Childrearing
The Gift Demands In This Party Invitation Make Birthday Registries Look Chill By Comparison
Receiving terrible gifts, or too many gifts, is one of the minor annoyances that comes with parenting. You try not to spoil your kid, you avoid commercials, and you read books about sharing, but then the next thing you know Granny Warbucks shows up with 42 American Girl dolls and a onesie that says, “Looking for a Rich Husband.” What can you do? Honestly, I don’t know what you can do about that problem. But thanks to Reddit I know for sure what you cannot do about that problem: You absolutely cannot do what this mom did and send a long list of gift demands for your one-year-old.
Over on Reddit, this list showed up as “Most Demanding 1st Birthday Invite Ever.” I’m posting the whole thing here, because if I just told you what was on it you would not believe me.
So many things stand out about this letter that it is hard to pick a favorite. I’m partial to the demand that all gifts come with a receipt, because of the implicit threat about what will happen if you dare shop off-list and ruin Little Bucky’s birthday with your shitty thoughtfulness. That shit is going right back to the store for cash or formula.
A close second is the bewildering statement: “Clothing with names is the #1 thing that leads to kidnapping.”
If I were this woman’s relative, I’d send her a winter coat with Little Bucky’s name written on it in glitter, and she would not be getting a receipt.
I realize babies sometimes get a lot of stuff from loving relatives and the parents were probably thinking that this information would actually be helpful, but a letter like this is never OK. Try talking gently to the relatives. And if “please stop being so generous” is a conversation you must have, for the love of God, do it on the telephone! Your sister-in-law can’t post a phone conversation to Reddit.
Have you ever received instructions like this, and if so, what on Earth did you do?
