GIVING PAINS

I was fascinated to read Robin Abrahams’s essay “When Everyone Has Everything” (Perspective, September 23), in which she struggles to find her comfort zone for buying gifts when many of us truly need nothing. Has Abrahams ever heard of charity? As a parent, I’ve made (weak) attempts to have kids’ birthday parties “no gifts, please” and, among family members at holidays, more successful attempts to agree to send the dollar amount to the recipient’s favorite charity. Why is this so difficult? If there is really nothing that needs to be bought, can we adapt our gift-giving culture to become more benevolent? What does it say about us that we resort to trapeze lessons when we’re out of options for gift-giving instead of helping the poor, the physically and mentally ill, and other disadvantaged groups?