Mom Shares Other Parent's ‘Out of Control’ Birthday Party Gift Rules: No Colors, No Noise and Zero Plastic

Mar. 15, 2025

Stock images of a birthday cake and presents.Photo:Getty (2)

Colorful birthday cake with birthday candles spelling happy birthday against a blue background; Gift boxes

Getty (2)

A mother has spoken out after her daughter was invited to a birthday party that had a demanding set of gifting rules.

“I don’t know about you guys, but birthday parties are really getting out of control,” she said. “My daughter was sent a birthday party invitation and we RSVP’d and then, like three days before the party, the mother sends out a text to all of us parents who RSVP’d.”

The TikTok user recalled that the mother wrote, “We have a strict rhetoric that we’d like you parents to follow when picking out gifts.”

“It was like no colors, I can’t have a color,” the mother of the party guest said of the rules. “It can’t make noise and it has to be waste-free.”

She continued, “So I googled waste-free gifts and that means nothing that comes in packaging that is plastic. Oh and no plastic toys either.”

“So nothing that has plastic that will be thrown out, like packaging,” the mother added. “And then it can’t be colorful, it can’t be plastic and it can’t make any noise.”

Stock images of plastic toys.Getty

plastic toys and household goods at a recycling plant

Getty

“Don’t buy a card because that would produce waste,” the mother continued. “And I’m like well this is getting extreme.”

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A stock image of a handmade birthday card.Getty

Handmade Birthday Card

She then asked her followers, “Have any of you guys experienced this? I need to know because at that point I was like, ‘We don’t even want to go to this party.’ ”

“I don’t want to make a mistake and be that one that broke the rule,” she concluded before taking a deep breath. “It was so much easier in the 90s.”

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Taking to the comment section, one person joked, “Weird.. my kid suddenly has a fever that day,” to which Shay27xo replied, “Exactly 👍 what we did 😂.”

“My kid wouldn’t go 🤣,” another wrote, while a third suggested the mom should buy a wooden toy.

source: people.com