to gift or not

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I was listening to a friend complain about splitting a bah mitzvah because she felt it was ridiculous for a huge party. True.

The interesting thing? On her daughter's invite it would read, in lieu of gifts please donate to X's charity of choice. The problem?

Her daughter is splitting the party with a friend, and the other mother had not intended on saying on the invite "in lieu of gifts please donate to charity." She was just going to allow her daughter to accept gifts and put it aside. Once the other mother found out, she said she now felt obligated to insist her daughter not accept any gifts and request donations to charity.

My friend said it isn't weird to do this, it was how she was raised. If you are of a "certain financial means" the couple of thousand in cash or gifts you might get means more to the charity than to your kid.

I pointed out that for many people they might be using it for things like college savings, etc. I also pointed out that's what we're doing for my daughter. And perhaps the other girl might want to use the cash collected to save for a car.

But she said that you have to give to those less fortunate than you. But where do you draw the line? If you can afford to give your child a gift then all gifts should be donated? Or is it just like this friend, if you have a trust fund, you are in a different category of means?

I once wrote on my blog about bonds I should have gotten on my first birthday that my aunts and uncles gave to me. I always wondered what happened and they did ask me, and I never got it from my mom. My mom said there wasn't any, but her sister insisted she gave some. So what happened? Turns out my mom admitted recently she used it to make ends meet when I was young because she was going through a divorce and a single parent on a social worker salary. So yes we were pretty low middle class means. I wasn't upset, I don't need the money now and like my DH said it was put to good use.

But as we had more money should my gifts have been donated when we were doing better? I have to admit sometimes when I hear people talking about money who have always had money and lots of it, I wonder if they can ever understand being poor or without? My own kiddo will be exceptionally priviledged like this, and i wouldn't want it otherwise, but at the same time.

[photo]

A male becomes bar mitzvah, and a female becomes bat mitzvah.

But she said that you have to give to those less fortunate than you.

In the situation you describe, you aren't giving to those less fortunate. You're inviting people to a ceremony/celebration and asking them to give, which is presumptuous, regardless of how many people do it.

Others will undoubtedly disagree, but an invitation should never mention gifts.

[shopmeister]

To Gift or Not to Gift

The parents are trying to teach giving, I get that, but in this case it's not the child doing the giving. To have the cold hard cash in your hand and THEN give it to a cause teaches the TRUE meaning of charity. The feelings are TOTALLY different when others donate in the child's name.

Also, if you're having a celebration together than ALL decisions should be made together. It was presumptious and rude for one mother to add things to the invite without consulting the other mother. I'm just saying.....

[disneysteve]

The parents are trying to teach giving, I get that, but in this case it's not the child doing the giving. To have the cold hard cash in your hand and THEN give it to a cause teaches the TRUE meaning of charity. The feelings are TOTALLY different when others donate in the child's name.

Also, if you're having a celebration together than ALL decisions should be made together. It was presumptious and rude for one mother to add things to the invite without consulting the other mother. I'm just saying.....

I agree completely. When my daughter became Bat Mitzvah 3 years ago, she donated a portion of the gifts received to charity after the event. She had selected the charity in advance and spoke about it in her speech at the service, so guests knew that some money would be going there, but we would never ask/tell the guests what to do with their own money.

The concept of splitting a party is foreign to me. I've never heard of anyone doing that. I agree, though, that if you are sharing the event like that, you need to coordinate how everything is being done. If you want to do it your own way, have your own party.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I completely forgot about the part that it's rude to expect gift from any party! It's like saying on a wedding invite please give me cash to donate. LOL. What if people want to make you something, or gift a heirloom, or buy something with a gift card, discount, etc. They aren't inclined to give "cash", and writing that you want cash to give to a charity is rude. Gift giving is supposed to be arbitrary. Which is why bridal shower invites talk about where the couple is "registered" but not the invite.

So I guess like a wedding a birthday party is the same?

The friend doesn't believe in gifts for birthday parties either. It's a kid's party not a traditional bah mitzvah party I gather. Just 100 kids dancing and the two girls are having separate ceremonies. I believe they are doing separate invites for the party, not sure.

Hey I'm asking because she put that on her younger child's invite for her 2nd birthday party (this weekend) no gifts, instead again donate to X charity. I don't particularly like the charity so I bought her kid a couple of toys. I know it's rude to ignore the request but I prefer to not donate to charities I'm not so inclined towards. But in this case I figure it's because I'm not enthralled with the charity.

So when she complained about the other mom being weirded out about donating to charity, I thought I'd point out that some parents choose to not donate and do use the money for a specific purpose.