Parenting: Best practices and lesson learned.

[khattichic]

Re: Parenting: Best practices and lesson learned.

@jaan_leva

Some good suggestions in this thread.

This will turn the *guns and artillery *toward me but what the hell?

STOP making your kids life more complicated and DEPENDENT on things like birthday celebrations, year in, year out. Their life will get harder anyway, they don’t need to worry about celebrating birthdays as a MUST have to live their life. In this materialistic era, do something that will help them face life and teach them to be as simple as possible. Many Desi families celebrate birthdays religiously, with mindless, reckless spending, and restaurant reservations. If you must show your kids how much you love them and care for them then give them a nice gift of value, save for them instead of this nonsense every single freaking year. And if you feel that since OTHER kids do it and they see OTHER kids birthdays being celebrated and that might effect them negatively then just do the damn deed IN YOUR HOUSE among your family and not trouble other 50 people in hopes to get cheap gifts.

Ok…gulp…this is a first, but I kinda agree with you JL…

In my desi social circle, kids’ birthday parties have gotten out of control, with each person trying to top the other! I don’t mean “milestone” birthdays like 1st o 16th, I’m talking about morroccan themed, pony ride, simulate desert for a 6 yr old Seriously?!? I honestly have gotten very picky about what invites we accept because I noticed a change in my soon to be 9 yr old’s attitude, almost like a sense of entitlement. I mean seriously, whatever happened to a good old getogether at home with punch and cake and pin the tail on the donkey? I had 3 kids in 2 yrs, and their birthdays are just 2 weeks apart…so obviously we have joint celebrations and it can really add up to $$$$..some years it’s a party at the local waterpark or Chuck E Cheese, others it’s just cutting the cake at home and buyin them a big ticket item (like when we finally caved and got them Wii) But whatever we do or don’t do, I try really hard to make sure they don’t develop the “well so-and-so got do this” or “how come I didn’t get as many presents as so-in-so”.

Nothing, and I mean nothing annoys me more than the “I deserve it/want it/need it just beause I’m born and breathe air” type of self entitled mentality.

full disclaimer…I have absolutely nothing against anyone (my own friends and family included) who do choose to go all out on children’s birthdays…to each his own, this was just my $.02