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Gift overload, I feel like a jerk
mRahmani
DetroitRegistered User regular
DetroitRegistered User regular
This is an odd scenario for me, and I'm trying to figure out if I'm being unreasonable.
I currently have two daughters, ages 1 and 3. Though both my wife and I have siblings who have been married for longer than us, my kids are the first grandchildren for each of our parents. So, between just being a grandkid and being the first grandkid, I understand a certain amount of spoiling is going to happen. I don't mind the occasional toy or whatever being bought for my kid, that's going to come with the territory. I do have some concerns about my in-laws going way overboard with this, though.
My eldest daughter gets basically an unending parade of gifts from my in-laws, to the point that virtually every time she sees them she gets something. This wouldn't be a big deal if she saw them once at month, but this is usually once a week at a minimum, and often several times a week. One day it'll be shoes. Or a dress. Or play makeup. Or a doll. These aren't necessarily even expensive things - my mother in law works at a thrift shop, and often grabs perfectly nice toys and such for next to nothing. But the sheer quantity of them is overwhelming, and some of them (like a play kitchen, or a plastic closet wardrobe) take up a significant amount of space. At this point she has so much stuff to play with that most of it just exists to be tripped over.
The cherry on top is that my kids are also the only great-grandchildren that my wife's grandparents see regularly. So when my wife went down to visit them for Christmas last year, she came back with a load of presents I can only describe as "obscene." Understand that my wife drives a Chevy Tahoe, a 3-row SUV that can be conservatively called A Very Large Vehicle. So this rolling aircraft carrier went down to Kentucky with 5 people, and came back loaded down so heavily that they had a hard time finding any place to sit it in. Beauty and the Beast tea cart set, Easy Bake Oven, some electronic talking soccer goal thing.... just an enormous pile of stuff, nearly all of which is sitting in the basement gathering dust, because we straight up don't have room for her to play with it.
I don't want to sound like an ungrateful asshole. I appreciate that these people love my kid and want to get her things, but she has more toys than she can physically play with. She has, at a minimum, 4 different versions of pianos/keyboards. Four! There are other kids out there who would love to have this stuff and need it much more than she does. My wife is reluctant about donating it, partly I think because she doesn't know what to tell her parents if they notice things missing.
On my side, my own parents feel left out. My family isn't big on gifts; we were never affluent growing up and gifts were generally limited to a couple of nice, "needed" items for a birthday. They live farther away, so we don't see them as often, and my mom has quietly expressed frustration that she feels like she can never buy my daughter anything, because she already has everything.
I talked to my wife about this a few weeks ago, and she agreed to talk to her parents about it. I've still seen a few gifts trickle in since, so I'm not sure how much of an effect that had. I don't want to have a conversation with them that effectively boils down to "stop buying shit for my kid," but I don't really know what else to do.
This all came to a head today for me because I discovered that Amazon has been charging me monthly for their kids streaming service for my daughter's Kindle fire - a tablet that I didn't want in the first place and didn't buy. It was part of the ridiculous Christmas gift haul (thanks, Mother-in-law.) That one in particular rankles because I can't get rid of it despite actively not wanting it, AND I got charged for it! I feel like she already spends too much time in front of a screen without having her own personal TV to haul around, and its absence would be noticeable pretty quickly.
Am I being unreasonable?
I currently have two daughters, ages 1 and 3. Though both my wife and I have siblings who have been married for longer than us, my kids are the first grandchildren for each of our parents. So, between just being a grandkid and being the first grandkid, I understand a certain amount of spoiling is going to happen. I don't mind the occasional toy or whatever being bought for my kid, that's going to come with the territory. I do have some concerns about my in-laws going way overboard with this, though.
My eldest daughter gets basically an unending parade of gifts from my in-laws, to the point that virtually every time she sees them she gets something. This wouldn't be a big deal if she saw them once at month, but this is usually once a week at a minimum, and often several times a week. One day it'll be shoes. Or a dress. Or play makeup. Or a doll. These aren't necessarily even expensive things - my mother in law works at a thrift shop, and often grabs perfectly nice toys and such for next to nothing. But the sheer quantity of them is overwhelming, and some of them (like a play kitchen, or a plastic closet wardrobe) take up a significant amount of space. At this point she has so much stuff to play with that most of it just exists to be tripped over.
