agonyaunt | Carolyn Hax: Party invite, or those silly lefties

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Carolyn Hax: Party invite, or those silly lefties

Dear Carolyn:

My household received a written invitation to a birthday party for a 1-year-old. It reads, “Not every child is lucky enough to have a birthday party like A. In lieu of a gift, we are asking that you consider making a donation (of cash) to a nonprofit that claims to ‘help poor children.’ ”

What are they trying to say? That their child doesn’t deserve gifts because she’s “too rich”? Logically, does the child even “deserve” a party in the parents’ belief system?

Are the parents (middle-class liberals) having some sort of contest with their neighbors to show who’s the most enlightened, sophisticated liberal — class warfare? No gifts for A in the class struggle?

I looked into the nonprofit mentioned — the director pays herself well out of the “donations.”

I told someone the parents should turn off the leftist TV channel they watch because it’s causing them mind rot — denying their toddler presents. Your thoughts?

— Pittsburgh

Dear Pittsburgh: Thanks for the proof that people who want to get their knickers bunched will find reasons to in just about anything.

Are these parents playing by the etiquette book? No, because using the invitation to direct your guests’ gift-giving behavior is a well-established “Don’t.”

It is, however, a matter of degrees. These parents aren’t ordering you to bring them cash because they don’t want whatever you pick out. Instead, they are acknowledging their child was born into a life of plenty whereas many babies are not, and (if I may project a bit) are using this opportunity of a birthday when the kid is way too young to understand what a birthday is — much less notice or care what people bring — to do something decent for needy families.

Again, is it strictly proper for them to recruit their guests as do-gooding proxies? No. Is it sanctimonious? Certainly possible. But at least at the end of their faux-pas rainbow, some needy families get diapers and a few guests are spared from figuring out what to bring.

What’s at the end of your angry rainbow? Hosts who are blessed with your complaining about them behind their backs, by your own admission (that’s not in the etiquette books, either), and showering contempt on their beliefs in general and their attempt at generosity in particular. Within five paragraphs of self-congratulation you manage to deride them as liberals, leftists and class warriors who are — you outdo yourself here, putting words in their mouths — “denying their toddler presents” because she “doesn’t deserve gifts.”

How about doesn’t need gifts and won’t even notice their absence? An ideal gift for a 1-year-old is a chance to make a racket with your pots and pans. And since when is it wrong to value presence over presents? It’s not unheard of for children themselves to agree to, even spearhead, parties that serve as charity drives and not gift grabs.

There’s also this: When a party is for a child too young to understand birthdays, it’s safe to assume it’s just an excuse for the parents to welcome in the village. Many such hosts are very concerned their invite-the-village impulse will be mistaken for an excuse to collect gifts, and so reach for ways to discourage them. Ironic, isn’t it.

As a villager who apparently thinks your untouchable authority-given right to buy stuff is being trampled, and who apparently doesn’t think much of these parents, I suggest you politely decline the invitation.

Whether you accept the invitation or not, please do — if you can keep the relish out of your voice — notify the hosts of any published record of impropriety in their charity’s use of donations. That’s a kindness no matter what color onesies your politics wear.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm actually going to ignore the political aspect, because it pretty much mocks itself.

I have a pet peeve about the whole, "you must never, ever indicate that it should even cross people's minds to bring a gift to a birthday, wedding, baby shower, or any other occasion for which it is pretty much standard to bring a gift, even if that indication is saying not to bring a gift, because that means you thought about getting a gift" thing. I think it's coy and twee and leads to things like making a wedding guest call five different people and pass a multiple choice test to find out where the couple is registered, instead of just putting a tiny card in the invite.

I have, actually, told adults coming to the small fanperson's birthday that she had more than enough toys. I wish I could still do it, but alas, child would notice. But at one? Trust me: they probably have more than enough stuff. Requesting donations instead is perhaps not on, although it's easy enough to ignore if you don't want to (what are the parents going to do, ask for a Paypal receipt?).

I just cannot get my mind around the, "you can't say no presents because that means you expect presents" thing, though. It's like something out of a Kafka novel.

Admittedly I would word it as "if you were planning on bringing a gift", but yeah there comes a point where I cannot with the culture "never mention the idea of gift" dance.

My nannying position just past gave me the absolute conviction that I will hardcore limit the number of toys that come into my house when I have kids because HOLY CRAP those kids had way too much crap that they didn't care about or even play with, because there's actually too many for them to even know what they have. And even after kidlet gets old enough to notice I'm still going to hardcore ask people to give experiences rather than stuff, because oh my god.

annnd yeah I just . . . can't even with the political aspect.

I don't think there's anything to even with the political stuff. It's practically its own parody.

And yeah, we have a room full of crap we need to sort through to donate/pitch. Our biggest problem is that the small fanperson is so inventive that she finds new uses for old toys. Curse you, imagination!

