Do you really control your invitation list?

If your child hasn't even reached toddler age, you likely haven't hit this challenge yet for your Sesame Street birthday party. But increasingly, it seems the choice of whom you invite is being taken away.

Many schools now have rules that if you want to distribute invitations at school to people in your class, you have to invite everyone. This causes problems for any number of reasons, and even led to a complaint to the Swedish parliament in one case.

Simple solution here - Collect all mail or email addresses at the beginning of the school year and give them out to all the parents. Then it's easy enough to just invite the four kids your child really wants or everyone but the class bully or limit the group to what you can afford. The school doesn't have to serve as your post office, and you can once again control your invitation list.

Or maybe you disagree with me? Are the schools wrong to even have policies about this kind of stuff? Do we fail to teach our kids valuable lessons in making choices or dealing with disappointment when we institute these rules? Would it be better to have the rule changed than to find a way around it?