Birthday presents

Now that I have a child of my own, I find that I am getting more and more invites to other children's birthday parties. I love parties. I love the cake and ice cream, and the food and the other adults chatting away. The thing I do not like is the present issue. In my family, when we invited friends to a party my mom always made it clear that no presents were necessary. She never wanted someone to feel they could not come because of lack of money to buy a present. I got plenty of presents from my relatives and never really noticed the lack of presents from friends. I also was not expected to bring presents to my friends parties.

So the first time my son and I were invited to a party, I did not bring anything. Boy did I feel crunchy. Everyone else brought lavish gifts for this kid and I had nothing. We left right before presents were opened so that no one would notice. On my way home I started thinking though, is the fact that the parent provides cake and ice cream mean that I (as the guest) am obligated to provide a gift? Right at this moment we are doing well with money but at the time my husband (the sole income maker) was unemployed and had been for months. It was just not feasible for us to go and spend even $5 on a gift when we had only enough to pay our bills and not a penny more. So does that mean that I should have just said no to the party? Are birthday parties only for guests who can afford it? I really don't like to talk about our money with people but I also did not want them to think that we were rude.

Honestly at first I thought these parents were rude! Why did they expect everyone to bring their child presents when they were not even related to the child? I did not realize that what my mom and my friends had done was unusual. My friends have set me straight about that issue. None the less, I have decided that for our son's birthday parties, we will request no presents. I don't want anyone to feel the way I did that day, especially with so many losing jobs or hours. For the future though, I have decided that I will give books as presents. I do believe that one can have too many of a lot of things but books are not one of them. Borders has a bargain children book section ($2-5 a book) so I will get some books and stash them away for all of the birthday parties we have yet to go to. This way I am following what culture in this part of the country demands and not breaking my budget at the same time.