INVOICING parents because their five-year-old missed a birthday party? What on earth is going on?

I was aghast at the story that Julie Lawrence, mother of five-year-old Charlie, had invoiced the parents of his friend Alex Nash for his ‘no show’ at her son’s birthday party. She has even threatened to take them to court for the £15.95 cost of his place at a local ski centre.

This is parenting gone mad. Julie Lawrence has reduced the value of what should have been a priceless celebration of her son’s birthday (such a special day for young children because to them a year seems to last a decade) to just £15.95.

I hope the public reaction to her decision to chase this relatively small amount at the cost of one of her son’s friendships has brought home to her the fact that the party was not about money but about creating a happy and special memory for her son. That has now been ruined, because no doubt following all the publicity, every child in the school and their parents and teachers know exactly how his parents have behaved, there will be an atmosphere in the playground every time the two mothers encounter each other, and you can bet that when little Charlie’s sixth birthday comes around, invitations will be firmly and politely declined for fear an invoice for the cost of uneaten sandwiches and cake will follow.

All Charlie will remember of his fifth birthday will be the controversy and anger created by his parents. And all for £15.95.

Yes, his mum must have felt annoyed that Charlie failed to show up (apparently because of a last-minute arrangement to see his grandparents at Christmas) when his parents had already accepted the invitation – but chill out, for goodness sake.

When you are a parent, you just accept that sometimes family life with young children takes unexpected turns and that not everything always goes exactly to plan.

Whether you have a big chaotic party for lots of children or a small exclusive expensive one at a ski centre, you should be able to take it in your stride if things go wrong – and put on a happy face for the sake of your child.

The Lawrences, in choosing to hold the party at a ski centre, must have known the cost when they booked it. Therefore, they take responsibility for footing the entire bill themselves, no matter what, because an acceptance to a child’s birthday party is a casual agreement, not a legally binding contract.

You might as well start legislating about the contents of party bags and the health and safety risks of wrapping pieces of cake in napkins.

Chaos is an integral part of birthday parties for young children.

I should know, because for years, we held three birthday parties a year at our house when our children were younger. Sometimes, we asked as many as 28 youngsters because the birthday boy or girl wanted to invite everyone, and it’s part and parcel of this kind of social occasion that most will show up, some won’t and can’t let you know because of circumstances, and some turn up with unexpected siblings.

I’ve had parties where a mother knelt down close to the kitchen table holding all the party food to change her baby’s smelly nappy and the children simply ate around her, where children invented their own game of stamping lumps of coloured Play-Doh into our stair carpet (they’re still there), where they took my son’s present of wax crayons and decorated his bedroom wall with their drawings, where they made water balloons and burst them all over the house, and where I told them over and over again not to let the dog into the kitchen because she would steal all the food. Of course they did. And she was as sick as a dog for days.

Small children revel in chaos – they expect it at parties, because the rules are different to normal everyday life.

In fact, at parties there should be no rules and parents should happily feed them food that’s high on e-numbers and let them run riot afterwards. Children are perfectly capable of making their own fun – they certainly don’t need orderly games and a strict timetable, or even skiing lessons, to enjoy themselves. Sadly, I expect Julie Lawrence’s son won’t be receiving as many party invitations now that her invoice has attracted such adverse publicity. His memory bank of fun times at his friends’ parties is likely to remain empty now, while his mother’s bank account swells by, oooh, £15.95. I hope it was worth it.

Teens are tougher than toddlers

PARENTING teenagers is so much harder than dealing with toddlers.

Back when I was the mother of three children under the age of five, I thought life couldn’t get tougher: my time was neatly divided between nappy-changing and spoon-feeding. But how wrong I was. A decade later, we are dealing with one teen facing his GCSE options – and as he doesn’t yet know what he wants to be when he’s older, he is currently flitting between bodyguard, sports physiotherapist and engineer – and another enduring interviews for sixth form college.

Our youngest is playing up because he’s not getting enough attention – and he has taken to punching his older brother for no apparent reason. Now, as his older brother has suddenly grown about a foot taller and his voice has broken, his reaction is often, shall we say, overly violent – and excessively loud!

I’m exhausted with dealing with them. Emotionally exhausted, compared with the physical exhaustion of a decade ago.

Who says teenagers don’t need their parents around? They need them more than ever. And their parents need a break!

Can anyone solve this conundrum?