The cherry on top is that my kids are also the only great-grandchildren that my wife's grandparents see regularly. So when my wife went down to visit them for Christmas last year, she came back with a load of presents I can only describe as "obscene." Understand that my wife drives a Chevy Tahoe, a 3-row SUV that can be conservatively called A Very Large Vehicle. So this rolling aircraft carrier went down to Kentucky with 5 people, and came back loaded down so heavily that they had a hard time finding any place to sit it in. Beauty and the Beast tea cart set, Easy Bake Oven, some electronic talking soccer goal thing.... just an enormous pile of stuff, nearly all of which is sitting in the basement gathering dust, because we straight up don't have room for her to play with it.
I don't want to sound like an ungrateful asshole. I appreciate that these people love my kid and want to get her things, but she has more toys than she can physically play with. She has, at a minimum, 4 different versions of pianos/keyboards. Four! There are other kids out there who would love to have this stuff and need it much more than she does. My wife is reluctant about donating it, partly I think because she doesn't know what to tell her parents if they notice things missing.
On my side, my own parents feel left out. My family isn't big on gifts; we were never affluent growing up and gifts were generally limited to a couple of nice, "needed" items for a birthday. They live farther away, so we don't see them as often, and my mom has quietly expressed frustration that she feels like she can never buy my daughter anything, because she already has everything.
I talked to my wife about this a few weeks ago, and she agreed to talk to her parents about it. I've still seen a few gifts trickle in since, so I'm not sure how much of an effect that had. I don't want to have a conversation with them that effectively boils down to "stop buying shit for my kid," but I don't really know what else to do.
This all came to a head today for me because I discovered that Amazon has been charging me monthly for their kids streaming service for my daughter's Kindle fire - a tablet that I didn't want in the first place and didn't buy. It was part of the ridiculous Christmas gift haul (thanks, Mother-in-law.) That one in particular rankles because I can't get rid of it despite actively not wanting it, AND I got charged for it! I feel like she already spends too much time in front of a screen without having her own personal TV to haul around, and its absence would be noticeable pretty quickly.
Am I being unreasonable?
You can't give someone a pirate ship in one game, and then take it back in the next game. It's rude.
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You're doing all the right things, talking about it. Donating is the next step. If a grandparent/parent/whoever complains just make sure to let them know that they didn't need the thing and already had several of them. They'll probably not end up buying you more if that's the case! So win-win.
Another idea is taking them aside and thanking them for their generosity and ask if they can clear gifts with you ahead of time because of all the issues with duplicates and triplicates of gifts and you want to make sure their money is well spent. Maybe toss up the idea of less physical gifts and maybe them contributing to a college fund or something so they still feel like they're giving.
My brother and sister-in-law have told people no more gifts for their daughter. There's no room. Their place has so many boxes of toys their kids cannot possibly play with even half of them. If they must give somthing(Like, during birthdays and what not), give a toonie (Canada's $2 coin) and then she can get one toy of her choosing with the money.
I would also suggest they can donate in your daughter's name to a charity that your daughter likes (For young kids, there's stuff like animal or zoo charities that send letters and pictures that might be really cool for your daughter to receive).
Feel free to ham it up. And that last part is true, she's little and she's not going to associate any of that stuff with her grandparents if she's only playing with it at your place. Ditto with the kindle, which you can tell them she can have at their place but you don't want her in front of screens so much at home, so she's more interactive with her sibling and they can form a better relationship early on. It's also not unreasonable to ask that they pay for the subscription to their gift IMO.. especially if it's not at your house.
All the other advice is great and if that doesn't work... just don't give her the thing. She won't remember half the stuff, or more, if it's not in front of her.
Save it in your closet for birthdays or Christmas.
"I don't want to make my daughter think she can get anything at anytime/when she sees you" kinda thing.
