A request to other parents: please, let your kid open gifts at their birthday party

We attended a 4-year-old's birthday party yesterday. The invite didn't say "no gifts," and my daughter was very excited to select a gift for her friend. We went shopping and talked specifically about what she thought her friend would like and why, then she helped select a card. We wrapped it together. She told me what to write in the card. When we arrived at the party, she was so excited to give her friend her present that she asked when they would open gifts right away. The friend's mother ignored us. My daughter asked me 4 or 5 times over the course of the party when we'd be opening presents until it finally became really clear that there wouldn't be a scheduled time to open them. It wasn't that there wasn't time for it, either--the party was over 4 hours long!But then when we went to say goodbye, the birthday girl was opening another child's gift. I could see that my kid was getting really upset about the whole thing, so we asked the birthday girl if she'd mind opening my daughter's, too (only to found that someone had stashed a bunch of other presents in our gift bag!). Meanwhile, the child's mother stood behind us, fretting over not knowing who to send thank you cards to. I assured her that my 3 year old doesn't care a whit about thank you cards (she can't read!!!), but that seeing her friend's face when she opens her gift is thank you enough.I know a lot of parents hate present-opening. It's boring for grown-ups, and they're worried about offending low income party goers. But our area is super high income and we were probably the lowest income family in attendance. And I feel like it's such a learning opportunity for both the birthday kid and the guests. How to be generous, how to let other kids be the center of attention, how to graciously accept gifts even if you don't like something or already have it.Probably about half the pre-school parties we've attended have skipped the gift opening, so I'm guessing this is a growing trend. But it bums me out. This isn't like a wedding reception where we're buying off a registry. If we've taken the time to get your kid a gift--and spent our hard-earned dollars buying it--my kiddo and I would really like the chance to see the child open that gift, too. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2sQPFug