The Tyranny of the Goody Bag

At my daughter’s recent birthday party, a mother introduced herself thus: “I just have to know…how did you get away with requesting no gifts? I couldn’t believe she’d let you put that on the invitation.”

My response, which seemed to lack the life-changing insight she was looking for, was that we were sure she required nothing more than friends to play with at her party. I’ve wondered since this conversation if I might have sowed the seeds of non-acquisition in any of these families: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

But it’s a change no one else seems to want. Several parents had not bothered to read the invitation closely and came with gift in hand; some may have brought a gift just to be safe, perhaps because the words NO GIFTS are signifiers not to be trusted in this context (That must be a mistake…it’s a birthday party.); and so my daughter ended up with swag anyway.

But I had the last laugh: The guests were packed off without goody bags.

In days of yore, when I attended children’s birthday parties as a guest, I recall playing games that might garner a small reward for successfully navigating the intricacies of Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey, musical chairs, or Duck-Duck-Goose. There might be a piñata that would disgorge candies for us to scrabble over in our party dresses and mary janes. (I have a photo from my eighth birthday that shows me and several friends garbed as if for church.) Maybe you’d take home some cake. The notion that I’d get a gift for attending the party had yet to take hold, though surely I would have enjoyed the anticipation of leading up to the goody bag distribution as much as my children do today.

But somewhere along the way, in addition to the explosion of other “thanks for breathing” swag distributed via every conceivable group event (sports, school, charitable functions, retail marketing), the expectation of “pay for play” became hardwired into us and has trickled up the food chain, from birthday parties to reunions events to corporate bonuses. The magnitude of the bonuses distributed to top executives during the 2008 financial crisis coupled with the bailouts that followed beggar explanation. When pressed, former employees will cite their employer’s contractual obligations to follow through on gargantuan bonuses: “The bonus is why I took the job.” Is there not sufficient motivation to do the job well without big money on the back end? Sir Alec Guinness made untold millions on “Star Wars” by declining a salary and taking points on the box office. Talk about a Jedi mind trick.

Despite my admonition that relatives and friends make contributions to my children’s college funds rather than bestow yet another toy that requires batteries, the gifts keep coming. Do we really covet a t-shirt for participating in a neighborhood fundraiser? Would my collection of rain gear finally be complete if my alma mater sent their thanks for my annual contribution in the form of a golf umbrella? Is it really an enticement to give to an organization if you know some portion of your contribution will be returned to you in the form of a canvas shopping bag? And despite the continuing volatility of our financial institutions, the corporate bonus doesn’t seem to be going anywhere either.