This Mom’s Twitter Thread Explains Why “No Gift” Parties Are A Rad Trend

I am always careful about my sons’ birthday invitations — Facebook or otherwise — making sure to write NO PRESENTS, PLEASE. Sometimes I do the cutesy “Your presence, not your presents, is requested.” But regardless, every party is a present-less party.

There are several reasons for this. First, my kids have too much stuff. More presents means more stuff for me to clean. Second, a lot of my mom friends don’t have a bunch of spare cash lying around. Many of them live on one income. Or they live on one income and a scrambled side-job. Hell, we live on one income and a scrambled side job and, honestly, I don’t want to have to reciprocate. My middle son had ten kids at his last party. That’s ten freaking presents. Multiply by twenty bucks or so, and that’s $200. Um, no thanks.

So I had all the sympathy when I saw a tweet from @MamaGhoulette lamenting the costs of attending birthday parties:

She goes on to say that she will buy the present, because she’s been the kid who’s shown up with a cheap present, and it was totally embarrassing. It’s even worse when the birthday kid is richy-rich, his parents are richy-rich, and their parents are richy-rich. MamaGhoulette, on the other hand, is a university worker and grad student — a population you can peg as basically the exact opposite of richy-rich. I know. Been there, noshed the ramen.

Eventually she and the kidlets went to the party, and managed to get a present. The birthday boy had the exact same one in his room. And she basically watched her hard-earned money swirl down the drain.

As she says,

The stories quickly began pouring in.

Moms posted their strategies for affording birthday presents. Many, many, many resorted to regifting promo gift cards, toys their kids didn’t want, things they’d bought on clearance that their kids wouldn’t use. Baby presents were all handmade or coupons for a free meal, for babysitting. MamaGhoulette asked parents to consider who they’re invited to the party.

And folks responded.

https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/949806304431890432

It’s no wonder that parents are beginning to reevaluate birthday parties. The new trend out there isn’t even to have presentless birthday parties, but to swing the other way and donate your birthday. One kid I know had people bring supplies for a local animal shelter; another asked for book for local homeless children. This doesn’t solve the monetary problem for parents, and makes you look like even more of an asshole if your kid brings a cheap gift, but at least it’s hitting capitalism where it counts, right?

Like this little girl, who GoFundMe highlighted on their twitter account:

Regardless of whether your kid decides to be a philanthropist, the time has come to ditch birthday presents for all but the nearest and dearest (for reference: we gift to nieces and nephews, godsons and surrogate goddaughters, plus two sets of very close, very loved friends. Still a lot of kids!). Or restrict presents to a dollar amount everyone can afford — say, five or ten bucks. Or ditch the dollar amount all together and stick with the handmade. You can now Pinterest some pretty great stuff, people, so it’s not like you’d end up with armful of lopsided clay sculptures (which you would honestly probably love, because Billy made them).

And there’s always another option, the nuclear option MamaGhoulette contemplates but doesn’t pull the trigger on. When faced with a birthday party where you’ll be expected to produce an expensive present you can hardly afford, which the birthday kid may just callously regift anyway, who isn’t a near-one-and-a-dear-one, ditch the party completely. Take your kids to the park instead. Roll in the grass. Climb on the monkey bars. Invite some friends. That stuff, at least, is always free.

Or you could always be like this parent whose theoretical (yarn!) balls and knitting skills we applaud:

Too far?