Ask any parent if they think their kid has too much stuff, and you will likely get a resounding, “Yes!” From junky fast food trinkets to relatives
overspending on them at holidays, kids likely have more toys than they have
time to play with them. The last thing they need is a party with their entire
class where they get 20 to 30 birthday gifts. It’s too much, make it stop!
But, as a parent attending these parties with your child, is
it cool to just opt out of bringing a present because you think the whole gift-giving thing has gotten out of control? In a letter written to Slate’s Care and Feeding column,
one parent bemoaned the fact that, in the spirit of including the whole class,
they had constant birthday party invites, and they weren’t really down with
shelling out $25 a pop for gifts. Personally, they had adopted a no gifts
policy for their own kids and wondered if they could follow the same code as
the party attendee.
“Over the past few years, we’ve gone through some financial
struggles and also receive too much stuff from family, so I made a rule to not
give (or ask for) gifts,” said the letter, signed "We All Have Enough Crap" (WAHEC). WAHEC went on to say, “Recently I attended a friend’s son’s party and,
per my rule, didn’t bring a gift. The birthday boy asked, ‘Where’s the gift you
brought?’ and I said, ‘Well, we didn’t bring one.’ He asked why not. I felt
like such a jerk.”
It seems like a lot for WAHEC to put their personal philosophy on other people’s kids, who are too little to be the punctuation of an economical
stance. Slate’s Rumaan Alam didn’t necessarily agree. “It’s the role of the
parent of the birthday kid to teach them not to demand gifts at their party,” he
writes. “Grandparents and close friends can shower them with presents; the
attendance of their more casual playmates should be gift enough.”
True, but in my house, we’re still learning basics like saying
“thank you” after opening presents and not complaining if you already have the
same toy at home. To also explain that some people fundamentally object to the
concept of presents seems like a big leap for a kid’s little brain. Kids
shouldn’t be grubbing for gifts, but don’t expect them to not be hurt when you
show up with nothing.
Some birthday party invites will specifically say “no gifts please,”
which is great because it lets you off the hook of shopping for a kid you have
never met and alleviates the burden of the hosting family to find
space for so many new things their kid doesn’t even need.
If you get an invite
that says that, please, please follow it and don’t try to be the cool person
who says, “Oh, but the birthday kid needs something to open!” If you show
up with a gift, it makes everyone else who followed the rules look bad. Assume
the parent and the birthday kid have already worked something out and the kid will not be disappointed in this instance.
If your invite does not ban gifts explicitly, even if you
think the kid doesn’t need anything, it’s best to bring something small if that’s
all you can afford. It doesn’t need to be the latest LEGO set (those things are
pricey!), but even something from the dollar store, like Play-Doh or crayons, along with a homemade card, goes a long way. It also follows the classic rule of
never showing up to a party empty-handed.
I think the takeaway from this parenting lesson is to worry
about ways to cut down the junk in your own house and let other people create
their own mess, even if it’s a mess of half-broken action figures and empty surprise
doll boxes. That is their problem!
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