Factor 5: The gift of opening conundrum

Last year,  our daughter’s party culminated in a blizzard of torn gift wrap accompanied by oohs and ahhs from the crowd. My wife and I had no idea this practice was so greatly frowned upon, and we were cowed into skipping it this year (although we hated ourselves in the morning). During my own childhood, “time for presents” was always a party highlight, so I couldn’t figure out why the ban had been put in place.

I posed the question to the community boards on ParkSlopeParents.com to see if anyone could provide a good answer. A few people claimed there wasn’t enough time, in the two-hour span of most parties, to open gifts. One person said gift-opening put too much focus on the materialistic side of birthdays—as if the four-foot-tall cake and life-size Clifford piñata didn’t do a good enough job of that already. But the answer I received most often, and the one that I think truly strikes at the heart of the problem, was that the birthday child may react in an unappreciative manner and emotionally scar the gift-giver. A respondent even told me that she’d opted to cut Present Time from her son’s parties after the year when the boy grimaced upon receiving an educational gift and hurt the feelings of the adult guest who’d given it to him.

I see a teaching moment! Why don’t we use an approaching birthday as an opportunity to educate our kids about accepting gifts graciously? And if the guest of honor doesn’t react to someone’s present with the expected degree of enthusiasm, perhaps the kid (or, ahem, grown-up) who gave it to him could learn to deal with a little disappointment.

The year that my daughter opened gifts at her party, most of the young guests were quiveringly eager to have her open the present they’d brought. They were happy about giving to someone else—a good thing any way you look at it. A five-year-old can get emotionally invested in a toy she knows will go to a friend of hers. Not letting her see that gift being opened robs her of the denouement. And getting a thank-you card isn’t the same, especially since it will inevitably be written by the parents. I’ve heard so many people complain about having to write such cards (I heard from one mom who takes pictures of her son opening each gift so she can send a photo to the gift-giver). If your kid opens presents at the party, she can thank people in person, and you won’t have to spend an evening feeling like a punished Bart Simpson, writing “Thank you for the wonderful present” ad nauseam.

Hoping to avoid the issue altogether, some parents have dared to inscribe their invitations with the plea “No gifts, please.” In our space-starved city, it’s understandable if you’d rather not add to your household clutter a fourth Etch-a-Sketch or a grow-your-own-crystals kit. Yet the request for guests to arrive empty-handed often goes unheeded, and will inevitably cast shame upon the one or two parents who actually abide by it. Compromise by putting a limit on the size or cost of gifts.

“I live in Manhattan; where am I going to put these huge presents?” says Gold. “Please, give my son a deck of cards.”