[Noah930]

For the PP Braintrust:

We're planning on my soon-to-be 3 year-old on having a birthday party. So how many kids do we invite? My wife wants to do this at home.

On one hand, I've heard the advice that you should invite 1 more kid than however old your own is turning (3+1=4). Add in parents, and the odd sibling because of no babysitter, and that's easily 15-20 people.

But, on the other hand, we just started a nursery school. There are 14 other kids in his class. What happens when you start inviting some of the kids, but not all of them? If you invite some, are you obligated to invite them all? I mean, from an etiquette standpoint--I already understand the "It's my d@mn house and I can invite whomever I choose" opinion.

Some of those kids (4 or 5) apparently have already invited my kid to their upcoming birthday parties. Are there those that have already had parties and didn't invite my kid? Possibly. I'm not insulted. Left up to my wife, she initially went with the small invite list. So, 2 of those 4 or 5 kids were to be invited. But what about the other 2 or 3?

Plus, we'll already have some family and friends over. Enough to have a small party, right there, without any classmates.

I'm not keen on having 50-60 people (15 kids, plus their parents, whatever siblings they bring because they can't find a babysitter, etc.) over for a 3 year-old's party. That's ridiculous.

Obviously, the kids don't care a bit who's invited to who's party. But, being in a new school, with kids who will hopefully grow up together for awhile, it would also be nice not to get off on the wrong foot with any of the parents. (Though I understand you can't please everyone all the time--particularly the unreasonable ones.)

Any thoughts?