Children give terrible gifts to their parents. I have known this for some time, but the hypothesis seems to be constantly reinforced, especially around birthdays and holidays.
When kids are little, it really isn’t their fault. They have limited financial resources, limited opportunities to shop, and – let’s face it – limited imagination. When EM2 was six, she made me a tie out of paper and string for Father’s Day. I thought it was cute and I would have had no problems with it except that she became extremely upset the next morning when I didn’t wear it to work. To make up for my apparent error, the following day (feeling like an idiot but willing to do anything to make her happy) I hung that paper tie around my neck and got in the car to go to work.
Of course, I ditched the tie in the car and put on a real one before I walked into my office. I am an idiot, but not a complete idiot. And EM2 never knew the difference. I just put it back on when I drove home, so she thought I had been wearing it the whole day.
That paper tie was just a symptom of a much larger problem. It was only a single float in an entire parade of crappy celebratory gift giving. For a while, I confess I thought that it was just my kids that had a problem, but it was my own mother that finally clued me in. She delightedly explained that it was payback for all the crappy gifts I had given to her and my dad when I was little. She reminded me of the year I bought her a large bottle of very cheap perfume, and a pair of two-dollar, ladybug earrings for her birthday. She had smiled when she opened the gifts and immediately put on the earrings. I remembered that this made me feel like I had done a remarkable job of picking out the perfect gifts for her.
I hadn’t. They were both crappy gifts. My mom just didn’t want me to feel bad. She was too nice of a person to tell me to my face: “These earrings are for a toddler and this perfume could strip paint off of the side of a barn.”
Instead, she thanked me and said, “I hope your children are as thoughtful as you are when they give you presents.” The old witch had cursed me, and I never even saw it coming.
The real problem with the terrible gift-giving, however, is that as children grow older, they never get any better at picking out things to give to their parents. They never seem to reach an age where a light bulb turns on in their heads and they say, “Oh, I can’t give this to dad. It’s a crappy gift.”
For Christmas last year, EM1 (who is about to turn 22 years old, by the way) bought me a pair of socks. A pair of socks with images of chickens all over them.
A pair of women’s socks with chickens all over them.
Why women’s socks? I wondered that, as well. When I asked her, EM1 said it was because the men’s socks didn’t have chickens on them. I suppose I can’t really argue with that logic, but I think it still supports my initial thesis.
So, why do children of all ages insist on giving their parents garbage wrapped up in pretty bows? I have a theory about that. (Did you honestly think that I wouldn’t?) I think it is because children do not actually see their parents as human beings. Parents are not people, they are … well, … parents. And parents aren’t like everybody else.
When we come home and see our parents – whether because we live there or are just visiting – mom and dad take care of us. They ask us how we are doing, and offer us food, and offer to wash our clothes. We are the center of their world, and the only things they care about are the things that their children need or want. When we leave the house, they turn off like an ignored television set. They just sit on the couch and don’t move until we come through the front the door the next time and reactivate them.
Admit it. I’m not the only one that ever thought that. Or perhaps more precisely, never thought much about what they actually do while you’re not there.
We can’t even imagine our parents having lives outside of ours. And because we don’t think of parents as real people, we don’t know how to give them real gifts.
Nobody is going to buy a gift certificate to a tattoo parlor for their dad. No one is planning to give their mother a riding crop and a pair of thigh-high, leather boots. If you are now having a difficult time getting that image out of your head, that is exactly why we don’t do it. Parents aren’t people. We love them dearly, but they aren’t real people.
They aren’t allowed to go on vacations without us. They aren’t supposed to leave the house unless it is to visit us or take us out somewhere. They can’t have friends of their own (unless perhaps it is the parents of one of our friends). And they are not permitted to have personal interests that do not at least indirectly relate to their children.
And they are never, ever, under any circumstances, permitted to even consider having anything remotely related to a sex life. God forbid and perish the thought!
Parents are animated manikins, celibate, and waiting for their children to give them grandchildren.
This is why gifts from children will always be crap. They will always be generic baubles, clothing, or plants, interspersed with pictures of us and hand-made trinkets designed to remind dear old mom and dad of the offspring they have brought into this world. To give them anything else, would be to admit that they are human and have feelings.
That’s never going to happen.
So, if you are the parent of a child of any age, start staring in the mirror and practicing your most sincere smile, then repeat after me:
“Thank you, sweetheart. It’s lovely. It’s just what I wanted.”