If I ever run for president, I will be a one issue candidate. My platform will simply be based on the eradication of extreme children’s birthday parties, and with the exception of the dissenting votes of Martha Stewart and Chuck E. Cheese, I will win the office unanimously.

If I could, I would actually run as First Lady because I am the Betty Ford of out-of-control children’s parties. I am recovering addict, and therefore I am in the expert position to set up rehab for those mothers who need help. I will institute clinics at the end of elementary school car lines and the neighborhood Starbuck’s and supply my patients with overpriced themed goody bags filled with cupcakes and miniature Play-Doh in place of methadone.

As President, I will abolish all taxes and pay for every single requested social program, infrastructure improvement and the Pentagon’s annual budget with the money we save collectively from the extravagant affairs for 6 year-olds. I’m also fairly certain I can even become more imperialistic and take over Canada and Mexico with a single season of MTV’s “Sweet 16” expenditures. On my former pace, with 18 years of parties for 4 children, our household alone would have spent more than the GNP of some small European countries.

An invitation to a child’s party is a major financial and emotional commitment nowadays. They arrive in the mail with a prenup. Along with a box to check if you will be dining on the chicken (nuggets) or fish (sticks); you must vow to love, honor and obey whatever outlandish theme the mother of the flower girl has dreamed up. In the last invitation that arrived via private courier by air balloon, a registry from the toy store was included. I wasn’t sure if it was her birthday, or if she was marrying into the Presley family.

But I suppose transforming a suburban backyard into the Neverland Ranch doesn’t come cheaply. On a typical Saturday afternoon neighborhood streets look like the Rose Bowl parade lined with floats and inflatable jumpy things with face painters who stand sentry at their webbed entrances for 200 bucks an hour while shoeless children bounce until they throw up on the $600 Dora the Explorer sculpted cake after riding on a pink and purple-dyed pony that cost two grand. With a chalk artist, magician, and a pediatric acupuncturist, my neighbor’s four year-olds party had more talent than this year’s Grammy Awards, and more toddlerazzi snapping photos to prove it.

The exotic locales of many of these events must also be stopped. I had to get my children passports for one of their classmates’ “Adolescence on the High Seas” shindigs in Barbados. These off-site parties are so difficult for guests to logistically coordinate; I dread every single one like a recurring case of Montezuma’s Revenge. Every Saturday from 1-4 we seem to arrive late for a party for some kid he met once 2 years ago in Gymboree for 10 minutes before he quit with 50 other bewildered invitees who also couldn’t recall the guest of honor’s last name. Protocol for the event will include the awkward standing just out of the way enough to be in the way, while I make sure my child tumbles down some germ-laden slide properly before making pirate cutlasses handcrafted with Swarovski crystals and pipe cleaners. Might I humbly suggest the re-institution of the drop-off party? Because if your soiree includes activities that require the supervision of 20 other adults that are not related or hired by you, chances are it’s not a party, it’s boot camp.

The national tragedy to all of this is that some of the most memorable parties I’ve hosted or attended have been those that have been the smallest, simplest and least expensive. Trust me; your child is not going to remember if the balloon animal artist could make Spongebob or not. The only thing they care about is being happily inflated by being surrounded by the people who love him singing “Happy Birthday” out of tune in silly hats on his special day.

And again, parents, I’ve been where you are, I feel your pain. But I am living proof there is hope for recovery for even the strongest addiction. All you have to do is balance your checkbook during the birthday month and it has a rather sobering effect.

And even if I am unsuccessful in my presidential bid, after this campaign speech, at least I know I’ll be successful in being McCarthy-ed off of every guest list forever.

©2007 Tracey Henry

Divamail me an e-vite. Or not. Divamail@SuburbanDiva.com.