Formal Parties at Wayne Manor

[beatrice_otter]

One minor thing that always makes me roll my eyes is batfam fics where all the kids are expected to go to the Wayne Family Gala and not just go but stay for the whole evening. This is not a family party, this is a formal event. That isn't how formal parties work! Especially large ones held in the evenings! In most large formal parties, even the hosts do not bring their kids, because it is not an event designed for kids. The kids are going to be bored and unhappy at best, and disruptive at worst, and a lot of the attendees are going to be unhappy that there are kids present. And they have big enough houses that even a very large event will not fill the whole house, so the kids can stay in the family area and not have to deal with the guests, and there are staff to look after kids too young to be left alone.

If the host's kids are present at ALL, they will be present for a brief time early in the evening and then go back to their rooms and miss the rest of the event. The party in The Sound Of Music is actually a pretty good example of this. It's a large, formal party, and it's got dancing, dinner, and then (presumably) more dancing after dinner. The serious partying is going to start at dinner time. The kids are present when everybody's arriving and during the initial dancing, BUT they are not participating in the party; they are off to the side, watching it through the window. They are not in the ballroom dancing, they are not in the hall circulating with the guests and schmoozing like their father is, they are in nice outfits but NOT the formal wear that the adults are wearing. They are sent up to their rooms for the night before dinner. They have a short presentation before they go, of the "aren't our host's kids cute?" variety. Even the oldest, the sixteen year old Liesl, is too young to stay for dinner and the main party. Liesl is almost old enough to join the party, and if the Nazis hadn't come probably would have been allowed to participate in a year or so, but at sixteen she's still not old enough for the adult party.

So Damian is not going to be at the party, or not for longer than a brief "this is my son, isn't he cute" moment at the beginning. Tim and Steph and Duke probably aren't going to be at the party unless you're writing them as 18 or older. Jason would never have attended a gala before he died (except for a brief "this is my son, isn't he cute" appearance). If Dick is an adult, then he's old enough to attend ... but given how rocky his relationship with Bruce was when he came of age and moved out, he might not have been to very many of them.

Now, less formal events, they might have attended; they might have attended formal day events like garden parties. But even with day events or less formal events, they probably didn't attend many things that weren't specifically events for children. Because rich people usually don't bring their kids to events unless the events are specifically for children.

If you want something more realistic, you could have the kids doing something fun while Bruce (and possibly Dick) are stuck in the ballroom. Whether that fun is patrolling and foiling a criminal scheme or having a movie night or finding hiding places to watch the party and make fun of what people are wearing, there are a lot of options. Or maybe Bruce has a radio on so he can listen for danger to see if he needs to go change into the Batsuit, and the kids try and say the most outrageous things through it to try and get him to break character. There's lots of ways to handle it! And at this point, "the kids attend a gala" is a fandom trope, it's not going anywhere. It just makes me shake my head when I see it.

Comments

[osteophage]

I like your alternative ideas here!

[beatrice_otter]

THank you!

[gingicat]

I could see them sneaking in to snag hors d'œvres or possibly play very subtle pranks devised by Tim. Alfred would probably have the sense to send them party food, though.

[beatrice_otter]

Oh, yeah, that would be something they'd do, too!

[genarti]

Oh man, this doesn't bug me as much as it does you I think, but SO true. I think a lot of people thinks of them as like a holiday party your parents are throwing, but on a bigger and fancier scale? Which is true only in some ways! In other ways it's like a work event your parents are throwing, except the work here is Rich Person Socializing and Being Seen.

I love the idea of the kids doing something else while Bruce and maybe Dick are stuck being rich adult civilians at the party, though! There's so much potential for shenanigans in that, too.

[beatrice_otter]

Well, I've read a lot of historical novels (both written in period and written later) and a common trope in pre-20th-century works is kids being too young to go to the party and they want to do so badly. And I know enough about the history to know that that "kids don't go to formal events" never went away among the wealthy the way it did in other classes, partly because middle class people stopped doing formal events except for weddings and stuff like that. But even up through the 1960s, when middle class people threw a party, the kids usually didn't attend, they stayed in their bedrooms. Kids going to parties with their parents is a fairly modern thing, actually, unless we're talking things like church picnics that are explicitly designed as family-friendly events. The whole "children should be seen and not heard" was powerful and ubiquitous and guided child participation in social events, and CONTINUES in rich families to this day.

And it totally is a work event, and the work is Rich Person Socializing And Being Seen, and also Rich People Networking to arrange things like business mergers and marriages between The Right Sort Of People.

[petra]

I am intrigued by your ideas and glad I subscribe to your newsletter. "All the batkids have to come to a gala" is new to me as fanon, and I am not sorry I've missed it so far.

[beatrice_otter]

There are a lot of batfamily fics where the kids have to come to the gala. Most of them are fairly short and All About The Gala, like the older kids teaching Damian how to do it or whatnot. Often it's them all going "yes, this sucks, but we're Waynes so we have to put up with high society nonsense" and there is a lot of high society nonsense, but kids having to go to boring adult parties is not something they would realistically have to be part of.

When it's part of a longer fic, it's usually a background detail and often the only way they deal with the Wayne family wealth.

When it's a major plot point in a longer fic, the story is usually about Tim in some way. Like, AUs where Tim comes to galas with his parents and that's how he meets the batfamily and becomes friends with Dick and/or Jason and they figure out something is wrong and he gets adopted early. But dude. They lived next door! There are a lot of other ways to get the kids to meet bb!Tim if that's what you want! And if "meeting at some rich people event" is the goal, there are rich people events that include children, there are lavish birthday parties and 'picnics' and things like that.

[petra]

"How Dick and/or Jason adopted a tiny stalker boy" is a long-beloved genre but not, alas, one that I care to explore if this is what it's full of nowadays.

[beatrice_otter]

Eh, I like the fics, I just roll my eyes at the gala part and move on. It's not like the galas are the most unrealistic thing about comic book superheroes ...

[petra]

That's fair. I haven't read much DCU that wasn't by Unpretty in the last 15 years, so continuing not to read it is no particular skin off my nose.

[mindstalk]

I like the Wayne Family Adventures webcomic. Seems to be 'official' but has a good fanficcy feel.

[brainwane]

I enjoyed reading this and being reminded of the many configurations of human existence.

[beatrice_otter]

Thank you!