There has been, for some reason (or more likely an unfortunate accumulation of reasons) a trend over the past several decades for parents to do the work of parenting in the isolation of their own homes - and not only that, this trend has overlapped with the other trend of much deeper parent involvement in raising kids. That you also represent trend No. 3, more people raising kids solo, has only exacerbated a close-to-no-win situation.

People who make babies surrender their right to behave like them.

Sometimes the pain outweighs the good things.

Make sure you have legal cover for what you're doing.

Live in the moment, this moment, your moment. That is by far and without meaningful rival The Best Position to put yourself in to discover and delight in who your children turn out to be, whoever they turn out to be.

There is a connection between environment and stress on both ends, with excessive clutter and excessive attention to detail both holding the power to distract us from our ability to love fully, work productively and relax effectively. So, what makes sense to me is for each of us to think this through on a few fronts: what constitutes a comfortable environment for us, how much effort we're willing to put into it relative to other priorities, and how well-matched we need our partners' preferences to be to ours.

I think a person who arranges the event and orders the food also picks up the check - even the birthday person, even when people at the table insist on paying for the birthday person.