Present Shame

The other night we watched The Madness of Modern Parenting (BBC2). For “modern” parents read “urban middle-class with big swanky house” parents. This week’s theme was the extravagant folly of children’s birthday parties: the lengths and expense people go to to keep up with the Jones’ and impress other parents. One key status symbol is the birthday girl or boy’s present. As I remember it, the programme claimed that out of the 2-3 hours per week spent on shopping by the average “modern” family, just 17 mins are devoted to food and groceries with the rest of the time allocated to, among other things, “sourcing” presents for Joshua or Olivia to take to the weekend’s birthday party.

No wonder I fell on the first hurdle. With an average stamina window of 15 mins I very rarely set foot in a physical shop, let alone wander from shop to shop, perusing, comparing, deliberating, then purchasing which I imagine constitutes the activity of "sourcing". Even less so since Sofia was born because it involves co-opting my mum in the lifting and hauling of Sofia and pushchair in and out of car and I depend on her enough as it is.

So our first, (and so far only), experience of the aspirational birthday party came as a shock. I’m still smarting from the dreadful blunder over the present. My shame progressed in three stages:

1) Failing to arrive at the party with a present at all. My best laid plans were hijacked as the catalogue I had used to order a pretty stripey top from phoned the day before to say they were out of stock.
2) Watching the present-opening proceedings and realising, based on my careful research into the Early Learning Centre catalogue, that the other mums had all spent around £20 - £30 each. My present, had it arrived, would have cost a hard-saved £5. I know being relatively poor and being disabled with ME don’t necessarily go hand in hand but when they do, as in my case, what hope have I got?
3) I resolved nonetheless to salvage our dignity and come up with some kind of present fast. I could have ordered something else from a catalogue but that would have meant a £4 P&P charge and another wait. So the next time Dad took Sofia to the park I got him to drop me off at the shops nearby. Not the concrete megaplex of brand names but a villagey cluster of chi-chi shops. This was my only chance for the week to get into a shop. I estimated 10-15mins standing/walking power before I would collapse. Though I kind of knew there weren’t any dedicated children’s or toy shops around, compulsion drove me forward and selected a shop mostly selling expensive bags with a sideline in other accessories and bits and bobs including childrens’. The likeliest thing was a hand-made little figurine of a fairy to hang on a tree (it was nearly Christmas). Not educational, not developmental, not anywhere in the range of desirable toys in the Modern Parent sense. But exclusive/designer looking. I knew searching any further would lead to muscular collapse and the risk of coming away with no present at all. So I stretched to the £8 luxury version of the fairy figurine.

I wrapped it and went with Sofia the few doors up the road to deliver it. The birthday girl’s older brother unwrapped it for her and promptly exclaimed that it was broken. Indeed, at some stage between wrapping and unwrapping, the head of this stupidly fragile, stupid, stupid fairy had broken off. Her Dad asked me if it had just broken or if it was already broken in the shop.

At least Sofia is not yet two and is mercifully unscathed by my fatal blunder. But what shame will she have to undergo when she hits 4 or 5 and becomes aware of my dreadful failures? I hate to think about it..