News: On "book swaps" on kids' birthdays
Lenona
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/dollarsandsense/detail?entry_id=57355
First half:
What do you do for the kids' birthdays?
There was an interesting pair of articles on Slate recently, "My son
rebels over his birthday book swap" and "How can you deny your kid
plastic crap?" The first article deals with the author and her son
negotiating over the parental edict that birthday parties include a
book exchange among all participants in lieu of the birthday child
receiving gifts. The second article details the reader backlash
against this idea.
The original idea behind the book swap, Emily Bazelon explains, is:
This was our family's way of drawing a line against consumption
and excess. Our kids don't want for anything. They are comfortably
middle-class Americans. They are surrounded by stuff. Eli loves
baseball cards: He has three big binders full of them. His
grandparents and uncles and aunts would give him birthday presents. So
would we. Why does he also need wrapped objects from a dozen or more
of his friends?
Reader response was mixed, but a lot of people felt that Bazelon and
her husband were depriving their children of the real pleasure of a
birthday party.
However, I couldn't help but think of the last few children's birthday
parties I've been to. At each of them, after a while, the kid was
simply numb to the abundance. They didn't want to open the last few
items; they just wanted to play with what was already unwrapped.
Surely, watching a child grimace through the last few gifts, then toss
them aside with indifference, can't be the aim of the party?
There's a site called Birthdays Without Pressure that provides
alternate gift ideas for children. But some of those tips may
illuminate some of the other problems with trying to scale back
children's birthday celebrations. For example:
(snip)
The articles from Slate:
http://www.slate.com/id/2242219/pagenum/all/#p2
(Oh No—Not Another Book! Is it time to let my kids get real birthday
presents? Nope.
By Emily Bazelon)
Excerpts:
My husband, Paul, and I started the book swap when Eli was 3. He
recently turned 10, and Simon will be 7 next month. Over the years,
the kids have not exactly embraced the book swap. Nor do they tolerate
it as a mildly irritating but harmless parental quirk. They hate it.
Every year their protests grow louder. The hard part for them is
articulating why. They are old enough to know that greed is a hard
position to defend. So they've taken another tactic. They just don't
want to be "different," they say. Why, oh why, are we making them
stand out this way?
The hard part for us has become: What's the answer? Have we staked out
this bit of moralistic turf because somehow it represents our family
values in a way that nothing else quite does? Are we trying to open
our kids' minds to nonconformity? Is that a worthy goal, and is this a
good way to pursue it?
(snip)
Comment by Leslie Healey:
Instilling your values takes a lifetime. Enforcing book exchanges at a
birthday party, ouch! As an English teacher, thanks but no thanks. Is
this why I struggle to get my 11th graders to read ANYTHING other than
facebook or a text? Maybe. Time to mix and match the values and the
fun.
My middle daughter (now 21) came to us in 6th grade, asking if she
could watch some TV at night so she would know what the other kids
were talking about at school every morning. I gulped and acquiesced:
had I damaged her social status forever? Turns out I didn't. She is
now a great consumer of books, TV and social media on her way to grad
school. Her dad bought her Franny and Zooey and an iTunes card for
Valentine's Day. All is good. Your son has already learned!
And Bazelon's follow-up column - from her readers:
http://www.slate.com/id/2243740/pagenum/all/
("How Can You Deny Your Kid Plastic Crap?Readers throw the book at me
over Eli's book swap.")
Excerpt:
First, the critics: "Please put away your agenda for your kids'
birthdays," writes Dana, a reader from West Hartford, Conn. "If you
want to do a book swap, perhaps you should do it on YOUR birthday, not
theirs." Another reader, Nadya, makes the same suggestion. It's a
thought, but then I would have to host a party for myself. No thanks.
(snip)
LOTS of comments that I don't have time to read, for that one.
I think one solution could be: Talk to the aunts and uncles and hint
that THEY supply only books. Then the child-guests can give what they
please and the boys won't seem "different."
I, for one, will never buy any NEW toys for my nieces, since I can't
be sure they'll really like them or not outgrow them immediately.
Besides, I know their parents will get them what toys they truly want.
I supply the books, period. Their parents have said they'll never need
to buy any books with me around.
Lenona.