to have expected a present and 'happy birthday' for DD

[mylongawaitedlife]

a mum i have known for about a year has 2 children. for their birthdays i have bought a token present each - nothing huge, probably amounting to about £20 in total. i have one pre-school DS. we've both held birthday parties. each probably amounting to about the same, nothing lavish.

however - I noticed that the other mum didn't give DS any present at all for his birthday. also didn't say 'happy birthday' when he came bouncing up at the party, or celebrate him in any way.

my DS is too young to have noticed anything. what is the etiquette here, is the other mum's behaviour unusual?

I'm not sure I've understood. Are you saying her DC came to your child's b.day party and didn't bring a present? If so, then that's very rude.

It depends - did she come to his birthday party without a present (rude) or she didn't acknowledge his birthday but there was no party? (Not rude and i certainly don't buy all my friends kids birthday presents)

sorry if I wasn't clear - we've both held small parties, not lots of guests at either but to which the other DC were invited, so I invited both hers to my DS party, and bought both her DC presents in the last year.

Hey, my DD didn't even get a happy birthday from the six members of DHs family she is linked to on fb. When others can't be bothered, makes you wonder whether you should. You can behave like them or behave better than them. Your choice.

You don't go to a party without a gift.

I don't think you can complain without coming across badly. If your child didn't mind then no harm done. Some people bring gifts to "casual" celebrations. Some get distracted by other things going on in their own lives and don't really think it through enough to realise you are expecting them to bring something.

Easter no I don't feel I can complain without it affecting relationships with other mothers (DS attends nursery with her DD, likely to go to local school together etc)

The other mother thought enough about it to post pics of her DD enjoying the party bag from DS's party, to which I was a bit because it was like her DD was opening presents again, when at the same time DS had none. Did it come across as ill mannered? - at that point, yes.

I now have a dilemma - do I buy her DC presents for their next special occasions, or not? WWYD?

Even f she's flat broke, kind words are free.

I would always buy my child a gift to give to her DC if there was a party. Maybe £5 though, £10 seems a lot. I wouldn't want to essentially punish her kids because their mum didn't get a gift for my kid. I wouldn't bother for non party occasions though - not if its a one-way gifting.

Just scale back the gifts and limit it to invited parties only. I do this with my in laws as they are very indifferent to my dc so just buy a gift if there's a party.

Personally I value presence over presents at a party.

If someone turned up to Dd's party without a present I couldn't care less, and probably wouldn't even notice.

I did inadvertently embarrass a guest by thanking them for a present I thought they had given (cards and presents got separated) but they said they didn't bring anything. Fine with me, I didn't wish to embarrass them.

I find a huge pile of presents after a party a bit of a pain tbh, I know mostly they will be played with for minutes before being discarded and adding to our toy clutter mountain!

To add: I have always sent my dc to parties with presents, but would far rather guests come to our parties, then not turn up due to financial constraints .

Have you both attended other children's parties? Did she bring presents to them?

I think I would scale back presents to £2-£3.

Unfortunately there are alot of takers.

Simple answer is not to give gifts to her DC any more OP. Then the reciprocity can be confined to attendance at parties.

YY to valuing presence over presents. Its cheesy but the things money can't buy really are the most valuable.