Mom blows $32,000 on daughter's 6th birthday

America is the land of great extremes, especially when it comes to children's birthday parties.

You have parents throwing unpretentious, humble, back-to-the-basics birthday parties (with a holier-than-thou undertone) in places such as Brooklyn, N.Y., Berkeley, Calif., and Portland, Ore. Invitations are paperless Evites. Cakes are made with eggs from the backyard chickens. And the guests' party favors are star-shaped crayons made from recycled Crayolas by a mom who sells green goodie bag items on Etsy.

And then you have the extravagant birthday balls featured on TLC's new show Outrageous Kid Parties, which premiered earlier this week. The show documents middle-class parents as they go above and beyond their means to spoil their little darlings with over-the-top celebrations. The series features four 30-minute episodes.

The first episode follows a 45-year-old mother named Nicole who spends a staggering $32,000 on her daughter's sixth birthday (because 6 is such an important milestone and calls for a $2,100 nine-tier cake).



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfmoms/detail?entry_id=83626

but for my 7th birthday, I had a little party with some classmates at my house, on what passed for a patio in my back yard, with everyone sitting around a little fold-up card table. I got a Batman costume and some cheapie board game and some plastic soldiers. And we had a cake made from either a Duncan Hines or Pillsbury mix.

instead of the mom (well, to be honest, I usually wangle a cake out of both of them - but nobody's going to make a TV show about that level of obscene excess!)

I mean, how dare she.

...:eyes:

ps. that's :sarcasm:

The mother is a waste of breath. And her daughter is going to be a waste of breath as well.

Wait until she is 16!!!!!!!!!

That little girl is going to be useless as an adult...

Better that a baker have their thousands than they do as far as I'm concerned.

nt

a movie producer's daughter. The kids were all from Beverly Hills High School. Sixteen year old kids arrived in mink coats and real jewelry like in diamonds and designer dresses. Many movie stars were there and everyone arrived in limos. It was almost like the Academy Awards. The ladies room reeked of weed, but there was a superior court judge there with his kid and he shrugged it off. Like someone else said, we workers and the caterers all made money, so let them spend it. I guess this is what is called trickle down economics.

Ouch! Wait til she wants to start driving. Indeed - wait til her "Sweet 16." They'll be lucky to have anything by the time their daughter is ready to get married.

:scared:

I don't see why these parents go all out to spend more on a kid's party than a normal person would spend on a wedding.

I bet you the girl would be content with a small gathering of friends, family, a few humble presents, some good food and a few games.

I mean, you have a parent like this, you know that kid is probably already messed up. Good luck to any teachers who have to deal with this little princess.

Dairy Queen sundae cartons and crepe paper. It was held in the front yard and we all rode our broomstick horses and fired our 6-shooter cap guns. This was in 1956.

And we thought we were being extravagant spending about a third of that.

I don't have a problem with the economics of it (although I hope these people support charitable causes as generously as they do their daughter's birthday parties) but I do feel sorry for their daughter.

And the wedding...

really?

It is just more of the 'live beyond your means' glorification of excess...
Wonder if that family knows anyone who was recently laid off (like most of the population)
everytime I see something like this, it makes my blood boil. Money can be used to do so much goodness, instead of this bullshit

wish they would do a show on people helping one another, let's make THAT glamorous!

gawk at a car wreck. Voyeurism.

the show is people spending crazy amounts of money on stupid stuff. That's reality TV. Since they got on TV, you have to consider the money well spent. In the reality world the idea is to get on TV, and then hope the public catches fire and starts getting you booked from show to show. They spent 32 K but might end up millionaires or end up 1 and done reality TV people. It's a gamble, but for some it does pay off.

Is she spending your money?

Conspicuous consumption is NOT an admirable quality. It merely shows off a person's greed and petty desires while inciting hate and contempt from those with less.

But to go into debt and above and beyond their means to spoil their little darling with over-the-top celebration is just plain ignorant. To admire ignorant behavior is to promote it.

if people want to be stupid they have a right to. And the silver lining to that foolishness is that local businesses are supported...

Clowns need to pay the mortgage too...

each of them (scratch) and kept forgetting to get a 3rd cake pan (the store was 35 miles one way) so I did have a bundt pan I used for the top layer..each layer a different color and the top layer had a big hole in the center with candles in a circle. .:rofl:
Never heard one complaint. The kids had cake and ice cream and presents, then went outside to play. Small town so all the kids of their age came to the parties. And a good time was had by all.
People are just nuts today.

