Comment: French children's parties are low key affairs - fortunately

There is a verse by the comic poet Ogden Nash that ought to come with a trigger warning for parents. Called Children’s Party, it begins with an entreaty to the family dog – “May I join you in the doghouse, Rover? I wish to retire till the party's over” – before proceeding, in ghastly detail, to describe the trials of superintending social gatherings for your kids. 

These days, like polio and lead-painted toys, parental involvement at parties is something the anglophone world has taken great pains to eradicate from childhood.

The fashion is rather to pay someone else: hiring an entertainer, booking the soft play centre, laser tag, paint ball, or the Pizza Express party made infamous by Prince Andrew’s sex alibi. The New York Post declared in February that Sephora skincare shindigs are the new big thing for girls.

“It’s not because I want to out-do other parents,” says a friend in London with a five-year-old. “It’s more the fact I don’t want to be in charge of controlling their kids.”

Read more: Why France is a great place to bring up children

Parties without the price tags

Party catering has been similarly outsourced; time constraints, special dietary needs and increasingly sophisticated tastes all mean that shop-bought foodstuffs now hold sway. One in 20 parents have ordered in a sushi platter, according to a 2024 UK poll.

Factor in party bag loot, balloon arches – even a professional photographer – and it is no surprise the same survey found that kids’ birthday celebrations cost Brits an eye-watering £524 on average.

French parents, I have discovered, also prefer to be hands-off – but do it without burning a hole in their wallets. 

It helps that celebrations here are much smaller. In the UK, the guest list generally extends to the whole class lest anyone feels left out. 

By contrast, the French seem to stop at around eight, which immediately reduces potential for the sort of low-level rioting (“progeny in roistering batches”) that Nash described in his poem. No one seems to take offence if they’re not invited.

Party food, meanwhile, is generally still home-baked and nothing more complicated than the five-minute yogurt cake that kids themselves are taught in maternelle. Balloons haven’t been souped up with helium or architectural flourishes.

Parties often take place at the local ludothèque (toy library) where kids are largely left to their own devices. Those that are hosted at home follow a similarly unstructured format – guests packed off to the garden for the afternoon, like any other play date, while parents briefly chat over coffee, and then get on with their afternoons.

Read more: Five things to know to understand the French mindset

Try to organise fun – as I naively did for my son’s party last year – and you’ll likely be met by cold stares. I am still haunted by the row of ring doughnuts laboriously strung from our washing line, which no French child, hands behind their backs, could be convinced to sportively peck at. 

So, I applaud the French their laissez-faire, but will it last? This weekend’s party was, unusually, lightly themed (Minecraft). There was also a rogue piñata. Beyond that, the only discernible intervention was locking away the family dog in the barn. 

Poor Rover, I don’t expect either of those chill parents felt the need to join you.