Update:Comments/ thoughts about an 8th grade birthday party

Thank you.

OMG I had to stop reading responses... Those who don't know downtown Denver especially NOW.. it is bad. I can sit here and show videos that are right outside my window during the day. There was a shooting not 50 feet from where I work. This is in a trendy area too.. near the baseball stadium. It is NOT safe. I am not a scared of downtown for ME. I have taken my kids to do the downtown things.. when it was SAFE. It is a huge fat mess now. OP, I'm glad it was canceled for your piece of mind. My two oldest kids don't even come downtown much anymore due to the crime. They are young and visit all the trendy places. They even hate it now.

I live by a Jr. High in SLC. I am amazed at the lack of coats, let alone hats and gloves. It was 9 degrees this morning. But there again, most do not walk to school. They are dropped off by their parents. This school is in a residential area and the street the school is on is not a main street. The street is basically clogged up with the drop off and pick up. It is funny because further up the street is an Elementary School. I see groups of Elementary students with a parent walking to school every morning. One such group meets on the sidewalk outside my home. There are 5 students from 3 families. The parents rotate who walks with them. Jr. High students are different. It is a hard age.

I just want to agree and say that any time you have a group of kids this age, supervised or not, there will always be some that just can’t resist acting the fool and doing dumb things in an effort to try to impress their friends or because they think they’re SO funny. My kid is an only who spends probably 75% of her free time around adults and even she thinks some of her peers are idiots, LOL.

And I also agree with your comment about different parenting styles. It seems like some of my kid’s friends are being raised by wolves after overhearing some of their conversations when my kid is on FaceTime, and some of my conversations with the parents themselves.  Some of the stuff these kids do or talk about goes way beyond what I would consider even free range. On the plus side, it gives me opportunities to have frank discussions with my own kid about what is and isn’t appropriate for a kid her age.

My takeaway from this thread isn't about parties or 13 year olds or winter wear. My takeaway is that we have a crisis in this country w/homelessness and we don't have or use the funds to get help for this population. The real problem isn't about whether or not the child should have gone to the party. The real problem is about a tanking economy and people needing help to get off the streets. Worrying about a 13 year old who might not have the right jacket is nothing compared to worrying about the human beings sleeping on cold pavement in freezing temps night after night w/o any promise of change.

Wrong! They'll all be frozen to the ground by the end of this scavenger hunt! It happens every single winter that we lose great kids to the dangers of not wearing a down coat and wool lined boots! You see it every day on the news! Oh wait... You're right, that never happens. Probably because of all the vigilant moms who by the way are here telling me how dumb their kids are.

you live in Texas, it isn't the same

You’re right. Logic changes at state lines 🙄

I’m sure you think you’re being funny, but people actually DO freeze to death here so I take it seriously. 62 of them in fact in 2019 per my state’s Department of Health, and more than 50 in each the two years before that. You are actually right that no one under 15 died in 2019, and that likely IS because of their vigilant moms telling them to wear their damn coat when it’s freaking cold.

Okay genius, you’re right. Maybe it is better to “freeze for 30 seconds” while waiting at the bus stop. Except here, where it’s actually winter right now and the roads are covered with ice and snow, on any given day the bus can be 10-15-20 minutes LATE with no notice whatsoever. And sometimes it doesn’t show up at all because occasionally the diesel buses break down when it’s as cold as it has been lately. Plus they want the kids out there at least five minutes early in case the bus is running early. My kid’s bus is a ten minute walk from our house, so she could be standing out there for potentially a half hour before realizing it’s not going to come. The bus GPS tracking app that was supposed to be operational at the beginning of the school year still isn’t, and even when it does work it’s not accurate.

So yeah, when the air temperature is -11° tomorrow morning at 6:45 am and my kid is getting ready to head out to the bus, I’ll be making damn sure she has on a coat, hat, boots and gloves. This year they have assigned lockers at school so no kid needs to carry their winter gear around with them all day. Even last year when they didn’t, they left their coats and stuff in their advisory classrooms.