I Don’t Like The “No-Gifts” Kids' Birthday Parties

My only true hater take

Photo by Ekaterina Shevchenko on Unsplash

“Unpopular opinions” are quite the trend in parent discourse. Who can resist a situation where you can share something controversial, and presumably get partial immunity because you’ve prefaced that it’s unpopular? Unfortunately, most of these opinions are, in fact, popular, or at least not controversial. Some common faux-unpopular opinions you might see are things like:

• Kids should be allowed to play in nature and get dirty

• It’s okay for mom to occasionally take a break, even if it involves screens (but, screens are still bad)

• Social media is really bad

• Fisher Price light-up toys are garish, ugly and annoying

• Kids don’t need (insert obviously trivial thing here that nobody insists they need)

Look, none of these things are really that unpopular. Maybe they’re unpopular with a few haters, or in certain circles, but they’re generally pretty well-accepted. Anyway, I have a real unpopular opinion, and I know it’s unpopular because it applies to basically every parent I know in real life, and it has a high chance of offending personal friends of mine who might come across this (rest assured I’m not judging you!) But anyway, here goes: I’m not a fan of the “no-gift” birthday parties for kids. I think it’s Grinchy, unfun, dreadfully modern, and above all, awkward for everyone involved.