A mom has angered thousands after revealing her unique approach to children’s birthday party gifts, or rather, a lack thereof.
In a viral video, which features the Perth woman sitting in the back seat of a car, she proudly shows off her “present” for a children’s birthday party: a bag filled with rags, cleaning supplies, tea towels, dishwashing detergent, and Glad Wrap.
“We’re going to a family birthday party and the last thing I wanna do to the parents of the child is to give them some present for the kid that’s going to end up in landfill, and a whole bunch of clutter that needs tidying and cleaning, so this is my secret present that I like to do at kids birthday parties,” she begins.
“I like to bring a bag of rags,” she says proudly, whipping it out to show her followers. “So you know when you’re at a kid’s birthday party and everyone wants to help, but nobody knows how to help because they don’t know where any of the cleaning stuff is.
“I bring cleaning rags to wipe up sticky messes at the party. I bring Glad Wrap … so you can wrap up extra food and put it in the fridge.
“I like to bring dishwashing detergent because you can bet that the parents may have run out … I bring a lot of tea towels because these are really handy and nobody knows where to find the tea towels in somebody else’s house.”
She then finished her video by asking her followers, “Does anyone else do like that?”
The video quickly went viral, and it was immediately clear that nobody else does that.
Many even called the gift “offensive” and “weird.”
“Wake up to yourself,” said one viewer.
“That’s actually embarrassing,” wrote someone else.
“I run a pretty tight ship, and if someone brought this to my house at my daughter’s birthday … I would take offense to it. As if they thought my house was gross,” added one mom.
A different commenter sarcastically wrote: “Wow, those kids are going to be thrilled,” while another commenter remarked: “Wow, what a tight-ass.”
“That’s actually really sad, it’s the kid’s birthday, you should spoil the kid; if you want to know where a tea towel is, ask the host, it’s not that hard!” quipped yet another critic.
However, not all reactions were negative, with some defending the gesture.
“Wow, what a lot of hateful comments. It goes to show people choose money and gifts instead of help, time, and love. This is why we live in a world full of hate and war now. People are so judgmental of others. It’s sad, really,” wrote one supporter.
Another added, “You don’t need to take a present to a birthday, just being there can be enough. Maybe this family don’t do presents, did you ever think of that?”
A third wrote, “As someone who lives in a seemingly constant state of overwhelm, I would love this gift. Acts of service is my love language.”
Etiquette expert weighs in
To help settle the debate, we spoke to a world-leading etiquette expert, Jo Hayes, founder of EtiqetteExpert. Org, who, at face value, thought the woman’s idea didn’t sound quite right.
However, after watching the video and hearing the woman’s rationale, she ended up thinking, “all power to her.”
“I can confidently predict most Aussie moms would relish having this woman at their child’s birthday party. She sounds like a ‘make it happen’ woman,” she tells news.com.au.
However, she notes that context is key here.
“If she had a child with her, who was the actual/main invited guest to this party, it would be poor etiquette to show up with a ‘bag of rags’ and no fun gift for the child,” she explains.
“However, it appears this woman is a bit more mature, is perhaps an older aunty, or even a grandmother.”
“What she’s saying is true: families are usually swamped with loads of plastic toys on a child’s birthday … and while the birthday boy/girl certainly deserves a few fun gifts, bringing something different, but helpful, is actually a very thoughtful gesture,” she says.
Hayes points out that the actual gift here isn’t the physical bag of rags but the elbow grease she would provide.
“She isn’t simply showing up with the cleaning items,” she explains. “She’ll be the one buzzing around, wiping up spills, cleaning dishes, and covering leftover food with Glad Wrap. I’ll invite you to my next party!”
In saying that, she believes that a nice card for the child would be a “thoughtful gesture” in addition to the cleaning.
