It's not just a pony any more.

According to this story, the new trend is spending upwards of $5,000 on a birthday party. For a three year old. To put this in context, this is twice what I'm spending on my wedding, and I have a chocolate fountain and a very pretty dress. Why should I expect to pay more for my child's birthday cake than I do for my wedding cake?

According to one party planner in California (of course, where else?), "We really promote a healthy balance of living year round, but it's OK to indulge your child once a year, because it's about making a memory."

My question is, is it really a "balance" if your bat mitzvah includes performances by Aerosmith, 50 Cent, and Don Henley? Aren't your standards going to be impossibly high for the rest of your guaranteed-to-be-less-interesting life? How will your future husband/employer/best friend compete with expectations like this? "Mummy, I want u2 for my wedding! Buy me a band now! Why don't you love me like you did when I was a kid?"

Perhaps the most troubling element of this article came at the end, though, in its attempt to rebutt this idea of the necessity of "excessive" spending. They quoted one mother of a six-year-old as saying "A $500 party doesn't mean I love them any less than if they had a $5,000 party, as long as they have a good time. And that's what it's all about." Five hundred dollars. This was their idea of budget.

I suddenly feel way poorer than I did before I read this.