to think you still take a gift to a party?

[Tryingtostayrelevant]

My dc has a number of 18 year old and 21 year old parties taking place in the coming weeks and I enquired as to what gifts they were getting.

They said it’s not a thing to take gifts for the birthday person or the host.

And I said have I taught you no manners and they said if it was older people (40+) inviting them for dinner or similar they would take flowers/wine but not for parties.

AIBU to think a small gift should be taken?

YABU no one does gifts any more
YANBU gifts are still the done thing

My daughter has been to a few 18ths recently and took a present to each.

I’m 38 and have never taken a gift to a party (or a wedding)

Yes, you take a ‘hostess gift’ as an adult attending a party, it’s usually something like alcohol, flowers or nice chocolates and you take it with no expectation that they’ll serve it to the guests.

I notice it is not the “done thing” among teenage boys 16+ these days. No presents were received and teenager here not interested in it. Wonder if it is the norm now.

Edited to say that they don’t have parties but ‘gatherings’.

Surely depends where the party is and what the format is. A party in a bar where you have to pay for your own drinks is very different to a party hosted and paid for in someone’s home or another venue.

I think we should stop putting our own expectations onto younger generations and insisting that our way is right.

Different groupings of young people have different social rules, which they manage themselves.

I'm often surprised by the way they do things, but it works for them.

I would have thought they often just take alcohol?

Hmm I am 40 and I don’t think 18th or 21st birthdays, if a large party, we’d have taken anything. For my 21st about 10 of us went on a night out from my parents in a limo and I reckon I got gifts then. Now for a 30/40/50th I’d most likely take a bottle of champagne or similar if a large party.

I’m in my 20’s and it was never a thing to take a gift to 18th/21st’s. I think the switch to taking gifts for the hosts probably happened when we all started buying our own homes.

Ah interesting question so different answer maybe to:

House party (or gathering)
Restaurant (parents of birthday individual paying full bill)
Restaurant (all pay own meal)
Pub (tab behind bar)
Pub (pay bar)
Location party - e.g hotel, stately home
Activity party (guest doesn’t pay for activity)

Think that covers all the ones coming up

You’ve never taken a gift? How many invites do you get 😆

Mum of a late teen DS. They take gifts but they are ridiculous prank type gifts for each other. Think shocking pink latex dress etc

My DS had a load of mates camp in our garden for his 18th.

i believe (I wasn’t in the country) they drank most of the night.

he’d have fallen over with shock if one of his mates had brought him flowers.

seriously, hostess gifts for an 18 year old lad are really not a thing.

In my late teens we didn't take presents to large parties. Let your kids do ehatever is the teen-norm with respect to this.

But wouldn’t they have taken him a 6 pack of beer or a bottle of something he likes as a birthday gift?

I'm older, but it was still never a thing to take gifts to parties at that kind of age. Buy them a drink out, sure. But we'd all want to have a good time, and lugging random gifts around at a party is a pain. If we did give gifts, we did it at school/college separately to the party/gathering, and it was uncommon and not expected even then.

Quite a lot tbh

@InfoSecInTheCity

nope.

18 year old lads are not interested in the social niceties of presents. At least mine isn’t/wasn’t.

he was interested in staying up all night drinking with his friends.

cool hip young men do NOT do social niceties that middle class middle aged women consider essential.

my DD did sometimes take a present but it would absolutely not be wine or chocolates or flowers, more likely to be an interesting sticker or a smelly pen or a weird Chinese cat.

I don't think it's a new thing - I was going to 18ths 20 years ago. If it was a close friend I'd buy them something but it was very normal in my 6th form to hire out the local rugby club/nightclub and invite the whole year (and the one below), i.e. several hundred people.

Often you didn't really know the person whose birthday it was. Same with 21st - the person throwing the party might be on the netball team with someone your housemate had a lecture with, it would be considered very odd to turn up with a present, and tbh they wouldn't have wanted to lug around 100 bottles of wine round the club either!

I have friends I've known 30 years where we've never bought each other presents.

Times change and if you’re being told that gifts are not to be taken, then it’s respectful to listen to that and comply.

Why don’t you take gifts to weddings 😯🤔

Depends on how close you are and what you are doing for it! If it’s a meet up in a pub/night club you can just buy the birthday person a drink - if it’s in a house or rented venue where food or drink is being supplied bring a gift and/or a bottle! If it’s a good friend get a gift regardless!

Rule is, you don't arrive empty handed, that's beyond rude.

I have never seen turn up without at least a bottle!

You don't bring " a gift" but you bring something.

Mine just shove £20 in a card and the girls usually add a favourite chocolate or perfume/make up bit as an extra.

It completely depends on the party.
At a venue, catering, mix of friends/family then you should take a gift. Bunch of 18 year old getting pissed at someone's house absolutely not.
But that is also my opinion as a 40 year old, if an 18 year old lad turned up to a proper party without a gift I wouldn't bat an eyelid, I don't expect them to have any real understanding of social expectations at that age. I doubt I would of took gifts when I was 18.