When I was growing up, birthdays were often a budget affair…but that just meant a lot of homemade stuff that I could help on which only added to the excitement of the day to come. We would often decorate our own party favor bags and then fill them with fun but cheap and useless trinkets and some candy to keep the sugar high going. The only place we didn’t really scrimp was the cake…most of my childhood we ordered the same cake from the same awesome (and sadly no longer in business) SF bakery every year. Whether my invitees were limited or not usually depended upon what we were doing…if the party was going to take place at a park or just be your average theme-less at home event, I was free to invite pretty much whomever (we did live in a rural area, which helped). If I wanted to go somewhere for entertainment, however, like a movie or mini-golf park, there was a definite limit.

Once I hit my adolescence, however, I went the same way your children did — sleep-overs with minimal parental involvement. That isn’t to say no parental involvement, however…one year (17 I think?) my friends and I made home-made pizzas with my dad. And the year I turned 14, with what is likely the most memorable birthday event in my personal experience, my guests arrived and were drafted into assisting my parents recapture a cow that had escaped and taken off down the road. At the time, I was a bit embarrassed by the situation, but my friends talked about it joyfully for years to come.

Growing up here in the 80s & early 90s, everyone had a ball either with a park-playground/at-home party, or (preferably) celebrating at Cal Skate, pizza/arcade parlor, or some other kid-focused establishment. Are the huge at-home parties now because this generation of kids prefer it over going somewhere, or is it more what the parents are comfortable with?