I can recommend the toy triage tactic -- when the kid is old enough to care/understand/participate, sit down and sort the toys into three piles: one to definitely keep, one to maybe keep, and one to definitely go away. (Bonus points for modeling this with your own stuff beforehand.) The definitely-go is sorted into donate and trash; the maybe is put up out of regular access for a while, and the definitely-keep is put back in the toybox. (When the little guy put things that he played with ALL THE TIME in the maybe pile, I put it back in the toybox before putting the maybes away.)

I think my toddler would find that fun... that's an idea for this afternoon! :D

That's the baseline, yeah, but I have looked after kids who are just more possessive of Things than others, and the process of doing it is stressful rather than fun; it seems to be one of those Kid Personalities Are Crapshoots, like so many other things, and some kids are just attached to their possessions more. So the "okay let's limit the inflow in the FIRST place" is my first step.

The other end of the spectrum is a little much, though:

http://www.livingwellspendingless.com/2012/09/14/why-i-took-all-my-kids-toys-away-why-they-wont-get-them-back/

I kind of want to send this woman's children one doll each. Just one.

*rolls eyes at her*

"When I do take down a toy for them to play with (no, I didn’t throw everything away), such as their Lego blocks or dress-up clothes or or their kitchen food & dishes, that one thing will entertain them for the entire day. (The rest has more or less been forgotten and will soon make it’s way from the attic to the Goodwill pile.)"

This, to me, is the telling bit.

One, it presumes you have the kind of life where you can actually be "taking down the toy for them to play with" (aka not busy doing something else). Two, actually no you didn't take your children's toys away. You just downsized more and paid attention to the things they were actually playing with, actively, and which occupied their attention for long periods of time*.

Three, I really suspect the "oh god mommy is so mad at us that she's taking everything away" had more effect than the actual things going away; four, she'd established LAST trip that No You Can't Have Things, and actually it's pretty easy to establish that. (When with her parents or grandmother, S was an ENDLESS "can I have a toy?" whiner; she didn't do that with me because The Answer Was Always No.)

Five, wow the connotations in phrasing it as "taking their toys away" are icky, and six, if I never hear another yuppie parent complain about a young child's inability to "be in the moment" on a family vacation again it will still be too soon.

(Also the inevitable sixth: you got lucky, lady. No matter what change or what adaptation or what magical Thing About Raising Kids someone comes across, there will be kids it works for, who adapt readily to having all their shit taken away, and then there are other kids you WILL in fact have deeply hurt by destroying their sense of security in Owning Their Space and having set a precedent where for no reason they can understand, they may suddenly lose things they love. And the real thing is, you may not know which kid you've GOT until after you've done it.)

/curmudgeon

*so something I started doing while I was at playgroups and stuff was to figure out if there were patterns to what toys got played with constantly and what toys got ignored. What was interesting to me was that there were, but they were inconsistent.

The expensive swanky dollhouse and its matching furniture turned out to be a Worth The Price toy: the construction let kids' hands get really good access, and the furniture matched what they saw in their own houses (rather than going for nostalgia) so they recognized it and played with it. However, the dolls were a loss: they much preferred to get other dolls, Playmobil and Little Tykes and other small dolls to play with than to play with the matching dolls.

Just about any old approximation of a kitchen would do, from plastic ones picked up from a garage sale through to something hacked very basically out of wood with the elements on the stove painted on. However, if one wanted the kids to play IN it, Melissa and Doug food sets made a HUGE difference, while other food sets were hit and miss through to "meh". (And these were at different, relatively large playgroups). There was just something about how the Melissa and Doug ones were made that made kids actively WANT to play kitchen with them; on the other hand, other M&D stuff was a waste of money and you were better off going for the cheaper plastic versions. Etc.

However, one thing that was driven home for ME again and again was "get rid of the stuff they don't actually play with". It ends up being a distraction and cluttering up the space and actually makes them play with their toys less.

All of your points are why, no matter what the misbehavior is,* short of something like throwing the dolls at people or things, I will never take away the small fanperson's dolls as punishment. I don't buy the theory of parenting that says a kid's stuff is really the parents' stuff. But more importantly, those dolls are a very big part of her identity. She acts out stories with them and builds paper classrooms for them. She uses them to make friends with kids at McDonalds. She'll share just so other kids can play with her. It would devastate her to feel like they could be taken away at any time. I am not exaggerating.

*This does not mean we will, say, immediately replace a lost doll, but unless she's actively hurting herself or others with the dolls, I would not take them away.

Edited 2015-09-29 00:10 (UTC)

ahahah omg Barbie-icon. <3

That's adorable, seriously, and awesome that she has those.

It's right up there with the weird birthday party etiquette thing I see on some American websites: one must never, ever, under pain of social ostracism, throw oneself a birthday party. Because this is a gift-grab, and making the day all about you, and demanding to be the centre of attention.

I don't know if America is actually like that or if it's just the etiquette websites, but over here, not throwing myself a birthday party would mean that I was unsociable, didn't like my friends enough to host an event for them, and wanted to be politely overlooked for future social events as I clearly didn't enjoy them...

