Too Much Stuff

We’ve been blessed with incredibly generous friends and family but I never realized just how generous they were until our son was born.

These wonderful people have given our son far more gifts than we can keep track of and saved us thousands of dollars. We appreciate the generosity and realize that the gifts are an expression of love and our challenge now is to balance our gratitude with our desire to keep our son grounded.

These days, he’s convinced that every guest is coming to bring him a gift and it’s getting harder and harder to elicit a sincere, “Thank you”.

I’m puzzled by how hard it is for me to convince people that quality time is by far the best gift. We even tried a “no gifts” birthday party for his second birthday. We decided that our gifts, a new sand box, a set of golf clubs and the party itself were enough. But things didn’t’ work out the away we planned. We could’ve filled a small truck with the loot that he got for the “no gifts” party.

Thankfully, our little guy is warm, friendly, and social. But I’m really concerned that he spends at least a few minutes every day reviewing his train brochures and asking, “Have this train”? My response is a simple, “No, you can’t have that”, and he nonchalantly responds with a “Maybe Aunt Paula”, or “Maybe Uncle Joe”. How do you we respond when he’s probably right?

Even more interesting as we’ve just celebrated Holy Week is the pressure for us to buy him even more stuff. You expect peer pressure among children but what amazes me lately is the spending pressure that comes from other adults.

I lost count of the number of people that asked our son if the Easter bunny was good to him. I am not anti-Easter bunny. He’s very cute but during Holy Week he’s just not our focus. Myth aside, my husband and I are the Easter bunny and I’d like to think we are very good to our son all the time. And sometimes the best thing a Mommy bunny or Daddy bunny can do is say, “No”.

When we celebrate our son’s next birthday, once again I’ll say, “’No gifts please.” To all our friends and family, I’ll say, “Please give him time. Come to his party. Come before. Come after. Look into his eyes and tell him a story or play a game. Those gifts are always the right size. They are good for the environment. They are fiscally responsible. Those are the gifts that will last a lifetime and those gifts will make him a better man. Stuff will not.