I know this is not the same thing at all - but at my best friend's birthday party in fourth grade, my parents made me give her a dollar bill in a plain white envelope. Not even a birthday card. Another girl at the party told me this was really wrong - as her best friend, i should have gotten her the best present. But my parents wanted to send a message that they didnt appreciate being asked to buy things for other little girls. They thought parents should provide for their own children and that was it.

I was distraught over this for longer than you can probably imagine. I finally talked to this girl about it at our 25 year high school reunion. I apologized, and she was very sweet. She had her own kids by then. Telling her really did make me feel better. Ive been thinking about this incident ever since you posted this thread. I think part of the shame is that our parents substituted their "being" for ours in these episodes. We had to give ourselves up over to them. We werent allowed to be ourselves. We were silenced. We werent allowed to speak for ourselves. And maybe thats why talking about it helps.

Like i say, mine is such a trivial example, but the shame ended our friendship and was really never ending.