Caitlin Moran: why I'll never throw a party again

Times

22-07-2025

Currently, both our adult children live with us — as is the way of the modern, expensive world — and I would say, by and large, it is a harmonious arrangement. Our own version of the Hundred Years' War — 'Who Will Hoover the Stairs?' — seems to have come to a peaceful, diplomatically negotiated end; the breakfast chats are delightful; and I've finally found somewhere to hide the special, fancy crisps that no one has, as yet, discovered.
As things stand, we only really have one bone of contention left between the two generations: 'Why don't you throw parties?'
Our children cannot understand why Pete and I don't throw parties.
'If I had a house, I'd be throwing parties all the time,' one says. 'In summer, it would be every weekend. Why don't you and Dad throw parties?'
Of course, there are several things in play here. One is, simply, down to temperament. 'Why don't you throw parties?' is a question only ever asked by the kind of people who actually like throwing parties. I'm not sure what exact Myers-Briggs personality type that is. I think it's INSC — Inexplicably Non-Anxious and Self-Confident.
My personality type, by way of contrast, is more ORIP — Overly Responsible and Inclined to Panic. I feel I need to guarantee every guest spends every minute in a paradise of Optimal Socialising Vibes, or else they will be… angry with me? And then all leave?
This almost certainly stems from my mother's party style, which could be categorised as 'highly strung'. At my sister's seventh birthday, she became incredibly upset when someone ate the last packet of ready salted crisps ('You all know they're the only ones I like!') and went and sat in the car, parked outside the house, until it was dark. Oh God, I've just realised — this is why I hide my crisps. You are watching a psychological revelation, right here on the page. This is progress! This is why my carbs are emotionally charged.
The second factor is, of course, age. Young people need parties. These are the theatres in which their larger life events occur: the meeting of new friends; the drunken hatching of ideas; the kissings, and so forth.
However, older people, on the whole, have no interest in these things. We've made all the friends we can handle; we're too tired for new ideas; and kissing would just cause a hoo-ha. When we socialise, we want it to be somewhere we can sit down, not have to shout over loud music, and have time to tell the full, unexpurgated story of our VAT return/mysterious foot pain/the unexpectedly good garage we found in Woking. Or launch into an incredibly detailed theory about why Heinz baked beans are losing their brand supremacy to Branston. Essentially, we just want to be quite boring, without being interrupted. 'A party' would interrupt us droning on. It's an unnecessary distraction.
Third: the Complications. By the time you hit 50, you've been alive long enough for your social circle to have, to be brisk — and also, in some cases, to be literal — shafted itself.
Decades in, quite a few of your friends now actively hate each other. There have been 'socialising accidents'. Someone said something terrible when drunk. Someone tried to chat up someone else's husband. Someone fired someone else's best mate.
All too often, even 'a relaxed dinner party for six' turns into the river crossing puzzle — where you have to work out how a farmer can get a fox, a hen and a bag of grain across a river, in a boat that can only hold him and one thing at a time, without leaving the cargo combinations to be eaten. I was once three days away from having people over to the house before I realised one of them had recently been on Newsnight, slagging off another guest's mother. I had to email everyone, claiming I had Covid, and then ate a whole ham on my own. It was brilliant. But it was also the last time I tried to have people over.
Finally: I know what my children really mean. They don't actually want me and Pete to throw a party — they want us to go away and let them throw a party instead. Theoretically, I would be fine with this — were it not that, when I asked them what the best party they ever went to was, they replied, 'The one where three boys stole the banisters from the stairs. It was legendary!'
Forget Vera Brittain — this is the true voice of youth. People so young they have no idea how hard a salvage yard will pump you for a short-run 19th-century oak balustrade and matching spindles. That's not a party — that's a renovation nightmare.
And so, for all these reasons, there will be no parties. Pete and I are too old, and the kids are too young. This is the true generation gap.