{"id":35691,"date":"2025-10-18T22:21:30","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T22:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/i-went-over-the-top-for-my-1-year-olds-birthday-party-i-just-wanted-to-prove-that-im-a-good-mother-but-i-regret-it\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T22:21:30","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T22:21:30","slug":"i-went-over-the-top-for-my-1-year-olds-birthday-party-i-just-wanted-to-prove-that-im-a-good-mother-but-i-regret-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/i-went-over-the-top-for-my-1-year-olds-birthday-party-i-just-wanted-to-prove-that-im-a-good-mother-but-i-regret-it\/","title":{"rendered":"I went over the top for my 1-year-old&#8217;s birthday party. I just wanted to prove that I&#8217;m a good mother, but I regret it."},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/68f125601c1f80efbec5b834?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Paulina Roe&#039;s daughter on her first birthday\"\/><figcaption>The author threw her daughter an elaborate birthday party.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Paulina Roe<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>I threw my daughter an elaborate birthday party for her first birthday.<\/li>\n<li>I rented out a restaurant, bought a large cake, and hired a face painter.<\/li>\n<li>I did it all to show off on Instagram, but I realize it should&#039;ve been about my daughter.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I threw my 1-year-old a birthday party that was too over-the-top for a baby that still eats things off the floor and likes to play with the dog&#039;s food bowl.<\/p>\n<p>I rented out a local neighborhood restaurant for her first birthday. We had an open bar, matching outfits for the whole family, a photographer, a face painter, a balloon artist, and even glitter tattoos. Her birthday cake was two layers tall. We had a ton of desserts, pizza, pasta, and quesadillas. We even had a Build-a-Bear instead of traditional goodie bags for each child to take home.<\/p>\n<p>Why did I do it? Because I only plan on having one child, and I wanted to give her everything. But I also did it to show off on Instagram.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The joy of the birthday party was short-lived<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Once everyone left the party, I was surrounded by leftover and half-touched pastries, cake, and pizza. There were balloons all over the restaurant and glitter all over the floor from the face painting.<\/p>\n<p>I was tired, my feet hurt, and I had to pay a $1,200 bill that I was already regretting.<\/p>\n<p>The next morning, I woke up to text messages and Instagram DMs, thanking me for the invite to my daughter&#039;s birthday party and letting me know what a great job I did. The validation felt amazing, and I was so happy that everyone enjoyed themselves.<\/p>\n<p>Then the notifications stopped. The Instagram posts slid down the feed and away from my algorithm. Life went on. And my bank account? It hadn&#039;t recovered for weeks.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>I&#039;m always comparing myself to other mothers on Instagram<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>When I felt at my most down, I decided to give myself a lot of grace. As a modern mother, social media makes you feel like you&#039;re not doing enough \u2014 all the time. I felt this way before becoming a mom, and I feel this way even more now that I&#039;m a mom.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/68f125eacc993f9955d05487?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Paulina Roe&#039;s family dressed in matching shirts\"\/><figcaption>The author dressed her family in matching clothing for the party.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Paulina Roe<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Every time I open my feed or scroll through Instagram, I come across another mom showing off her perfect balloon arch, a themed dessert table, and a backyard full of rented bounce houses.<\/p>\n<p>When I started to judge myself for going too far for my daughter&#039;s birthday, I reminded myself that I had nothing to prove, and my daughter was well taken care of.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>I now know I threw that party for all the wrong reasons<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>I can truthfully say that the party wasn&#039;t about my daughter. Yes, she was celebrated by the most amazing people in our lives.<\/p>\n<p>But it was more about <em>me<\/em> trying to prove something to the world. I wanted to prove to people on social media that I&#039;m still &quot;fun,&quot; that I can still throw a party, and that motherhood hasn&#039;t taken over my whole identity. I wanted to prove that my daughter has everything she could ever want.<\/p>\n<p>But motherhood isn&#039;t a performance, a highlight reel, or a perfectly curated Instagram post. It&#039;s messy, loud, and exhausting.<\/p>\n<p>If I were to do it again, I would skip the restaurant rental and just have close family and friends over for some good food and a great time. And the best part? My daughter would love every minute of it.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The author threw her daughter an elaborate birthday party. Courtesy of Paulina Roe I threw my daughter an elaborate birthday party for her first birthday. I rented out a restaurant, bought a large cake, and hired a face painter. I did it all to show off on Instagram, but I realize it should&#039;ve been about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35692,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-35691","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}