December 18, 2006

Gifting Lessons for the Monetarily Challenged

For the past two months, every magazine and catalogue I have picked up has had a section of gift ideas. I like those sections. There is always a pair of bejeweled strappy heels for her and a silver chrome gadget for him, each priced higher than my graduate school tuition. 

No popular publication carries a four-page layout captioned “Gift Ideas for Those Who Have No Money,” emphasis on “No Money.”

This may be the appropriate time and place to talk about the importance of helping out the poor during the holiday season and please do. But I am going to be more self-serving and talk about the politics of gift giving when you’re not financially independent in a different way. 

Every holiday season you go out of your way to get your children the presents they dreamt of all year long. It usually costs a pretty penny. But now more often than ever, there is pressure on your children to play Santa too.

The exchange of gifts among school-age friends around the holidays is popular. On the one hand, it teaches the art of giving at an early age. On the other, it becomes a test of friendship.

When you are in seventh grade and the girl in your fourth hour P.E. class gives you scented lip-gloss before winter break, it means you’re friends. If she doesn’t, you’re not her badminton partner next semester.

I am not sure why this is, but if you ask your kids, they will agree. Then they will present you with a long list of people for whom they have to get something, courtesy of you, of course. Just when you thought that buying your kids’ presents was expensive, now you are shopping for the three closest friends with whom she eats lunch, the members of her soccer team and at least one person in each of her classes (you didn’t think that getting to copy notes came for free, did you?).

Maybe because at 20 I still remember high school all too well, I have to side with your kids. Yes, I know it is petty and does not teach the real value of friendship or holiday spirit. Nevertheless, when you are 14 that is not an excuse for Melanie who gave you those huge glittery earrings.

Not all is lost, however. This is the perfect opportunity to teach your kids how to operate on a budget, learn assertiveness and be socially observant.

Encourage your child to use their savings or allowance money. If they do not have any, give them a budget of how much they may spend on gifts. Don’t give in. If they see how hard it is to pick out gifts for all the friends on their list with limited resources, they may have a better understanding of why they did not get everything they wanted.

Sit down and talk with them before you go shopping. Ask them to reflect on what each friend is like. Tell them that a small but thought-out gift is better than a bigger, generic one and remind them that it really is the thought that counts. It will give them a clearer idea of what to buy and you a glimpse into what their friends are like.

Although a result of a sad social phenomenon, this opportunity to teach your children how to give will show them that while designer shoes and phones that pick up satellite TV look good on the pages of a magazine, it’s the small things that count.              

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