Those days your schoolmate was happy with just your presence, not hanging out for your presents.
Today children's parties are expensive affairs requiring the skills of an event planner and the budget of a billionaire.
From dress-up themes to embossed invites, from organised activities such as skating, skydiving and surfing, children's parties just seem to be getting more and more elaborate.
Is this coming from the children? Or the parents? I know from my own experience children put immense pressure on parents to stage parties, but a lot of this seems to be down to some gauntlet of competitiveness thrown by others.
I've given into the pressure too, and sometimes thrown the most extravagant fiestas from dancing cats to pink lemonade in champagne flutes and beauty salon treats.
And I have done the budget banquet - swimming and pizzas, which actually got some grumbles from the guests - one telling me that it would have been better to let the swimming pool organise it, and another telling me that this was junk food. To which my partner replied, "I know, great isn't it".
So when a story this week went global about a 5-year-old British boy who was handed an invoice for a "Child's Party No Show Fee" and threatened with court action after missing his schoolmate's birthday party, like the rest of the world I was bemused, but it didn't surprise me.
Reports said the boy, Alex Nash, missed the birthday party to spend the day with his grandparents, even though earlier a parent had confirmed he would be there.
The birthday boy's mother Julie Lawrence issued an invoice for £15.95 ($31.09), covering the cost of the boy's no show at the venue of a ski slope "slide and ride party" that included three toboggan rides, a hot meal, ice cream, jelly and balloons.
Julie Lawrence stood by her demand in a statement issued to the press.
"All details were on the party invite. They had every detail needed to contact me," she said.
Like so many things in children's lives, the simple party has become commoditised to such an extent that we are not too many steps away from it being the norm to invoicing all the guests.
As one Facebook poster sardonically commented, "wonder if she invoices her kids if they don't eat all their dinner" and another chipped in "Even clothes, water, electricity, petrol ... "
Many on social media attacked Julie Lawrence for sending the invoice. Stephen Freeland said: "Wait does this mean you can fine people who arrive inconveniently late? Sweet $5 fines for late shows and $10 for no shows for any party you throw ... Should guarantee you about $50 for most NZ gatherings."
Poster Rachel Gunson added: "Why can't they just talk about them behind their backs and never invite them anywhere again like the good old days?"
I do have sympathy for the birthday boy's mother. She is now a laughing stock around the world. But, in principle, she is right. Not having someone who RSVPed turn up for a party is rude and can cost money. The invoice may seem over the top, but hopefully it will make us reflect that the direction children's parties are going in is just ridiculous.
The invoice and the subsequent media furore are both symptoms of a world we are moving in that though competitiveness and one-upmanship may be lauded on the commercial economic front, it just doesn't work with parenting.
Bringing up children is not a competition, and being able to do everything better than everyone else is not necessarily a laudable goal.
Or as Facebook poster Alan Papprill sums up: "When selfishness comes above selflessness rationality departs. A kid's birthday party should be a simple, pleasant affair done at minimal cost for the pleasure of the child not for the parent to impress."
