October, let’s go. It’s time to enter the infernal circle of the damned birthday parties of our children. A scourge, which is absolutely unthinkable to escape, worse than being locked inside one escape rooms (at least there is a way out). These are purges that occupy the lives of all parents from the first birthday in kindergarten until the end of primary school (afterwards they thin out, only the diehards resist beyond 11 years).
The phenomenon, unfortunately, known for at least a decade, has now transhipped, spilling over from the little party with the tart and four friends at home, into real “events”. Today, to blow out the candles without making a bad impression in front of our classmates, because that’s what it’s all about, that is, a tiring competition to demonstrate what perfect parents we are, we need to at least call the wedding planner. To get to have something that’s halfway between an eighteenth (even if they’re turning five) and a party that would make the Great Gatsby envious. Who shows off the estate in the countryside, all rattan and vineyards, who has the swimming pool on the attic in the centre, who has an entertainment that I don’t even know Disneylandmultiple changes of clothes, magicians who in comparison the Magician Zurlì was an amateur.
The escalation of luxury between organic catering and monumental cakes
Even if we go down a step, the grandeur remains. Sports centers, lofts, ateliers, bowling, paintball and amusement parks are rented, enormous spaces filled with all sorts of inflatables, decorated with thousands of balloons of all shades, life-size giraffes, baby face painting (also extended to mothers, seen while they were having eyeliner applied), gigantic soap bubbles, strictly organic foods (quinoa as a four-year-old snack is delicious).
And of course the “cake design”, the cake sculpture even three-storey ones like those of the bride and groom (expensive and inedible, but with the list of allergens attached).
The capital of baby parties is without a doubt Milanwhere a gigantic business was born around locations to rent, always booked. Tells Valentina Desarioauthor and founder of the highly followed blog Tiredly Mom: «It’s a sort of circus orchestrated by parents, who compete to see who organizes the best one. Children are the stage of unfulfilled desires, the last chance to emerge from their frustrations. Once it was sharing, today there are painful moments of exclusion, because not always the whole class is invited, some have to stay at home. It is never real life, but a continuous, very tiring media representation.”
The minimum threshold of one thousand euros and the dictatorship of the format
So off to the entertainers, even more than one to entertain every age group (as if since the dawn of time children haven’t been able to entertain themselves very well on their own). For girls the must have become the Beauty Spa Partywhere the little ones are equipped with dressing gowns and terry cloth wraps and then pampered with manicures, nail polishes and hydrating masks. Also optional is a hairdressing station for braids and chignons. In short, for a “little party” (so to speak) spend 1,000 euros it is the starting point. Dear parents, even if you inflate the balloons until you are admitted to intensive care, don’t fool yourself: the budget drops slightly (and there are also those who get into debt. Our boomer fathers would have given us a healthy kick in the behind just hearing about it). Instead, the bar is constantly rising. The blogger, who has a ten-year-old child, continues: «I have had many of these parties, and I have organized just as many at a considerable expense. If you take the tour it’s up to you every year and you can no longer escape, under penalty of public flagellation. Now everything is a performance, especially here in Milan. It’s the city itself that pushes you to show off, to be competitive. I booked in July for November and the best locations were already taken.”
The comparison becomes cruel, scenes of class struggle in kindergarten. It all starts from how many square meters of play surface you can afford in the terrifying “children’s rooms”, which have grown bigger than mushrooms on the Amiata, mostly Finnish saunas where everyone, adults and children, sweats. The musical selection is very deplorable, but the volume is that of Ushuaia in Ibiza.
Sugary donuts and chewy pizzas shouldn’t be missed. If you choose to share them you must be ready like a Marvel hero to face the invasion of small and unstoppable grasshoppers who, from other parties, if dissatisfied with their snack, will throw themselves on yours.
The obligation of the gift and the mystery of the final gift
Joke, but not too much, Angelica Masseraactress and content creator, two children and an average of forty birthdays a year, practically a second job: «Remember that you have to give the gift, even if you don’t go. You can’t escape, your parents will come looking for you all the way to the Pillars of Hercules, it’s a perverse mechanism. And if you get the unfortunate idea of not participating you will be judged and stoned. You risk blame even if you don’t attend the celebrations of those born on August 13, because saying you were on holiday is not an acceptable excuse.” Finally we arrive at the theater of the absurd: «At the end of every event there can never be a lack of a sort of “bonbonnière”, a little gift given to all the participants which usually ends up badly, i.e. it doesn’t even arrive at home. However, it is an obligation with the aim of making people remember the party, while you just want to leave and forget it as soon as possible.”
We have long wondered about the usefulness of this “cinesate” for friends, a further and senseless expense. Why do you feel the need to give gifts to guests? You have to be sadomasochistic to do yourself more harm. None of the parents interviewed were able to explain the madness of the final cadeau. “They expect it”, is the most frequent answer, which once again explains our distorted idea of how to make a child happy.
However, even there it is a path full of unknowns: lollipops and packets with Goleador are now banned, you only go on the “green”. Be careful of pink and blue, the package can never be gendered, not even if they still have diapers. Just fluid little thoughts. The writer Raffaella Case is sincere: «Contract, otherwise asphalt». Her husband takes care of the worldly affairs of the seven-year-old girl: “He not only participates in other people’s affairs, but organizes ours.” She is practically moving towards beatification, while her brilliant teenage daughter has decided to become an entertainer, counting on the hard core of her sister’s friends. «A crazy success, it made me raise my ISEE», he jokes. «I stay away from these places of temporary detention, ephemeral factories of entertainment. Then there is the oratory, at least in Bovisa (in Milan, ed.) where I live, more national-popular and certainly easy-going. There are still some, the truly brave ones, who risk the party at home, selecting the children. Parents arrive at school with carbonari invitations, pleading for silence, but the naive mothers play tricks on you. Finally there is the meeting in the park, risks Who has seen it?, but they are the best and most manageable”.
From sleepovers to Sunday kidnappings with no way out
But from Bovisa, moving to the centre, the music changes: «For the girls they have pajama parties, or rather sleepoveras they say now, Kardashian style. My daughter was invited to a wonderful evening with Indian tents set up in a gigantic hall. In recent years I have noticed that we are moving towards a complicated sophistication: soon they will be asked for signed consent to participate.”
Meanwhile, the school year has begun and the holidays, as the actresses and authors of the famous Instagram page observe The Exhibitions (@le.mostre) that is Elisa Maria Bottiglieri And Marianna Folliboth with a daughter, loom inexorably. “These are real kidnappings,” they say in unison, because the script is the same for all of them. «There are even “the ruthless” who call you at ten on Sunday morning. The last time in one of those terrible inflatable cages a little one had vomited and from there we fell into a Dante’s circle. Then when you try to get away you feel an authoritative hand on your shoulder that stops you: “What, aren’t you stopping for the cake?”. It’s now seven in the evening and you only dream of running away, but instead you still have to open the presents and in the meantime it’s getting dark.”
They dedicated an amusing chapter of the last book to these poor broken women Water, soap and gin and tonic (just released by DeAgostini). «We are at such a point that when I read that this year it would arrive powerful El Niño during the winter, my first thoughts weren’t about climate change, but about my daughter’s party, which comes to me in late autumn. If it’s hot maybe I can get rid of it and do it in the park.” Gin and tonic.
