Opinion Brief

TLC's 'Outrageous Kid Parties': A 6-year-old's $32,000 birthday bash

A new TV show chronicling children's parties that cost more than your average wedding has commentators questioning America's sanity

The video: If MTV's "My Super Sweet Sixteen" and its assorted spin-offs aren't over-the-top enough for you, TLC has gone further, and younger, with its new show "Outrageous Kid Parties." The show premiered Monday, and set tongues wagging, with an episode that featured a 6-year-old's birthday party with a $32,000 price tag. Watch a clip below.
The reaction: American families are losing their homes in record numbers, and still there are "revolting people who haven't gotten the memo and don't know that conspicuous consumption in these times encourages conspicuous contempt," says Linda Stasi in the New York Post. What's the motivation here? asks Maureen Cairns in the Examiner. "Children do not need big expensive parties to be happy. Cake, ice cream, presents and friends are enough for their joy to shine through!" And these lavish parties make the cacophonous animatronics of "Chuck E. Cheese seem like a breath of fresh air," says Victoria Leigh Miller at Yahoo! See for yourself, below:

Recommended

A company made a meatball from lab-grown woolly mammoth, and you can't try it
Mammoth meatball
'extinct protein'

A company made a meatball from lab-grown woolly mammoth, and you can't try it

6 marvelous homes with great kitchens
House
Feature

6 marvelous homes with great kitchens

The Check-In: How to plan a trip to Antarctica
Penguins on an iceberg
Feature

The Check-In: How to plan a trip to Antarctica

The Week contest: Seaweed invasion
sargassum seaweed.
Feature

The Week contest: Seaweed invasion

Most Popular

How to watch 5 planets align in the night sky on Tuesday
Moon, Jupiter, Venus.
skyline

How to watch 5 planets align in the night sky on Tuesday

'Rewilding' animals could help combat climate change, study finds
Two gray wolves.
where the wild things are

'Rewilding' animals could help combat climate change, study finds

The snowmelt in California could cause a long-lost lake to re-emerge
flooding in Corcoran, California.
lost lake

The snowmelt in California could cause a long-lost lake to re-emerge