To say No to this charity BS

[EffingBirthdays]

DS9 and 3 school mates are sharing a birthday party in few days .
I ve made a point to the other mums that we should add a note to what’s app group to kindly bring one present max , absolutely no need for anything more as kids will share

Thats when one of the other mums had the bright idea to donate ALL gifts to kids related charity - apparently her friend did it with her kid and it was massive success all parents were very happy etc

WTAF! Party is not cheap, and how the fuck do I say this to ds?

I don’t mind donating the odd gift but we have more than 40 kids invited, wtaf?

all other 3 mums agreed, wtf do I do? AIBU?

This.

@Growlybear83 exactly..The first thing I used to ask the parent when I got an invite was "what are they into"? I used to sometimes even like the child (usually more discreetly - as in "I know you like football. What's your team?")

Agree with this too!

Say 'LOL 😆 'That's a good one Jenny are you here all week?!'

@EffingBirthdays Absolutely as other posters have said. NO WAY.

Saying 'I will get a little separate gift as a donation (like a jigsaw) but no WAY am I donating my boy's gifts,' (as a few people have suggested,) is what you should do. Good luck!

This^
I think offering to donate one gift each to a charity is one thing but to donate all presents is too much.
I can understand people asking for donations to charity instead of presents in advance but not this.

All this sharing gifts was a recipe for disaster from the start tbh.

But surely they’ll have friends in common hence the decision of just one present for all kids? Otherwise, a family will be buying a gift for each child. Not saying I agree with any of this - the joint party sounds a headache.

Is this idea all part of that virtue signalling 'worthiness' problem that young women have got going one these days?

It's so tedious. Not everything in life has to be fraught with martyrdom just to be good enough. Fun is still allowed.

I'd be really annoyed if a present I bought for a birthday child was just given to charity. If I knew in advance I wouldn't take anything - just a nice card.
Do many charities take random presents or worse, would this be a donation to a charity shop?
I like the idea of a present table for each child and you take yours home. You can offer to do a cash donation to a charity of your own choice to appease the other mums.

How would giving all the gifts away work in practice?

So, at the party there's a whole pile of gifts - does someone then come over and sweep all those gifts into a bin bag or similar, put it in the boot of their car and drive to the nearest charity shop?

OP you say the children's parents were pleased with what happened at their give everything to charity party but I can't help thinking that those children wouldn't have been in the least bit happy with it. I think it's cruel and unnecessary.

I'd be properly hacked off at buying and wrapping presents for these children based on what i think they'd want to receive and then having them given away. So rude and so unpleasant for the children. I give to charity and this is not a way that i'd want to support a charity. I bet the charity would much rather the cash than a zillion plastic toys. Joyless and inefficient.

Both the charity and the sharing presents are terrible ideas. People buy gifts with the person in mind! Not a lucky dip type present. It’s up to each boy whether they want to donate anything.

Why don’t you go for a halfway house…?

“The charity idea is great! But the boys might be disappointed with no gifts… what does everyone think about a compromise?
guests bring 1 gift max, the boys pick 2 gifts or so (like a lucky dip!) and we donate the remaining 30 / 32”

Bit of a pickle that it's so close to the party.

I totally understand where you were coming from with one gift each, you can't reasonably suggest attendees bring four presents, and your DCs don't need 40 presents each. I do think it's a bit of a minefield making sure all DCs then get equal presents of equal quality/value (value to them, I mean, not monetary value).

The charity thing might have been ok if announced sooner - people needed to know this before they went shopping so they could buy accordingly. Likewise DCs will now have expectations of presents which will be dashed.

The everyone gives money in a pot which is then split, but again too late to organise this now when people will have already shopped.

Given it's so close to the party you're going to have to stick with whatever the guests have already been told to expect really. And if the other parents want to donate some or all of their DC's haul, that's their choice, but I wouldn't advertise it to the gift givers at this point or they'll feel rejected.

I think it's a bit much to put the pressure on to donate gifts to others...

I went to a public school on scholarship, so the gifts I received at my birthday parties were often pretty ££££ but my mother would encourage me to choose 4-5 gifts to keep and then we would donate the others to a local women's refuge where children arrived with nothing, which my mother's friend ran.

It was a good lesson in though I was the girl in my class with the least, I was still very middle class and better off than many.

However she didn't make do it, the givers didn't know and I had joint birthday parties occasionally and the other girl presumably kept all her gifts, I had no idea and didn't care tbh......

So in a roundabout way, I can see the parents are trying to eliminate waste, do a nice thing etc, but I think it should really be done on an individual basis. If they are doing that, they should really let parents know it will be a toy drive for charity so they can regift things that maybe wouldn't suit the birthday children ie barbies etc, but would for a children's hospital charity, that way they don't have to buy more plastic tat in a col crisis.

@LessonsInPhysics that's a good point about who they are intending to donate them too.
We've just had Christmas where charities such as the Salvation Army do toy collections which are distributed via (I assume) social services who will have knowledge of who could receive them.
This is always a big volunteer task - collecting, sorting and distributing. It's usually only done at Christmas because it's a big task.
The rest of the year charities don't have the storage space for loads of stuff so they can't take random donations.
I would really really want to know exactly where they were planning on donating.
There's an awful lot of misguided charity giving out there like a random bloke filling a van with toys to drive to Ukraine but doesn't have a collection point in Ukraine that they are actually heading to so they end up dumped.

this is the kind of move that kids will be recounting in therapy 20 years later "and on my birthday they took all my presents and gave them away before i'd even opened them"

Bet the other mums want to say something too but dont have the courage

I'd just say no, you already donate to charity and you don't think it's right that you make the decision to donate your ds's birthday gifts, which he was looking forward to receiving.

I'd hate it if my parents had donated all my birthday gifts to charity!! The poor boys.

Also as a parent wouldn't you be happy other people are buying toys for your child that your child will actually want and play with?
If you bought your child a large Hot Wheels track for their birthday what would you prefer - you having your child constantly asking for more cars and you have to buy them or somebody else buying them so you don't have to?
Some toys need extras/add ons to get a good play out of them - so isn't that the whole point of birthday gifts?

I voted YABU as you did the same to the other mums: divided the amount of presents they would receive by 4 by telling everybody to only bring one.
(I agree with you that it is the done thing, but I wouldn’t announce it before checking with the other hosts)

Maybe at this point the simplest thing is just to say is “no presents please”?

Surely then just one of the other mums only needed to say that they would rather all the parents brought four presents? I think OP only suggested it as an idea within the hosts group.

Thank you all, massively appreciate your responses

I was stuck at work all day and the mum with the fine idea shared “our” plans with the WhatsApp group already 🙄

everyone is very impressed with how considerate the boys are 😫

I really don’t have the balls to say anything, I know my kid will be targeted at school if I do

I will never ever ever ever share a party in my life!

planning my excuses for next year !

tbh I am pissed off but I deserve it for sharing to save the cost 😏

If every parent was expected to buy four presents, that would likely be 160 pieces of cheap tat on a table.