Mother Bans Christmas & Birthday Gifts For Her 2-YO Son Forever & Why It Is A Great Idea

A courageous mother of 2-YO went viral when she took to the internet and pledged to “Never buy Christmas gifts for her newborn son.”

Lisa Norman (31), a mother of one, termed the stress of spending hard-earned money on the expensive gifts for one day as ‘ridiculous’.

And, isn’t that true for any parent? 

We undergo that stress during each and every festival – be it Diwali, Birthday, Christmas or New Year’s Eve.

We make sure that we buy expensive gifts or take out our kids and family members for expensive vacation tours.

Recently, our team-mate took her kids to England because her daughter had a single Christmas wish – She wanted to celebrate Christmas in London. And why? Because many of her friends were going off to fancy foreign destinations for Christmas.

This made us wonder if the kids get showered with such riches now, what would they expect for their 18th birthday? Probably a trip to Mars?

How are these kids meant to appreciate the habit of saving? 

If things are handed to them so easily, how would they learn to wait patiently for something till the time they would be able to afford it?

On all these special occasions a parent like me, who has a middle-class upbringing, finds herself asking these questions that no one wants to hear during festivities:

Is this the best way to spend the money on our kids?

Or, why don’t we spend it on something more meaningful to secure our kid’s future?

So, when I read the story of Lisa, a mother from England, I couldn’t stop sharing it with I FOR HER community members. If you want to criticize her parenting style please feel free, but I guess she definitely makes a good logical point about overspending.

Irrespective of the criticism, Lisa shared that rather than buying gifts for Christmas or her son’s birthday, she would be depositing that money into a bank account, which will add up into the deposit for her son’s first house.

Though the family can afford to buy him presents, they don’t see the point of spending a huge amount of money every year on the presents that he will quickly outgrow. Doesn’t it make absolute sense?

She further added:

“You see all these photos showing the huge amount of gifts people are buying their kids in the run up to Christmas.”

“It is ridiculous. Christmas can put a lot of pressure on parents and we don’t want to get into debt or spoil him with stuff he doesn’t need, so we just get him nothing.”

But this controversial decision has earned some criticism among family and friends.

Undeterred by the criticism, Lisa mentioned that she will make sure that her son gets whatever he needs –  clothes, a rucksack for a nursery or educational aids – when she feels he deserves them rather than buying expensive gifts on Christmas or on his birthday.

The generation where parents fall into trap of spoiling their kids easily, Lisa is a role model to each one of us to take a stand and make our kids understand the perils of overspending. 

Dr. Amanda Gummer, a child psychologist who specialises in parenting and children’s play, shared with HuffPost:

“Working parents may feel that buying lots of presents justifies the time spent working and away from their family, whereas stay at home parents meanwhile may feel the need to compete and not want their children to suffer in comparison to others.

Both of these are poor reasons to overspend on presents. Parents should be confident in their own decisions and spend only what they want to and what they can afford at Christmas.”

So, the next time, when you give in to the desire of overspending on your kids for any special occasion, try to remember that investment is always better than over-spending.

Overspending leads to a doomed future whereas, Investing secures a bright and happy life for your kid. 

You Might Also Like: 

https://www.iforher.com/13-yo-commits-suicide-and-blames-teacher-exposes-challenges-of-parenting-in-todays-world/