Would love your views on 'a ton of birthday gifts' - not good / responsible??

[magnoliaparadise]

A quick question about birthday presents...
My friend, who lives out of town, whom I admire a lot, gives her kids one or two birthday presents for her birthday, but has never let her kid have birthday presents from guests at birthday parties. She invites guests to give presents that will be donated to toys for tots, or she says that they are welcome to donate to a charity of her kid's choice.

My friend feels that it's not a good value to teach her kids that birthdays are all about getting a ton of gifts. She also feels that having gifts in the house is overwhelming and that they are mostly junk. She also doesn't give out party favors because she just thinks parents would rather not have more cr*p in their house and she would rather not spend the money on it.

So... After years of having no parties (because we traveled instead) or having very small parties, I am having an all grade girl birthday party for my 9 yo daughter. So there will be about 30 - 40 girls, including their girl or boy siblings.

I am allowing gifts from the 30 families coming to my kid's party.

I asked my friend how she was able to do the birthday parties without her kids dissenting too much (for lack of gifts) and she just shrugged and said that she just did it and explained her philosophy to her children and didn't change just because her kids wanted gifts. She said, in passing, that she had just gone to an 11 year old birthday party for the whole class and there was a mountain of gifts. She said, 'how do you show or teach kids social responsibility to a kid if he is getting 30 gifts when they are 11? That's getting old."

Since my soon to be 9 yo kid will probably receive that many gifts at her upcoming birthday party, it made me pause...

I think my friend meant by social responsibility that it was important to show kids that it's important to give back to the community (in money, time, gifts, etc) and not necessarily always be on the receiving end; that it is good not to spoil them or always have them think that the world revolves around them; and that other values are important besides toy gifts, such as the gift of being kind, spending time with someone, and playing, etc.

I think generally, parties get smaller every year so this is less of an issue.

I'd love your thoughts on gifts and social responsibility And, if gift giving should be weaned, at what age it would be good to start weaning.

Ugh, there are so many aspects to parenting... showering kids with love, but also wanting to make sure that they have values that make them happy, productive, giving, good human beings...

[SnuggleBuggles]

Reposting my reply since the other one moved.
It's their birthday! If ever there was an occasion to receive gifts, it's that. We always donated before birthdays to clear out space for new things. That's a worthwhile task and helps kids think of others.
I think that birthdays are one day / year. There are 364 other days to teach social responsibility.
I'm really not worried about spoiling my kids. Birthdays and presents don't need to be as rife with deeper meaning, as they have become, imo. I bet most of us had birthdays with presents and favors and most of us turned out fine.
I do agree with your friend on favors. I try to go consumable so I don't litter homes with "stuff". If I get "stuff" for favors, I do try to be thoughtful about it.


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[PZMommy]

For birthdays, we do an experience, like trip to Disneyland or the like, and that is their gift. I don't mind them getting gifts from friends and family and they do get quite a few. For Christmas we clear out old toys, but also take them out to buy some new toys for toys for tots. They get lots of gifts for Christmas from us and family. They are only young once, so I don't stress about it.

[georgiegirl]

Reposting my reply since the other one moved.
It's their birthday! If ever there was an occasion to receive gifts, it's that. We always donated before birthdays to clear out space for new things. That's a worthwhile task and helps kids think of others.
I think that birthdays are one day / year. There are 364 other days to teach social responsibility.

Yeah that!

However, I do try to limit the number of kids at my kids' birthday parties in part because I don't want a ton of presents in my house. (And because I just can't handle a party with a ton of kids.). We already have too much stuff. We do periodically go through their toys and decide which ones they want to donate.


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[ged]

Can you please describe what you did for a book exchange? Ask all kids to bring one book (including bday child), then sit them around/swap books, and then everyone goes home with a different book than what they brought? Any fun ways to swap the books?

[petesgirl]

Hmm. I have no problem with birthday kids getting gifts. I do like the idea of doing an experience-type gift though. Without meaning to be offensive, I do not like the trend to hold large parties. Gifts? Fine. 30 gifts? Too many, for my family. I really do not see the need to invite so many people and I do not see the need to include parents and siblings at the party either.

[mmsmom]

I did a "no gift" birthday party for DS once and everyone brought gifts anyway. I think it will be a lot of gifts for your DD but I also think it is fine as it is her first big party. I'm assuming this will be for her 10th birthday? We also did a larger than usual party for DS for his 10th with the expectation that it will be the last party probably until 16. We gave him a few choices of what he wanted and he chose big party. I had to remind him that lots of gifts meant lots of thank you notes. We insist he hand write them and he does not like doing it so when he still wanted a big party knowing he would have to write the notes we agreed to do it.

So I think a once in a while big party with a lot of gifts is fine. It would be different if the party and gifts were extravagant every year.

[maestramommy]

We allow gifts, but our parties are very small compared to what you are going to have. usually around 10, without siblings.

[cookiemonster80]

I am more in line with your friend- I always do no gift parties and people just don't bring a gift. Sometimes they will bring a homemade card or small token- think lollipop or similar. I've never had an problem with gifts being brought anyway.

I really struggle with all the "stuff" in our life and how focused we are on it. The kids get gifts from family, several from us, and plus they are getting a huge party to boot. Not to mention, grandparents who think nothing of buying a gift for no reason at all. Yes, the party is celebrating them and I want them to feel special, but it's more important to me to focus on the experience and developing friendships rather than the gifts. Plus- I don't want to drill into their heads that "stuff" is involved when celebrating- to me, its about people. Also- I don't want my kids birthday to be a source of stress ($$ to buy a gift) for another family. you never know what people's financial situation is and I certainly don't want to add to another obligation to a tight budget- I've been the the situation myself when getting an invite and thinking "argh, I have to carve out $15 for a gift"

Not to mention, I hate finding a gift for a party- and I'm relieved when it says no gifts. I must be in the minority.

Although I do like the opportunity to practice gracious receiving and also giving freely that other kids get to do. But no, not for us.

[dogmom]

I think your decisions about this kind of thing need to organically come from your family. You can't take someone else's philosophy and just shove it into your family structure. For example, we don't do Santa because my DH and I looked at each other when my DS was one and said, "Hey, you want to do Santa?" "Nope, not really, not a big deal for me and it sort of feels funny to lie to my kid for years." "Yeah, me too, OK then." It works for us. I has the added benefit as nurse I didn't have to stress about whether I was going to be home Christmas morning because the kids HAD to open their presents because that's when Santa brings them. Neither my husband or I feel our kids missed anything. It works for us, but man, does it freak other people out! You wouldn't believe what I've been accused of concerning the well being of my children. There are still people I have worked with for 14 years who think I'm Jewish because I don't do Santa, which I just find bizarre. As if that is the only people in the world that don't do Santa.

For some families the no gifts or limiting gifts will fit in well with how they want to raise their kid. It's a very concrete example of not putting value on stuff, but their are other ways to get the same value across. I think most people are going to fall within 1-2 standard deviation from the mean about this stuff. Some families are going to be outliers and come across as socially self-righteous or too obsessed with stuff. Since I don't want to be those people I'm just going to shake my head and go, "So what time is the party?"