No one who is truly middle class blows thirty large on a kid's birthday party, unless maybe it's a quinceanera (Latino party for a girl who turns 15, kind of a cross between a bat mitzvah and a society debut). These people are wealthy.

my family, a good dinner, maybe some games (board games, bowling, Wii) and a yellow cake with vanilla icing and purple hyacinth flowers from Bings Bakery :) That's my ideal birthday :)

As for my kids, they usually end up with 2 - something with their close friends and the extended family birthday party. They get their presents from us at the family birthday party. When they have the close friends over for their party, we pay and provide transportation for bowling, a trip to the rodeo or movies and an ice cream parlor visit afterwards. I think they're spoiled, but what they do to celebrate seems to be A LOT less than their peers, and I like keeping the big family party separate from the friends.

with our "care" and "concern."

...but the irony is, the kid could have had just as memorable of a party if they had spent a lot less and used their own creativity. The show-off aspect was more for the parents' sake than the girl's, I suspect. Still, that party paid a lot of people's salaries, so no harm done.

I also hope she grows up to be less of an idiot than her mother.

I try not to judge how other people spend their money. I do, however, think this is an egregious example of people using bad financial judgment. In the collective, I think this is one of the things that hurt our economy so badly. People spending beyond their means on things like a kid's birthday party. There are so many people I ache for who have go into debt to pay medical bills and other real bills they can't afford. Then there are the people who spend thousands of $ on something like a 6 year old's birthday party, go into debt, can't pay their bills and hurt other people because they're financially incompetent. I feel bad for the people and businesses this family ends up stiffing because they spent their rent money on a $2,000 cake. Honestly. The 6 year old would have no idea whether her cake is expensive - she just wants it to be pink.

I guess I'm judging here. :)

Edited to ask: Has anyone seen this show to know if they show the consequences of families like this spending "above and beyond their means" on these parties?

The first thing she said was: "Can you imagine how someone who doesn't have enough to eat must feel seeing this?" GREAT! I thought, she's getting it...I've been working hard....until she followed it up with this: It's done and we can't do anything about it!" I replied, "Yes we can."

temporarily employed making/preparing the various items for this understated birthday party. Trickle down does work.

I wonder how many of the people who automatically think every dollar a rich person can spend on anything above living in a shipping container, riding a used bicycle to work, eating house-brand beans and franks, and wearing Walmart clearance-rack clothes should be immediately given to "the poor," give any of their own money to "the poor." I bet it's not many.

But that's an issue for another day.

You know this woman that dropped $32,000 on a six-year-old daughter's birthday party is going to be first in line at the financial-aid trough when her kid goes to college. This money would have completely paid for a couple years at a high-quality public university, or paid a lot of the freight at a top-tier private one. "Total billed and unbilled costs" at Harvard are around $56,000 per year, $30.292 gets you through the University of Idaho for a year (it's a good school if you STAY IN IT, not transfer to five other schools before going back and finishing your studies like some Alaskan transplants did), UCLA is going to run you $12,000 a year (plus room, board and beer) if you're willing to move to California...

Back in my day!

I judge the hell out of people who do shit like that while people are starving and dying from lack of health care and can't afford the basics of life.

It's monstrous selfishness. It's a total lack of empathy with other humans. It shows a complete absence of any sort of human emotion.

Did you guys not learn anything from the French Revolution?

It's not envy. It's not jealousy. OMG - this board is full of threads today about class war, about the richest humans taking everything from everyone else. This is part of that. This is not in any way shape or form "OMG I'm sooooo jealous that I can't spend that much on a party." It's "I have never seen that much money in my life and I am hungry and my kids are hungry and I am sick and can't afford to go to the doctor while people spend more than I've ever made in a year on a fucking birthday party."

So yes. I judge the fucking hell out of them.

No matter. I'm sure my mom provided a cake, probably a couple of friends and a few presents. I must have been content. If it was bad, I'd remember it.

A working single mom's small celebration was fine with me.

Impossible!

If they are rich enough to do it, I don't mind, because of the businesses that got the business. To them it does not matter how many people gave them 32K worth of business - whether it is one or 100.

what a bunch of idiots.

probably wasn't inexpensive and I felt kind of guilty for being oblivious to that fact as a kid.

That being said it probably did not cost anywhere near $32,000. They could have saved money by buying her a car.