To think Myleene Klass will win no friends with this...

[CarlaVeloso]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/11391753/Myleene-Klass-Ill-be-collecting-unicorn-money-for-my-daughters-birthday.html

She has tweeted two emails from mothers at her daughter's school asking for cash donations for their children's birthday parties. She's changed their names but clearly they are still recognisable to anyone with children in that class and presumably the whole school will know about it nowthat it's been published in the papers and online.

I agree the emails are completely crass and I would privately think the same but they haven't committed any crime or sent her an expletive-filled rant about something. I opened it expecting to see a request for an actual kindle when they are just suggesting £10. Crass, vulgar, materialistic etc etc, yes, but I think her response (shaming them publicly) is really nasty and may not win her or her DD any friends at the school gate.

£5000 pound a term school and shes moaning about £10 lol.

I can't believe the dust this story has created! I have just done something like this for my son's birthday party...
My kids are registered with this money website Hootloot that helps kids save up for certain goals...it also let them send cute invites to friends and families to help them out when they save and can use it to fundraise for chairity too.

When his birthday party came up we send some of these invites via the site To his classmates parents (one of which is a Bmx bike) and others were some of the charities we love and donate to.
many of them loved the idea...they could contribute throught this site via PayPal or card and could decide their own amount from £1 up.

He got few friends dedicating a tree in the woods for him (something we chose together as we re a bit hippie and obsessed with the environment), some others put money towards the bike, and another helped him sponsor a wild animal.
The website sends nice update messages and thank you emails so everything is done nicely.

I think suggesting the amount of £10 was wrong and I wouldn t feel quite bad collecting cash from his bag at school....that s quite off....but the principle was good I think, most of the parents loved the idea and didn t waste money on plasticky toys that take millions years to decompose....

Last year we all got a bit overwhelmed by the amount of gifts he got, which I don t think is at all educational and creates a sense of entitlement to material presents....
We did wonder whether it would be received badly but I have to say that because it was done in a nice way via this website and we put a lot of worthy fun causes, it has made the whole process quite lovely.

after all we ve used a wedding gift website for our wedding and that helped us so much in funding our honeymoon .... I don t think it is custom to buy a wedding present these days without fishing from a wedding list...

MK was very rude in my opinion in shaming these parents and obviously did it to get publicity (also cause it seems those emails were sent one year ago!,).
Maybe they have not asked in the right way but I definitely agree to their intentions.

How rude of MK. I would be so angry if someone treated my emails in this way. The proposed gift arrangement is a perfectly sensible thing to go, and as a very busy working parent, I would welcome this type of thing. The child gets a present that they want, and I don't have to run around the shops trying to find something suitable. I usually spend £10 but have no idea if the gift I select is something that the child wants, and therefore may be wasting my money, and helping to fill the child's house with more unwanted crap. Making a contribution to a gift that the child wants is far more preferable, and it is convenient. Also, we all bring gifts to parties, it is not "grabby" to suggest a gift preference. At weddings, I would far rather look at a wedding list, and give people what they want, than go off on my own and get them something they don't want.

Oh my, ????sorry for the bad grammar...typing from my phone whilst on the bus is not a very good habit ????

I feel really sorry for her kids, they won't be invited to any parties now, and I really hope they aren't bullied over this.

The parent who sent the email was grabby and cringey.

But MK was an arse.

I think it's fine to ask for a contribution for a gorup present, but not to request an actual amount.

MK should not have retweeted personal emails.
It's her daughter I feel sorry for - she'll end up with no friends

I'm guessing Myleen Klass has an enormous playroom to store all these birthday presents in but not everyone does. I'd much rather a collection for one thing that is wanted and needed rather than 30 things that are neither wanted or needed.
Cherie Blair asked parents to contribute to the coach taking children to her son Leo's birthday party, now that is cheeky.

Lauren of course they will! I would still invite them...only a proper meanie would exclude them due to HER actions.

I take my hat off to her for doing it. If do and so wants a kindle surely it's the main present from the parents.

We had a mum who asked for ELC vouchers to buy something in the summer (Christmas birthday). I had no issue with that but would hate to be told I had to more or less give to keep parents happy.

It needs to be said again - the emails requesting a suggested amount and putting £ in book bags were not from the mothers of the girls - they were from friends of the mothers, essentially organising a collection - same way people do for leaving gifts, new baby gifts, 40th birthdays etc.

I agree that a mother asking for tenners in bags for her own child'sgroup present would be crass.

Groovee - I can't see the difference between what you are describing with the ELC Vouchers and the emails here. It was very clear that it was voluntary.

It needs to be said again - the emails requesting a suggested amount and putting £ in book bags were not from the mothers of the girls - they were from friends of the mothers, essentially organising a collection - same way people do for leaving gifts, new baby gifts, 40th birthdays etc.

Indeed and I think this is what's caused all the fuss. The fact that it wasn't the birthday girls' parents at all, but a friend offering to basically organise a whip-round has been completely lost in any discussion of it.