Yes, absolutely. Here in sunny Qld, throwing yourself a birthday means you're buying booze for your friends and providing a convivial venue for them to consume it.

I threw birthday parties for myself pretty much every year of my twenties, and I don't think any attendee *ever* gave me a gift. My partners and close friends gave me gifts outside of the party environment (so they didn't get sat on, broken, thieved, or generally spindled and mutilated by drunken partygoers) and everyone else just brought booze or mixers or snacks to the party itself, depending on how cashed-up they were.

I'm in the US, and I have a friend who regularly throws herself birthday parties, generally lunch gatherings at restaurants where people pay for their own meals. In the invitations, she always says specifically that she wants presents and not to come without one. I've always felt that that wasn't polite to put it mildly. She's ten to fifteen years older than I am, too. I understand the love of getting presents, but demanding them... I suppose it's honest. I'm just not comfortable with it.

Okay, THAT is tacky. I've done the, "hey, let's all get together at {bar and grill} on Friday," for my birthday, and it was just kind of a given that I couldn't afford to pick up the whole tab. But I would never say, "bring a gift" or "here's my Amazon wish list," let alone, "no pressie, no come-y." That is quite clearly rude.

That is just ... totally alien to me.

I wouldn't be surprised if your friend didn't get all that many birthday party attendees...

I think she basically just gets the people who are close enough to her that they were going to give her something anyway. I think she usually gets about ten guests of which about five are related to her in some way

. . . .wow.

I mean, I go with "nobody is obligated to ANYTHING but if a present was something you were going to do anyway and are stumped for ideas, here is [wishlist]" or whatever, but this is because I make an active point of refusing to subject any of these things to any kind of guessing game, and also along with all those closest have come to the conclusion that no, really: we would rather get a specific list of things the giftee actually WANTS rather than having to guess.

And I KNOW there are people who would (and do) find that take too above-board and direct, I just . . . don't care on a personal level. >.>

I throw myself a birthday party every year, and if anyone thinks its tacky, they have the good sense not to tell me. Admittedly, the day isn't MUCH centered around me except that I do most of the cooking - we serve Cincinnati Chili - and God knows we spend more money and energy to throw it than we ever recoup in gifts (except maybe the year I got an iPod from a group of friends), and everyone knows gifts are totally optional. It's mostly just an excuse to throw a party and eat chili.

I only hear of these rules from advice columns and websites. My sister threw me a baby shower - horrors! And really, once you're an adult, who else is going to throw you a birthday party? It's polite to expect someone else to assume that effort and expense? Bah.

I have encountered the circles where those advice columns/websites come from. Never to move in myself, because I can't be bothered, but via them being a dear friend's family, or whatever. There are DEFINITELY still people around who will get the most ENORMOUS stick up their ass about even mentioning you have a bridal registry or whatever.

I'm just gonna slow clap and cheer Carolyn on here, because to do anything else would require I get out the popcorn maker. But yeah, I'm with you about the guess whether you should bring a present thing. I'm perfectly happy not to bring a present, and Fanlet always seems to be, too. (Actually, what I wish would go away is the necessity of having party favor bags - those seem to have taken on more importance than presents.)

Oh, God, get me STARTED on party favor bags.

Oh, boy. Party favor bags. They get harder as kids get older, too, because the cheap junk that looks great to three year olds doesn't fly for ten year olds. My daughter turns thirteen next year, and I'm seriously thinking that we should just get the kids $5 gift cards for the local independent bookstore or the frozen yogurt place (I lean more toward the bookstore because giving food is so fraught).

At least, our daughter no longer wants a party outside the house. She sees having her friends over and playing Telestrations and Mario Kart as everything she could possibly want.

Oh gosh, I always assumed goodie bags ended at 11. And that assumes your kid is still having a pretty kidlike party at 11. (By eleven a large party was not the Done Thing last time I was involved, via my much-younger-sister, and a sleepover of up to ten depending on the tolerance of the parents, with the aim of staying up until midnight, was much more On. Goodiebags were out, but endless supplies of pop, chips and candy were definitely In.)

My daughter's best friend won't be allowed to do sleepovers until she turns 16, so my daughter is decidedly uninterested in sleepover parties. (I think, also, that she realizes that the only place we have that could hold more than two of her friends for a sleepover is the basement which she loathes.) And many of my daughter's friends still seem to be having parties, some sleepovers, some not. I don't know-- Maybe it's a regional thing?

Carolyn wins all the points here IMO; I thought this was a spot-on excellent answer.

Also, LW is a jerk. *sigh*

I wonder if this letter writer gets equally incensed about "in lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to blah blee bloo" in funeral notices? It's the exact same request (especially now that highly scented funereal flowers don't serve a necessary masking function), and yet, it's considered completely acceptable and is frequently used by the same people who are aghast and unnerved by the mention of gifts in notices of other life cycle events. The self-righteousness just roils off the screen.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Carolyn Hax: Party invite, or those silly lefties

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