Children’s birthday parties, and related consumption, form an integral part of the social process of mothering in contemporary consumer culture. From the choice of the ‘right’ present to the arrangement of the ‘appropriate’ party Theme, an extraordinary pressure is exercised upon Mothers to maintain social balance through the circulation of their children and gifts amongst and across households. Ethical research in Britain suggest that the economic growth of children’s party provision and services is articulated with a popular Discourse that regret the loss of ‘authorityc’ kinship-based birthday parties and home-made provisioning. In contrast to this Spoken Discourse, this article reveals how women in fact traditionally embrace market goods and services; as a means of increasing a culture of fairness that avoids the risks (to the motherhood as a collective, localised trend) of exceptional or overly improved mothering. Commercialised, mass produced goods and birthday services are used as means of limiting significant gift relations and hospitality. In this sense, the search for fairness, through the cultural practice of making children’s parties, is at once liberating and potentially oppressive in its strive for the normative and its inadvertent exclusion of ‘other’ care-givers. Furthermore, children and their related material culture are consumed, through the birthday party circuit, a means of generating specific types of mothering.Children’s birthday festivities, and related consumption, form an integral part of the social process of child-rearing in contemporary consumer culture. From the choice of the present ‘right’ to preparing the ‘appropriate’ theme for the festival, great pressure is put on mothers to maintain a balance through the movement of their children and their gifts between and beyond families. An ethnographic search in Great Britain suggests that the economic growth of preparations and services for children’s festivities is linked to a popular discourse which deplores the loss of the ‘authentic’ birthday festival, based on family relationship and home preparations. In contrast to this speech, this article shows how women actually adopt with avidity products and services on the market as a way of generating a mice culture that avoids the risks (maternity, such as a collective and localised phenonance) of uncommon or reported child rearing. Products and services for mass commercialised and produced aniversaries are used as a means of limiting significant gifts and hospitality relationships. In this sense, the search for the mesmice, through the cultural practice of making children’s festivities, is at the same time liberating and potentially oppressive in its effort to exclude ‘other’ caregivers from the normative and inadvertent exclusion of ‘other’ caregivers. In addition, children, and the material culture related to them, are consumed through the event of birthday celebrations as a means of generating specific types of child-rearing.