I see alot of Birthday threads where the Mom is asking how to delicately ask the Guests not to bring gifts to their kids Birthday Party or give alternatives as to what they CAN bring.
Why has this become the norm?
What happened to simple days when your Guests could just bring whatever they wanted to bring?
Some people get a certain joy AND put in alot of time picking out that special gift for their loved one. Why rob people of that?
When DS is invited to someone's Birthday Party, I am genuinely excited for that Child and I spend a great deal of time and effort finding out what he/she would like for their Birthday.
And DS enjoys giving the gift to the Birthday Child.
Sure you may have a house cluttered with plastic toys and nonsensical frous frous but that's the fun of it all.
I just don't think it's fair to put all these "restrictions" on the Guests who want to just celebrate with your child on that special day and in doing so, giving them a gift without restrictions.
Originally Posted by mommy68
They are allowed to do that in the schools here. It's either the whole class they invite OR just the children of the same sex.
I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean. What do you mean by they are allowed to that that in the schools? This is a child's birthday party at what I I thought was a non-school location. Did I miss something?
Originally Posted by dharmamama
I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean. What do you mean by they are allowed to that that in the schools? This is a child's birthday party at what I I thought was a non-school location. Did I miss something?
Namaste!
The reason for inviting the whole class is that no one gets left out when invites a passed out at school. At my youngest two childrens Montessori school this is avoided because we have a school directory with the children address. They don't allow passing out of invitations at school so we mail them. We still invited everyone from my sons class.
Originally Posted by mommy68
Why not just invite only the children in their classes that are the same sex?? Just invite all the girls and not the boys.
My son's friends are the girls in his class...so I would never invite only the boys. But I also wuldn't invite just the girls because he already feels "different" about being the only boy in his group of friends and this would further illuminate that difference. I'm never in favor of an arbitrary division of children along gender lines.
In most schools, the policy is that if invitations will be distributed on school grounds then each child in the class (or each child of a specified gender) need to be invited. But if you are having a private party at your home or other location, and if you send invitations to a select few by mail I am uncertain as to how the school can influence who you invite.
would it be rude to specificaly ask that give my ds a book for his birthday? or is that being too demmanding?
I think you can sort of do an end run around the gifts thing by having "theme" parties. Book parties (books), garden parties (seeds, pots, dirt), dress up parties (costumy things), time capsule parties (pics of each child, a letter, some small thing to put in a time capsule), cooking parties (those jars that have all the dry ingredients for a recipe). art party (art supplies) etc. If there's a theme the it sort of follows that the gifts will go with the theme and if you do gift bags, the things in the bag are likely to be used up, not things that just sit around, get broken, and end up in the trash.
I'd never put "wooden toys only" or "books only" on an invitation but I would totally do a theme party and hint strongly that gifts that went with the theme would be appreciated.
Originally Posted by yooper
And whoever said that ettiquette comes before social responsibiliy.....I completely disagree.
I have to agree with yooper here. Etiquette changes all the time. It is cultural and when cultures change (and they frequently do) so do the "rules" of etiquette.
Social responsibility, however, goes beyond our generation. Specifically it gets passed to our children. This is why it is SO important to set a good example for our kids and involving them in creating their future world.
I'd go as far as saying the Social Responsibility trumps common courtesey most of the time.
Originally Posted by GuavaLava
I figure the only friends worth inviting are the ones who will understand our request of no gifts.
Agreed. The ones that are hell bent on buying cheap plastic crap from an exploitive corporation for their own satisfaction in complying with thier own social rules shouldn't even be on the guest list.
[QUOTE-sabrosina]Agreed. The ones that are hell bent on buying cheap plastic crap from an exploitive corporation for their own satisfaction in complying with thier own social rules shouldn't even be on the guest list.[/QUOTE]
Unless they are the child's grandparent/ great-grandparent and then, they should be invited, but warned that anything battery operated gets played with at THEIR house, but won't stay in ours.
We put no gifts on our cards because we thought it was only considerate seeing how many parties the kids are getting invited to. This costs a lot of money, especially if you have mulitple kids. Actually, we only had a small party with 4 of dd's friends. The ones I'm offended at are the ones where they choose to invite the whole class AND expect gifts. I think that is too much. But I also try and respect each parent's different perspective. In our house, the emphasis isn't placed on the gifts because I think that takes on a life of it's own. Our emphasis is on how thoughtful it is of our friends to take time out of their days to come celebrate with us and make our kids or our day special. That, to me, is a gift in itself. Just like with Christmas, the gifts are a part of it but i try to get the shopping done early so the focus is on getting the tree and that tradition, wrapping gifts, decorating, making cookies with family, listening to music, enjoying the fun of decorations at the mall. The gifts will inevitably come, but i feel if you focus too much on that then you miss the whole point of the party...or a holiday. I'm thankful she's made friends who want to come. At ours they ended up giving her gifts anyways but they were small and great. And she appreciates everything. I think if she got 15 gifts at once she couldn't have time to comprehend all that and it would become meaningless. Our focus was on games, company, playing and CAKE!
Originally Posted by BetsyNY
I think it's inappropriate to bring up gifts AT ALL on an invitation. It is ALWAYS your choice whether you bring a gift or not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dharmamama
And I think we're shamelessly kidding ourselves if we say that gifts are optional at birthday parties. Would YOU want to be the kid at a party who showed up with no gift when everyone else did?
Yes, I think it's ridiculous to suggest that not bringing gifts to a standard birthday party is a socially acceptable choice.
We've asked family to avoid flashing, noisy toys for ds this Christmas because they seem to make him a bit, well, thoughtless (random button-pressing etc), but I'm really worried now that I might have offended them!
