The gift — and the cost — of holiday generosity

This is Charity Reimagined’s fourth monthly column. Our purpose is not to criticize generous donors or charities working hard to help. It is to honestly examine the unintended consequences of how we help — and speak the truth when our generosity may be causing harm.

Like our earlier columns, this is not a call for less generosity. It is a call for stronger compassion.

We are talking about Christmas now, in September, because our community needs time to consider a different way to give this holiday season.

What happens when generosity replaces the parent?

No one wants a child to feel forgotten. So churches adopt families. Businesses collect toys. Volunteers fill boxes with food and gifts. Donors shop from wish lists created by children they have never met.

Now imagine being the parent who cannot afford Christmas gifts for your children. Strangers arrive carrying everything they requested — or you stand in line to collect toys someone else selected. The donors feel wonderful. But how does the parent feel?

Without meaning to, we step into a role that belongs to that mother or father. Children see strangers as the providers of Christmas while their parent is left watching from the sidelines. What was intended to bless the family may deepen a parent’s sense of inadequacy.

One mother who has received Christmas assistance shared what that experience felt like:

“There was tremendous gratitude for the help, but also a quiet sense of inadequacy because I could not provide the Christmas I wanted for my children. I would bring home bags of gifts chosen for us and discover that many didn’t reflect who my children actually were — their interests, personalities or the things they had been hoping for. Some went unused or were eventually donated, while the things my children had actually asked for remained things I couldn’t provide.

“What was missing wasn’t generosity; it was agency. I didn’t get to participate in choosing Christmas for my own children. Needing financial help did not make me any less capable of knowing my children or wanting the dignity of creating their Christmas.”

Parents want the joy of selecting, wrapping and hiding gifts — and watching their children’s faces on Christmas morning. When we take over Christmas rather than help parents provide it, we diminish their dignity and essential place within the family.

And what happens after all the gifts are unwrapped and Christmas is over?

The gifts may be new, but the family’s challenges are not. The car still needs repairs. Eviction still looms. Childcare, education, employment and emotional struggles remain. We filled the living room with presents but left untouched the barriers keeping the family from moving forward.

AND we helped create the expectation that Christmas comes from someone else. Adopt-a-family programs often begin with a wish list. Donors shop, wrap and deliver everything requested. But what do we really know about the circumstances behind that list?

We hear from donors who are frustrated, even angry, when wish lists include expensive items like PlayStations. They are offended by what looks like entitlement. That frustration is understandable. But we also need to be honest about how those expectations were created.

We ask families what they want, fulfill their lists, require no participation and return year after year to do it again. In doing so, we create and reinforce expectation and entitlement. We cannot build a system of one-way giving, then blame families for responding exactly as that system taught them to respond.

Dr. Robert Lupton, author of Toxic Charity, describes how repeated one-way giving progresses from appreciation to anticipation, expectation, entitlement and eventually dependency.

Systems shape behavior — and our “one-way giving, no questions asked” created the system.

If registering with multiple organizations produces an abundance of gifts every Christmas, receiving becomes an annual tradition and expectation. Yet we celebrate serving more families as proof of success. How about we start tracking how many families no longer need our assistance?

Changing deeply rooted traditions takes courage. It begins when we put the needs of those being helped ahead of the “feel good” of the helper — and start asking better questions.

What if parents could choose gifts their children would love and purchase them at deeply reduced prices? What would it mean for them to experience the pride of providing rather than watching strangers provide? Some churches and organizations in our community are already doing this beautifully through Christmas Markets. These markets preserve donors’ generosity while restoring choice, participation and the essential role of parents.

Next month, we will share how these markets work and how our community can embrace a better way to give.

Please hear our message: The goal should not be to simply to place more gifts beneath the tree. The goal should be strengthening the family gathered around it.