Cleaning Spree: A Mother's Crusade to Redefine Children's Party Standards

In the UK, a movement aimed at making kids' parties more sustainable and less wasteful is gaining traction. The No Crap Parties movement, spearheaded by Charlotte Mason-Curl, is encouraging parents to rethink the conventional gifting practices at children's parties.

The movement's website, nocrapparties.org, serves as a hub for resources and information on sustainable party practices. The success of the No Crap Parties movement has led to a social contagion, with more parents adopting these practices.

Mason-Curl plans to focus on reducing waste during holidays like Halloween and Christmas in the future. One of the key initiatives of the movement is the Kids' Party Pact, a digital pledge to take a low-waste approach to hosting and attending birthday parties.

The response from parents to the Kids' Party Pact has been overwhelmingly positive and relieved. Heidi, a child, inspired a trend when she had a birthday party with a book swap, inspiring another child to request a toy swap for her own party. Creative alternatives to conventional party bags are gaining popularity, such as preloved book and toy swaps, handmade vouchers for experiences, and 'fiver parties'.

If successful, the pact could prevent more than 20 million plastic items from being unnecessarily bought and thrown away each year. If a million children each attend five parties a year, and each party has a party bag with three plastic items in it, that's 15 million short-lived pieces of plastic being handed out every year.

The No Crap Parties movement believes that what children really want is time with their loved ones, not an abundance of gifts. The pact has three parts: agreeing not to give plastic-filled party bags, giving secondhand, homemade or experience gifts (or none), and issuing guidance on greener gifts for their own children.

To secure more time for campaign operations, Mason-Curl has launched a crowdfunding campaign. Parents can choose to sign whichever parts of the pact appeal to them. Many parents experience stress or shame related to the gifting aspect of kids' parties, and the movement provides resources to ease potential tension, including suggested wording for invites to help parents communicate their stance without causing conflict.

The goal of the campaign is to get one million families to sign the Kids' Party Pact. The movement aims to replace conventional gifting with a more sustainable and joyful approach, and the signs are that it is making a real difference.