Children's birthday parties are now as much about parental one-upmanship as they are about fun for the kids, writes Fionola Meredith.

Children's birthday parties used to be straightforward, blithely predictable events. Leathery cocktail sausages, mildly stinky egg sandwiches and jolly games of blind man's buff were the order of the day.

If you were especially lucky a violently crimson jelly might be wobbling enticingly on the table. (And if it was moulded in the shape of a rabbit, that was pure heaven.) Occasionally, there would even be a fierce cucumber dragon, raisins for its eyes, cheese and pineapple chunks for its spines. Birthday cakes were squidgy, lopsided, home-made affairs, filled with buttercream and sometimes decorated with tiny pink plastic ballerinas.

Apart from the usual party games, much hilarity was derived from taking a Tunnock's Tea Cake and cracking it open on your neighbour's forehead. The bumps were essential too: all the guests would surround the birthday girl or boy and toss the giggling child high into the air: six times for a six-year-old, seven for a seven-year-old and so on. Two hours later home you'd go, a wodge of napkin-wrapped sticky cake in your hand.

But it's all different now. Today's birthday parties are big-budget (often bigger than the parents can afford), all-singing, all-dancing affairs. The average length of a party has risen from two to three hours, and only the most naive parents would think they could get away with having a nice plain birthday tea at home, with a game of pass the parcel afterwards. Raisin-eyed amphibians just don't cut it with the kids any more. Let's face it: they won't get out of bed for anything less than a professional entertainer who can make a doll, giraffe or dinosaur from balloons and juggle six eggs without dropping them.

A thriving party-entertainment industry has quickly developed in response to the increasingly sophisticated tastes of today's youngsters. So if your little birthday boy is bored with the bendy-balloon shtick he can now choose from a bewildering range of options, including fire eating, fire juggling and stilt walking, with or without samba band. He can also opt for a mini-disco or even get a troupe of performing Shetland ponies. The average cost of an entertainer is €70, but it can soar much higher.

Colin Parkhill, a children's magician and ventriloquist known to his audiences as Parky, says business is so good he can finally make a full-time living from it, having worked part-time for eight years. As he stows his rabbit in his car, to rush to his next engagement, he says that children's notoriously short attention spans can make his work challenging. "When people hear what I do they think it's easy work. But sometimes you come home from a show where you're just a glorified babysitter and the children haven't been interested and you're tearing out your hair, saying to yourself, why do I bother? But it's great when you really do amaze the kids."

Paul McAtarsney, whose stage name is the Mac Factor, is a circus performer and street entertainer first and foremost, but he will do birthday parties at a push. He finds children a demanding audience. "Games are good: they fill up time. It's tricky territory, you know. To be honest, I avoid doing kids' parties. As a performer, put me on any street, in any town, and I'm fine. But out of everything I do it's the parties I fear the most. Kids are so unpredictable."

Parkhill believes the burgeoning industry benefits not only from children's demands for something new and exciting but also from the desire of some parents to use the celebrations as status symbols. "An entertainer friend of mine was putting on a birthday mini-disco for a little girl the other day. Over the noise the child's mother asked him to turn the music up. He thought he'd misheard and that she was asking him to turn it down. But then she said there'd been a party next door last week and she wanted to let the neighbours know that their one was better."

And sometimes the entertainment is hardly appropriate for the age of the children. Parkhill says: "Birthday parties for one-year-olds are a big part of my work. You say 'Where's the birthday boy or girl?' and this baby gets carried in, doesn't know what's going on at all. It's more for the parents."

And, of course, it's inevitable that things sometimes go wrong. Entertainer Johnny Kielty recalls the time he set one of his white doves on a birthday girl's head. "She wasn't too happy when the bird did his business down her neck." He believes some families appreciate his act more than others. "In my experience, the rougher the area you're working in the better the reaction from the parents and kids. The middle-class ones have seen it all before. But if parents are putting their last few quid into something special, well, it seems to mean more to them."

And what do parents make of these oh-so-desirable über-celebrations? Jane is a mother of three primary-school children who's sick of the pressure to compete. "Your kids come home stuffed with sugar, absolutely hysterical and demanding that they have Mr Magic Man and his amazing fire-breathing monkeys at their own birthday party. But I don't have the time or energy to run around, sourcing the latest fad in kids' entertainment. And don't get me started about party bags: do you realise how much these things cost?

"The worst are the personalised ones, made up specially for each individual child. I know it's nice for the kids, but you end up feeling you have to do it yourself if all the other parents are doing it." And has she? Jane nods sheepishly.

It seems as if parties have come to be as much about parental one-upmanship as about fun for the children. And with the demand for ever more amazing and inventive entertainment, it's hard to know where it will all end. Perhaps the whole thing will turn full circle and return us to the old days of egg sandwiches and blind man's buff. It was all so much simpler then.

Cutting the mustard

What's hot . . .

Mini-disco and karaoke Got a budding Britney Spears? Let her warble while her friends dance along.

Face painting Children can't get enough, but there could be tears when only a Brillo pad will take it off.

Punch and Judy A traditional favourite, but watch liberal parents cringe at the unmitigated violence.

Bungee Run For the seriously affluent only. Strap in your sprog for an elasticated ride guaranteed to provoke a reappearance of the birthday tea.

. . . and what's not

Traditional games Watch faces fall when you suggest Pin the Tail on the Donkey. It's, like, so uncool.

Competition We no longer believe in bruising tiny egos, so forget having one winner: it's prizes for everyone.

Gift-free parties Woe betide if you fail to hand out party bags.

Home-made birthday cakes If junior wants an accurate representation of Harry Potter battling Lord Voldemort in glorious technicolour icing, it's time to call in the professionals.