Alex's parents thought it was a joke and refused to pay. Rogue mum then threatened to take the parents to the small claims court if they didn't pay up.

Assuming the party invitation was not in legal speak - I, the birthday boy, invite you, the second party, to the official celebration of my day of birth in the role of my close acquaintance - and was not a legally binding contract between five-year-olds, the vexed mum hasn't a leg to stand on.

Kids' birthday parties can be as stressful and dangerous as negotiating a minefield for parents.

When children are small they cannot be dropped off and abandoned at the party and parents have to endure two hours in an adventure play area (aka the seventh circle of hell). There are often two hours of making small talk with complete strangers while inhaling vomit fumes from the ball pit and having your eardrums perforated by loud techno music.

We've been to some amazing parties. My girl and I attended one recently where the mum had her entire house decked out as a Frozen castle, and herself dolled up as Elsa. She had a five-tier cake and fake icicles hanging off every available space. She surely spent in excess of a thousand pounds.

And I've been at some breathtaking parties with my boys - perhaps the most memorable one was where the Postman Pat bouncy castle was mostly populated by parents who availed of the vodka served in white plastic cups at 1pm. Or the one where an over-eager grandparent was taken away in an ambulance after trying to outshine the kids on the trampoline.

I'm not saying I put on the best parties in town, but no-one can say my gigs are in any way magnolia. They are often unforgettable. And someone always throws up, that's a guarantee.

We once held a race-car-themed sixth birthday party for Caolan at our house. Thirty of his friends rampaged through the house for two hours, racing on the DIY track that the husband had fashioned from bin liners and painting their own race cars, made form cardboard boxes that I had spent a month collecting.

They went mad with the poster paint, decorating the walls of the house and transforming my mother's Ford Focus into a rainbow-coloured psychedelic space wagon that took three turns in the car wash to get off.

Caolan is 10 years old this week and, mercifully, he merely wants a football party in the sports centre - that is relatively simple to execute.

In preparation for his celebration I dispatched him and his father to a card shop in town to find invitations as he was complaining that the ones I had purchased for him were too babyish. The boy, left to his own devices, bought three packets and returned home to write them. As he was putting the last invitation to his friends in the envelope I caught a glimpse of the front - a tall glass of beer with the word 'Let's Party!' in silver embossed font across the top.

I would imagine that not only would no-one turn up to the boy's party, but that there would be an expansive spread in the Daily Mail, showcasing various outraged parents criticising me for inviting their 10-year-olds to a beer-fest football extravaganza.