A/the handful of non-icefishing Minnesotans have formed Birthdays Without Pressure, an advocacy group designed to bait the media into writing about get parents talking about stressful birthday party oneupsmanship:
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Having decided on a ballerina theme for her daughter's sixth birthday party, Michelle West drove all over to find little dancers for the cake. Then she put 50 little beefeater guards around the edges. And she gave it beautiful white icing with peppermint trim.[Of course, the dad, who had to fly 25 Northwest roundtrips sober in order to collect those 50 little Beefeaters gets no credit at all.]
The question here is obvious: "WTF? She's making a birthday cake??"
Or as the woman who started a "sparkly mini-make-over" party business put it in the 9,000-comment-long thread, it's all about de-stressing:
Wow I agree extravagant parties for kids to young to appreciate it (or too outrageously expensive to justify) are crazy. I always made my kids parties fun and did an activity and theme, keeping the number of kids reasonable. Now I have my own party business where I take the stress AWAY from the parents and come to their homes and run the party for two hours. The girls play games, get a sparkly mini-make-over (if they want)& nails painted, and get to play dress up with my collection of costumes so they can be a "superstar" in any way they dream (singer, actor, dancer, olympic medalist, etc...) The girls love this party, they build up their self confidence and mom gets to relax! I had a mom thank me up and down because her "painfully" shy daughter smiled and glowed with confidence after being my "Star of the Day" (birthday girl) she danced and sang with all the other girls. I'm proud of this business and being a mother of 3 girls myself this is what I felt mom's could use to de-stress over parties. The parties are affordable and help to build girls' self-confidence and imaginations.Meanwhile, I should strike my strikethrough above. BWP is a media-baiting exercise, according to co-founder Julie Printz's comments:
I'd also like to point out that the media is loving this story. They love the sensational and like to put their own spin on it so some of what you are hearing and reading are their attempts to create controversy and not so much our opinions.All that said, unless you want to have a party for yourself, the only thing you need a first birthday party for is the baby-touching-candle photo-op.
Parents Balking At Kids' Galas [deseretnews/ap thanks, mom]
Hey! That site makes Minnesotans seem like uppity rich rednecks-- oh, wait. That's right.