Mum Mortified When Birthday Gift for 6 Year Old Gets Given Back!
Kids parties for this generation of parents have become a power packed pressure cooker of expectation! Is the party big enough? Did I invite the right people? Am I up with the latest party bag trends? Have I carefully selected just the right balance of organically sourced snacks and gluten free alternatives? Pressure, pressure, pressure! Well now it seems that pulsing pressure is now not limited to the hosts but greatly weighing on the shoulders of the guests and their impending party gift!
British mum and columnist Liz Dashwood recently stumbled across this proverbial awkward minefield when attending the birthday party of her son Thomas’s friend only to have their gift given back!
Liz Dashwood wrote for The Pool explaining that she was shocked when the mother of the party boy, Marco, promptly handed back their gift stating that Marco didn’t like it. Dashwood writes: “She took it in one hand and gave it back to me in the other, saying, ‘Marco doesn’t really like books – anything else would be fine.’ And sort of gestured in the general direction of the shops.”
OMFG! What just happened ?
After the present was rejected Dashwood explains she went on to contemplate just what Marco’s parents approach to parenting actually was. “He only gets presents he likes?” she pondered “His world is going to be destroyed if he doesn’t get 30 out of 30 gift bullseyes? Does he only get to eat crisps and the middle bits of Jaffa Cakes too, because he doesn’t like vegetables?”
But, as Dashwood says she then “got a bit knotted up” filled with self doubt she critiqued herself.
“Who am I to be dictating what her approach to books – or childrearing should be? What kind of dickhead gives an ‘improving’ gift? Why shouldn’t he have 30 lumps of tat for his birthday, if that’s what he wants?”
Dashwood’s internal questioning over whether the gift was appropriate or not was short lived and she confessed that rather than race to the local mall to pick up some Lego or “30 lumps of coal” she hid the gift among the other presents when Marco’s mum wasn’t looking.
It is not our place to say whether one parenting style is right or wrong, in a time when children are given the opportunity to assert the independent choice, identification of their strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes. It can be a challenge, to say the least, deciding an appropriate time for a teachable moment. I have to question though, what, if anything, the birthday boy is going to learn from this experience? Life is not easy, our children will be met with many a challenge and disappointment. It’s the tools we equip them with in moments like these that foster brilliance in resilience to accept, overcome and move forward. It may just be a simple birthday present but it is these small instances that form the foundation for our children’s reaction and responses to further encounters and, oh boy, I fear a long path of bitter, disgruntled disappointment could be in store for this navigating little man if he doesn’t learn to receive, give thanks with grace and politeness and accept that, in life, we don’t always get what we want!
I know one of the points of your article is not judge but it really irks me when parents say “my kids don’t like books” “you don’t even like book” I am a Usborne consultant and have heard it a lot and it just saddens me.