Date: February 12th, 2026 10:21 AM Author: yellow plaza
When throwing a birthday party for your kid, do you tell parents of other kids they should not bring a gift? You and your family can still give gifts.
I don't recall anyone doing this when I was a kid. Now, it's de rigueur in my prestigious suburb. It's also highly cr. The kids can get a few nice gifts from their parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. They don't need 20x of some chinese plastic Amazon junk from their classmates.
Date: February 12th, 2026 10:26 AM Author: cerebral amber theater stage
it mortifies me when my kids to receive gifts from effective strangers. but it’s not about the inevitable useless plastics chinese shit they get. it’s about teaching your kids to accept gifts with grace and gratitude and an opportunity for other kids to experience and learn about gifting.
Date: February 12th, 2026 10:29 AM Author: yellow plaza
Explain. These aren't strangers. It's other kids from their class and around the neighborhood.
Learning about gratitude is cr, but you can learn to appreciate the family gifts and that gifts aren't that important in comparison to your friends being there for you on your special day. Birthday cards are still acceptable and encouraged--ideally homemade.
Date: February 12th, 2026 10:39 AM Author: cerebral amber theater stage
lol at actually knowing all of your kids’ classmates’ parents.
your points are fair and make even more sense when there’s an accepted community standard approach. i would argue that peer interactions are inherently different from intergenerational family interactions and as such offer much better training examples, but ultimately i would prefer the approach you describe so don’t have a lot invested in defending the gifting method.
Date: February 12th, 2026 10:30 AM Author: gunneratttt (gunneratttt)
seems gay. the point of gift giving isn't the cheap trinket, it's to express appreciation. the quintessential gift is flowers and no one needs them and they only last a couple weeks. banning gifts is missing the forest for the trees imo.
i think it's fine to limit gifts to a low dollar value or to stuff thats not chink slop like just cards or something. eliminating them entirely teaches kids that the purpose of a gift is the gift itself, rather than the gesture. plus kids love to give and receive crap.
Date: February 12th, 2026 10:53 AM Author: Crimson harsh locale
As people ITT have noted, of course you’d prefer not to have the cheap crap (this does not make you some UMC uncle moneybags, lol; no one wants this shit). The same way budding-adult boomers in the late 70s and 80s preferred not to dress up to go to some Rotary Club meeting chock full of his dad’s back-slappy-but-morally-straitlaced wwii gen friends and biz associates.
Date: February 12th, 2026 12:07 PM Author: yellow plaza
The difference here is putting your foot down and saying no gifts, which I hadn't previously heard of before I had kids and which I don't think was a "thing" for kids' birthdays party back in the day.
Date: February 12th, 2026 12:12 PM Author: Ungodly Big Dragon Tanning Salon
think about how many $20 pieces of shit gifts you have to give over the course of the year and how much better it would be if everyone just saved that money and each parent bought one kid a $300 present.
Date: February 12th, 2026 1:00 PM Author: Supple sex offender weed whacker
This is incredibly rude because 1. it displays entitlement to a gift and 2. it tells the guest what they can and can't bring. In fact it's tacky to mention gifts at all, except perhaps in the context of "no gifts please."
Date: February 12th, 2026 8:24 PM Author: Disgusting blood rage
If its a bigger birthday party, i usually say something like "Gifts not necessary - just bring your party hat"
I feel like "No gifts!" is a bit sanctimonious, but i also want to make it clear parents can just bring their kid and there's no need for it to be a fucking errand for them to pick out some toy i don't want in my house.