Author’s note: This is not a serious war-war or a playful April Fool’s Day piece. It’s more in keeping with sharing tradecraft in the arts of grandparenthood and passing out indications and warnings in addition to the things that worked.

-Marlow

Way, way back in the days of yore — like the 1940s way back, a first child’s first birthday was a time of celebration. There was zero emphasis on gifts — just me in this instance repeatedly face planting myself into my largish slice of yellow cake slathered with dark chocolate frosting and a side of vanilla ice cream as I wildly destroyed a clean kitchen linoleum floor from up high where I sat in a crudely hand-made highchair. I ended this ecstatic moment by falling asleep on my cake crumbed plate in a blissful sugar high food coma. My parents and their neighborhood WWII vet friends drank themselves silly as they 8MM filmed it for my unending embarrassment for nearly two decades.
Then I had my own darling daughters and did much the same.

With the first of my grandchildren now safely married during 2021’s early plague months, I’m hearing things that are not just a bit new to me in this arena; sadly, they seem somewhat off.

Like gift registries for a firstie’s 1st birthday?

I guess I could understand it if the gifts were under $20 and not ones you would typically think about buying for a first-born child. But some of these things suggest things like a $770 “little ninja” playset or “contribute cash” towards their child’s education and travel experiences.

Should I be shocked or feel borderline offended? Nope. Not me.

Drum set . . . every year . . . every child . . . make them pay.

Or like I did with grandchild #1’s first birthday gift — the noisiest toy I could find. I earned huge bonus points since its grating musical sounds and voices could not be turned down or off without removing the batteries (put the longest lasting, most expensive-assed batteries known to mankind inside), which required a tiny microscopically-sized Phillips head screwdriver.

Should I be asked for a deposit on great grandchild #1’s future travel or enrichment activities, I plan to wrap up an ancient, full set of mismatched encyclopedias that I’ll pick up from Goodwill. The card will joyfully announce, “It’s for his/her/TBD’s future education.” In this instance, the parents should thank their lucky stars that I don’t show up drunk and teach the child a starter set of curse words and hate speech expressions.

Then there was the nuclear arms race in the party favor/bag of gifts for celebration attendees that I started seeing with my grands 27+ years ago that I found somewhere along a range of strange to downright obnoxious. I was told that I was out of touch. So, I started putting on impromptu, Saturday Night Live lewd, puppet shows with the more ostentatious crap that my grands would lug back home until their parental units deposited it in the garbage cans out back.

Lord help those whose future party evites troll me for a Crypto gift for a great grand. My considered .02: the Perfect Gift in response to that would be a powerful bullhorn with extra battery packs and Mongolian throat singing lessons.

My grands’ parental units got hip real fast with “No gifts please” invitations along with “bring your favorite book” to share.

Still, my mind wanders, seeking “just in case” responses to have in my ready reserve like a onesie for the great grand that says: “My mommy doesn’t want your advice” or t-shirts announcing “I’m this many 🖕” or “My Dad is a Mother F………”
Being feared is sometimes equal to being beloved.

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