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Boston Globe
04-08-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
I'm done with birthday gifts for my kids
It gets worse. My older son loves drawing, Transformers, and Legos — not necessarily in that order. Over the past three or four years of Christmases, Hanukkahs, birthdays, and other celebrations, he has gotten well over a half dozen sets of art markers, exactly 17 Bumblebee figurines (that's the yellow one that turns into a VW Beetle), and so many Lego sets that he doesn't even build them any more, opting instead to just tear open the boxes and dump the pieces at random in the giant bin we have in the corner of his room. Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up All these gifts aren't just so much excess stuff; they also represent a remarkable amount of money and time spent by well-meaning parents with already full to-do lists. I know their pain. I can't tell you how many times I've raced through the toy aisle 20 minutes before a trampoline-park birthday party searching for something — anything — to give to an elementary school kid I couldn't pick out of a lineup. Advertisement Which is all just a long way of saying that while I love my kids and want them celebrated (and while I'm deeply grateful to all my friends and family for the presents), I've been looking to get out of the kid gift racket for years. As the Globe Advertisement But I think I've found the perfect escape. My salvation arrived, as salvation often does, from Canada. A dear friend who grew up in Toronto told me about a north-of-the-border tradition that we imported tariff-free for my daughter's party this year. It went better than I ever could have expected, and it goes like this. Instead of bringing a present, my daughter's friends were given the option of simply Venmoing her whatever they would have spent in cash on a gift. We then took that pool and split it in half, one part of which went to a gift she really wanted while the other went to a charity she picked in advance. (There are websites that manage the whole process for you — notably the Canada-based Echoage — but some do take a percentage in fees.) A few kids brought presents anyway, and I admit that my daughter first looked disappointed as she silently compared this year's haul with last year's. But then I reminded her that there was also the cash. 'How much?' she said hopefully. The total was a little more than $200. A smile spread across her face. But that grin wasn't the only benefit of our new approach to gift-giving. Advertisement Another was the meaningful decrease in our production of plastic waste. Most of the toys my kids have previously received are plastic, and most of that ultimately ends up in landfills — 80 percent, according to some A third benefit, however, is likely more important. Alison Body, an honorary fellow at the University of Kent with an expertise in children's participation in charitable giving, and others have But the last advantage is my favorite. Now I only have to put five barely used science kits on Facebook Marketplace this summer. Instead of six.
Boston Globe
27-01-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
We have a need for speed… cameras
Advertisement More principled objections have included the possibility of disparate enforcement if cameras are located in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods; concerns that police would deploy the cameras in a way designed to raise revenue instead of addressing genuine safety concerns; and some research suggesting that red-light cameras can result in more of certain types of accidents. The governor's proposal, which came as part of her budget and requires legislative approval, includes safeguards to address some of those concerns. First, the cameras would only be used for speeding, not red-light violations; the state would limit how many cameras each municipality would be allowed; and towns and cities would have to 'ensure social and racial equity in the implementation' of their cameras. Personally, I don't need convincing. As I wrote last month, As the Globe's Matt Stout Advertisement That's a minor quibble, though. Overall, Healey's proposal would be a big step in the right direction. It builds on two more limited automated enforcement laws the Legislature approved recently, one that allows camera enforcement of bus lanes and another that allows cameras on school buses to catch people illegally passing stopped school buses. On Rte 2A near Commerford Road, Concord, a sign asks drivers to reduce speed. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff There's also a more philosophical objection to camera laws like those, and it boils down to values: Do we want to live under so much government surveillance? Even if each individual camera law is a reasonable response to a real problem, do they all add up to excessive intrusion? There's no empirically right or wrong answer to that question. The real solution is to make the tradeoff between safety and surveillance unnecessary. Hopefully someday, when there's a better way to control speeding (like, say, well-behaved self-driving cars), those cameras won't be necessary. For now, though, there's a growing consensus that they are . This is an excerpt from , a Globe Opinion newsletter about the future of transportation in the region. Sign up to . Alan Wirzbicki is Globe deputy editor for editorials. He can be reached at
