Party bags are no fun for the planet

It seems to me that a measurement, amongst peers, of successful parenthood is the party bag.

No matter that your child has weight problems, is stressed and has attention seeking issues because you’re too busy to spend any time with him/her; no, what is really important is a bag full of tat and your social standing in the playground is all dependant on the quality and quantity of that tat.

The importance of the ‘bag’ was introduced to me a few years ago whilst doing a summer job at Gateshead Council. One afternoon I had to sit and listen to a conversation about party bags and about what woman A was going to put in to her daughter’s and what woman B thought she might put in her child’s later on in the year.

I then had to listen to what were probably perfectly decent women’s reputations and personalities being ripped apart by women A, B and others in the office because they had committed the mortal sin of not providing a good enough party bag.

My children, then toddlers, had only ever had a family celebration up until that point; however the conversation of that day has remained with me ever since and struck fear into me that I would never be taken seriously as a mother if I did not come up with the goods.

As someone who cares about the planet and hates human’s wasteful use of its resources, the party bag issue really troubled me.

I hate my children receiving them; I don’t want the bits of plastic rubbish that is in them, which I then have to spend my precious time clearing up.

I equally don’t want my children to eat the junk in them. The sweets in bags provided at children’s’ party venues usually contain pork or bovine gelatine in them. As vegetarians we don’t eat them.
I used to make my two hand the sweets back but they, as little children do, get upset at being left out so I have asked in the past if we can exchange for chocolate. Usually the answer is no but my cunning way round this of late, and which incidentally scares the living daylights out of some of the gormless staff they employ at these places, is to point out that members of the Muslim and Jewish community would also be unable to eat the sweets and ask what they would provide for them.
This usually results in some swift action and a chocolate bar appearing!

Any way I digress…

I hate my children getting the blinkin’ things and equally I think they are a totally wasteful thing to give out.
Research shows that they cost on average £7.50 each and why, after two hours of feeding and entertaining group of children, do I then need to ‘Thank’ them for coming to our party?
No wonder we have an issue with respect in our country.

Not that I want to sound ancient here, but in my day it was US, as attendees, that were made by OUR mothers to thank the host of the party and his/her parents. At the end you got a slice of the birthday cake wrapped in a napkin and went off in a very happy sugar-filled haze.

For the past few parties that my children have had, I have tried to hand out organic fairtrade chocolate and other type of eco gifts such as key rings handmade by the virgins of outer Mongolia, but still the handing out of these bags rankled with me.

My daughter had a birthday sleepover at the weekend, which as it happened turned out to be one of three parties over the Saturday and Sunday that her class mates were attending. The other two being chocolate fountain parties at a venue.

The issue of the party bag came up and I had two thoughts:
firstly, that these girls are going to have three parties full of chocolate and I really can’t justify giving them any more in a party bag even if it is of the green variety and secondly, s*d it, these parents need to have their ingrained ways challenged and most of them know of my environmental leanings in any case so if it has to be me that challenges them then so be it.

I had a chat with my husband and daughter and they fully supported me. We then discussed a replacement for the bags and a few ideas came up, one of which was to give some money to a charity and give a note out to explain what we had done and why, but this just seemed to smack of Guardian reading Islington-ites – an image I’m not personally comfortable with.

In the end I decided to do absolutley nothing. Guess what? No one even noticed, all except for one little girl who was the only girl that didn’t say thank you to me or my daughter and then very loudly mentioned the lack of bag to her mother as she went down the drive! Enough said.

It may be that this morning my parental skills are being discussed and derided in the playground but as the planet does not have to deal with the providing of and eventual disposing of 16 little bags of pointless junk I feel utterly justified.

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