Seán Moncrieff on birthday party factories: Daughter Number Four is attending the same one as a fortnight ago

In between Daughter Number Four’s Saturday schedule of being ferried around to singing/dance/drama/swimming, there will also be the occasional birthday party.

For the most part, the parties are weirdly familiar. And there’s a good reason for that: they are usually held in one of two party venues in our area. Luckily, all the other parents in her class have reached the sensible conclusion that, while such venues might be a bit pricey, it’s considerably cheaper than having to have the livingroom replastered after 15 seven-year-olds have torn through it.

At these venues, it’s also more acceptable to dump the child and run. People who host children’s parties in their homes sometimes do it for suspect reasons: because they want to show off how they’ve hired a clown and a llama trainer, or there’s a new kitchen extension, or – worst of all – they are fun people who wanted to cater for the adults.

But that rarely happens. Instead, there’s a nice, familiar routine. Arrive with child. Child locates friends and dashes off into play area. Play consists of climbing, vigorous bouncing and falling over. But mostly it consists of screaming and running out to tell an adult when one of the other children is in tears. After an hour or so of this, the sweating, red-faced kids are escorted to a room that looks a bit like a cell. They are served tepid pizza or chicken nuggets and then cake that is based on whatever cartoon character is popular that week. The cake always tastes exactly the same.

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It’s best not to linger too long, as the carnage you witness might have lasting psychological damage

If you time it right, you can arrive just in time for the tuneless Happy Birthday rendition, smile indulgently for two minutes and then leave. It’s best not to linger too long, as the carnage you witness might have lasting psychological damage. The noise level is, of course, unspeakable. The floor is strewn with discarded hoodies and shoes. Your feet crunch through crumbs or splash through pools of orange squash. The toilets are jammed with paper. The smell makes your eyes water.

Invariably, the staff stand in corners or edge along the walls. They seem to adhere to a strict non-interventionist policy, perhaps because they are child psychologists in disguise wishing to observe this savage, Darwinian world and what it may evolve into. Or it could simply be that their own struggles with puberty are so intense they are unable to help anyone else. On the odd occasion when you manage to corner one to ask a question, they invariably blush.

In a literal sense, Daughter Number Four is attending the same party she was at a fortnight ago, and a month before that

What I’m describing here isn’t the result of just one birthday party. These venues are in fact birthday party factories. Multiple children are having their special day in exactly the same way at the same time, or more precisely, in a staggered fashion. Delays can gum up the whole system. If one group takes longer than the allotted 30 minutes to gulp back junk food and sing the song, this can have profound knock-on effects. Collecting parents will arrive to discover that the cake bit hasn’t even happened yet and they have to face the skin-peeling horror of making small talk with other adults. Staff members will mutter apologies, then turn bright pink.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve delivered Daughter Number Four to these places. In a literal sense, she is attending the same party she was at a fortnight ago, and a month before that. The only change is the seating arrangement. I wonder, in years to come, if she will remember any of them, or will they coalesce in her mind as a sweaty, snotty blur.

Perhaps they are secretly wiping the kids’ memories so they don’t realise that they have done this many times before. Because Daughter Number Four and her friends always look forward to these parties and afterwards say they had a great time. It’s the only explanation.