‘My son's friend gave him a crazy expensive birthday gift'

“Now the other boy’s birthday is coming up, I feel obliged to reciprocate, but I need to break the cycle of these over-the-top gifts.”

There are many milestone ages in a child’s life, but one of the most stressful has to be when your child starts getting invited to birthday parties.

If they go to daycare, the phenomenon might start around age three, when parents don’t know who is friends with whom, so the entire class gets invited to the party.

And that means every Saturday and maybe Sunday too, you’ve got party after party. Sometimes there are two in one day: at 10am and another at 2pm.

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Very quickly you get to know all the local parks and play centres intimately, and you also realise how much the cost of gifts is racking up.

Assuming you go to all of them, and you budget $20 per gift, suddenly you’re spending $400 a year on gifts for other people’s children.

But what if one family has a bigger budget for birthday gifts?

“My son generously received a $100 gift card from a school friend for his eighth birthday,” a mum on a popular Sydney parenting Facebook page posted recently.

When it came time for her son to give a gift to the generous child, the mum was stuck. She felt $100 was a lot.

The mum was torn. She didn’t want to be stingy, but she didn’t want to set up a cycle of extravagant gifts.

“I feel obliged to reciprocate the amount this time, but don’t want to set a precedent over the years.

“Nor do I expect them to spend that much for a gift.”

RELATED: Mum’s solution for wasting money on kids’ birthday gifts

Image: iStock

She asked the community of mums what they thought she should do. Many mums said a $100 gift was “crazy”.

“Nope. That’s a wild amount. $20-$40 is more usual,” said one mum.

“Remember it’s the thought that counts,” said another. “Ask your son what the boy likes, get him to choose the present and give him a budget. Then he’s chosen something that has meaning to him and to his friend.”

The spirit of giving is more important than the cost

Others spoke from experience.

“I had this kind of situation and we just bought something smaller and the next year they did too,” one person said.

“Something similar happened to us once,” said another. “We were given a huge note for our son’s birthday. I later found out the dad had done the birthday gift and had no change. Poor guy. My point is, you don’t know the story behind the $100 gift card and how they came to choose the amount, so just give what you feel is right. The spirit of giving is more important than matching the amount.”

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 One mum said her family had a birthday gift budget and they stuck to it.

“I have a $25 limit on kids from school presents regardless of what is given by other people,” she said. “It’s the thought that counts. I have three kids and that’s what I can afford. And for the younger kids I try and get presents one sale.”

Originally published as ‘My son's friend gave him a crazy expensive birthday gift'