I haven't seen the no-gifts invite - but what seems to be popular is a group gift. This doesn't go out on the invite, but one invitee- mom will e-mail others. I personally like it because that way there is no junky plastic toys - and dd gets something that she wants. I don't like the idea of opening toys at birthday parties anyway. I always had a hard time with it as a kid watching others open presents...
On the other hand, I think it's a good exercise for a child (of a certain age, of course) to help think of, and pick out a gift for another.
One little boy (3) picked out flowers for my daughter, it was the sweetest gift ever!!!!
I struggle with the issue, because my children already have so much (we're working on declutter/paring down) and the more they have, the less they play with... On the other hand, since they attend birthday parties, I don't want them to feel like they're the only ones who don't get gifts.
Like a poster above, we have a large community of like-minded parents. All of us insist on "no present" birthday parties, and we have cookouts or get togethers for all the kids (upwards of 40 or 50, including babies.) If everyone, every year, bought presents for every kid, our small houses would be jam-packed. AND it would be an incredible waste of money. Instead, we each buy our child one big toy for his/her birthday (my son got a bike for his 4th in June), and we all concentrate on having a good time, eating good food, and celebrating the life of the child in question with cards, home-made crafts, etc.
FWIW -- this is the same for the adults' birthday parties. I just had my 40th, and all the families got together and made me a quilt, each square stitched by a family with a word in its center that reminded them of me. It is a masterpiece, and a treasure, and something that money can't buy.
We consume too much in this culture, and we MUST change our habits even if those habits (buying children toys they don't need) bring us pleasure. Just MHO, but one that seems to be shared by many on this thread.
Originally Posted by marieandchris
Like a poster above, we have a large community of like-minded parents. All of us insist on "no present" birthday parties, and we have cookouts or get togethers for all the kids (upwards of 40 or 50, including babies.) If everyone, every year, bought presents for every kid, our small houses would be jam-packed. AND it would be an incredible waste of money...
...We consume too much in this culture, and we MUST change our habits even if those habits (buying children toys they don't need) bring us pleasure. Just MHO, but one that seems to be shared by many on this thread.
Marie
I agree with that and I hope to someday have a gathering for DD more like that. While I dream about having only like-minded (crunchy) moms as my friends,
: we have a variety of people in our life b/c of moving and different arenas we are involved in (and assorted neighborhood kids my DD has befriended). Therefore, there are many people who have vastly different values in toys and DD could easily end up with a Bratz doll which we don't approve of. So, rather than to be very specific about what to give or what not to give, the one time we threw a party for DD, we insisted people not bring gifts. One person did not respect our wishes and the gift was not fitting for DD. In addition, they insisted we open the gift right then and there which was very uncomfortable.
I know enough about psychology to know that was not at all about my DD, but rather about that mom--and it was outright selfish. It hardly meant a thing to DD, but it hurt me and embarrassed other moms.
My parents have sent plenty of inappropriate gifts and I've tolerated it from long-distance friends too. Once they realized that they run the risk of sending DD something she already has (it's happening more and more), they have started to ask me for suggestions. Since my parents live out of state, I am sensitive to their need to connect w/their grand-DD so I let it slide so they won't feel hurt.
When it comes to throwing a birthday party, I know for certain that DD only wants a party to share with friends. She is an only child and spending time with friends is really fun and meaningful to her. To burden us and her with gifts that she does not want or need actually prevents us from having a gathering of her friends to celebrate. We prefer to have a family celebration with gift-giving. Between our family, long-distance friends, DH and I, DD receives plenty of gifts. I can't imagine having a party w/friends every year and adding another 6 or so presents to the pile!
Originally Posted by dharmamama
I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean. What do you mean by they are allowed to that that in the schools? This is a child's birthday party at what I I thought was a non-school location. Did I miss something?
At my boys school, they are 8 and 11
IF they invite children while on school grounds (with invitations) then they have to invite either the WHOLE class or all the children of the same sex if they only want the same sex at the party. This is how a lot of the schools in our area are so no children feel left out.
Ofcourse all children have EVERY right to call each person and invite them on the phone or send them an invitation at their home and invite just one or two kids here and there. It IS a free country.
ofcourse that can be done!! That's not what I said at all. I'm not naive.
IMO inviting over 30+ kids to one party just seems extreme to me. It's just too hyped up IMO and seems like it's over-exaggerated. Keep it simple is best.
Do you ladies think it's kosher to write "No Bratz dolls please..." if you were totally against the flippin' things? My one daughter was invited to a classmates party, and the whole thing was themed for Bratz. Now, I don't agree witht the whole idea of those dolls, (not even for a 15 year old!!!!) We ended up picking out a Groovy Girl for her, and she ended up liking that more than all the other Bratz dolls she got that day!
Originally Posted by TwinMomWendy
Do you ladies think it's kosher to write "No Bratz dolls please..." if you were totally against the flippin' things? My one daughter was invited to a classmates party, and the whole thing was themed for Bratz. Now, I don't agree witht the whole idea of those dolls, (not even for a 15 year old!!!!) We ended up picking out a Groovy Girl for her, and she ended up liking that more than all the other Bratz dolls she got that day!
I'd probably list some activities she DOES enjoy that don't have anything to do with Bratz, so that you focus people toward things she likes, and (hopefully) no one will even think about Bratz when they're buying the gift.
Originally Posted by NaturalMamma
While I dream about having only like-minded (crunchy) moms as my friends,
: we have a variety of people in our life b/c of moving and different arenas we are involved in (and assorted neighborhood kids my DD has befriended).
Do you really dream of having only like-minded people as friends?
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