I feel sorry for the children's actual parents who didn't even send the email but have been vilified for it.

You know, thinking about it, now we know this happened a year ago, I wonder what the fall-out was, if any, then? And if it did cause tensions, I wonder why on earth she thought it wise to resurrect it a year later.

Daily Mash has it's say !!

Haggismcbaggis Where does it state that the people collecting the money were not the mothers of the girls. It would be odd to collect money for your friend's child rather than your own surely?

pinpanthershow How rude of MK. I would be so angry if someone treated my emails in this way. The proposed gift arrangement is a perfectly sensible thing to go, and as a very busy working parent, I would welcome this type of thing. The child gets a present that they want, and I don't have to run around the shops trying to find something suitable. I usually spend £10 but have no idea if the gift I select is something that the child wants, and therefore may be wasting my money, and helping to fill the child's house with more unwanted crap. Making a contribution to a gift that the child wants is far more preferable, and it is convenient.

To be fair, Mylene Klass is probably about the only woman at that school who could get away with retweeting the graspy emails, since anyone else would be lynched or whatever the current London schoolmum equivalent is. You pretty much need a massive Twitter following to stand up to some of those school mums.

Surely the bigger problem is competitive gift giving, which obviously results in a lack of time. Since when did selecting a present become a chore which had to be automated? Better not to give than not have time to give surely? I mean, if you don't have a close enough relationship with the child or the child's family that you would want to spend the little bit of time selecting an individual gift for their child, what are you doing giving gifts to them at all?

And it doesn't matter if it was optional (since theres hardly any way of making it compulsory) or only £10 or not (how many children in the class - 20? 20 each expecting a gift contribution of £10 or more each is at least £200).

Marynary there was a 'insider' info earlier on in the thread.

'The expectation is if you have a party you invite the whole class. Parents can decide if they would like individual gifts or a contribution. The parent of the previous birthday child usually arranges the collection for the next birthday child, iyswim. There are several coffee mornings throughout the year for each class and the Mums would have discussed at one of these what contribution they were happy to give. It's fair for all the children that way. No one is forced into anything but most people are very happy with this arrangement as it means they don't have to go out shopping every second week for a gift, wrap it, cart it to the party etc.'

I would LOVE to give £10 in a card as present for children.

I would also LOVE it if DD's were given cash instead of plastic crap.

Sadly my DD's LOVE the plastic crap, so it's not something I'm going to push.

But as a society we are waaaaaay too obsessed with giving and receiving of largely unwanted and unneeded items that clutter up our homes for years. I'm over it.

In 30 years time we will look back in amazement at all this "gift giving/receiving angst" that we are obsessed with now and wonder why we allowed ourselves to be manipulated into such willful and wanton destruction of earths resources, as well as our own hard earned money, for such a meaningless pursuits and as a way of being "friends" and not "being rude".

Thechandler - you seriously have a relationship with every child or their family that invites your child/children to a party? Sufficient to be able to spend time selecting a gift that they would like, confident that it's not a duplicate of something they already have? This is surely an example of the parallel MN Universe that people talk about.

How bizarre. I don't know some of the kids in my children's classes from Adam. Best & close friends is another matter.

Oh well, at least MyKleen Ass's OK shoots are lined up for the next few months.
"My playground hell"
"My daughter's bullying experience hell" (she'll appoint herself as a patron of NSPCC for that one).
"Forced to move schools, our hell".
"MyKleen, Moving on, I've been to hell and back just for being a principled woman " .

What a twit. Agree with previous poster who said she's just deflecting the mansion tax stuff and trying to show how 'normal' she is. Nobber of the highest order.

Apparently it has been alleged that the emails she showed were a year old

Link here for those who don't mind Daily Fail links

There seems to be a suggestion that Myleene Klass manipulated things to get publicity. Who'd have thought it?

Interesting too that Myleene went happily to pick up yesterday - posing merrily for the paps. But she sent the nanny this morning to drop off

Scous I don't believe it! not Myleene! She would never seek attention like that.
You couldn't be true friends with somebody like that, you'd never trust her not to throw you to the lions for her own self gain. Lovely lessons for her daughters. She's probably after being the new Liz Jones, erm...good luck to her.

Do people really spend around £10 for birthday presents?! I spend £5 Max . But I do buy nice stuff in sales or TKMaxx. Now I'm thinking my presents are cheap

Haggis Thechandler - you seriously have a relationship with every child or their family that invites your child/children to a party? Sufficient to be able to spend time selecting a gift that they would like, confident that it's not a duplicate of something they already have? This is surely an example of the parallel MN Universe that people talk about.

No, quite the opposite. I'm saying its ridiculous to buy presents (or contribute to them) for children your own child barely knows, and to be bounced into it by competitive present buying.

BigRedBall - it was £10 for two girls so you are spending the same.