The kindle is a trickier one - maybe set the timer on it and slowly reduce how much time is allowed on it? Either that, or maybe the next event that they might overspend, tell them "she really loves her kindle, maybe an amazon gift card for the videos on it?"
Obviously this wouldn't help for the one that keeps bringing home stuff from the thrift stores but we also have tried to encourage gifts to do rather than have. So if they come asking for birthday/holiday ideas ask for movie passes for the family, or maybe a local theme park/attraction tickets, etc.
But when it comes to toys, most live at the grandparents house so that they have things to do while they are there. Space is a factor, but it also makes going to the grandparents place an exciting adventure, which is great for keeping them occupied.
When I worked at a kids toy store, I also highly encouraged outdoor and educational toys when gift overload was an issue. Books, toys she can readily share with friends, and things that encourage creative and social activities are really great, and you can restrict gift giving to that without feeling bad. Moms rule for "random" gifts for us was books only, and that shit seemed to work. Age appropriate books, chalk, bubbles, soft Frisbees, scooters, stuff like that.
I've also got a baby and a toddler, younger but spaced similarly to yours, and especially the older one got the same treatment. Maybe not quite to the same price tag, but my wife's family makes up for it in volume by bargain hunting in garage sales and thrift stores.
All the gifts from grandparents get to stay there (there's some drift as he insists on bringing something home or taking it there, which is fine, it's less about keeping the exact items there than keeping the quantity balanced, and it's mostly the big things we actually track - the bouncy chairs and busy boxes and the cozy coup and I swear to Christ like six different riding toys). This does a lot of things. The two biggest: It reduces how much crap you have to pack up to keep him happy for a day visiting (and holy shit do you need a lot of stuff to take a day trip with a baby and a toddler in tow), because he's got plenty to play with already there, and it keeps perspective on how much they're giving him, because it's *their* floor littered with debris after hurricanes Sam and Tony blow through.
Bonus: It also curtails the flow of noisy toys. Threats of a drum set fell silent after we stopped taking popcorn poppers home with us.
I wouldn't be too upset about things like shoes or a jacket if they plan on actually taking them to a zoo and it's cold out... the tablet though isn't really okay.
Had to do the exact same conversations. For my Mom, it was "oh it was so cute" or "oh it's small" but lots of little crap adds up. Biggest rule is that if they buy it for not Birthday/Christmas, they keep at their house. As well, she's not quite a hoarder but they have a LOT of stuff they've saved over the years. Some of it I've loved, my son's getting my old 80s/90s Transformers, Ninja Turtles, Lego, etc. that they held on to.
My Mother-in-law has the better idea. Since she lives across the continent, it's expensive to ship gifts across the country. When she wants to give, it's usually cash but towards an activity. Swim lessons, Gymnastics, camps, museum passes, etc.
As for the tablet, if it was out of the blue, I'd honestly would have given it back. Call me a jerk but your signing me up for ongoing service / costing me money. Sorry that's not ok.
I sidestepped all this shit with my nieces and nephews by opening CDs for each of them. Each Christmas / Birthday they each get $100 put in it. So when they turn 18 I'll give them, uh $3600 plus whatever the hell the rate ends up being and tell them "Here's all the money I could have spent on you each month since you were born now, go buy a car or take a trip or pay for college, whatever you want." Maybe ask people to do that?
I also try to encourage people to babysit instead of giving gifts. Turns out people become a lot more sensible re:toys when they are actually taking care of a toddler for an afternoon instead of only visiting their home. Just make sure they are on the same page as your wife and you when it comes to candy, naptime etc.
With the tablet, I assume the Amazon FreeTime thing was something I clicked agree on when I first booted it up and logged in. One year of their service is included and I wasn't really paying attention. If cancelling the service happens to make the tablet a little less attractive for her to play with... oh dear, what a shame. Between Plex and Netflix there's no shortage of stuff for her to watch anyway. As far as parental controls, I did set up timers on it to lock it down... my wife went in and removed them one day when she needed to study. -_- That's a different issue though and I just need to re-enable them.
I do have 528 college funds for the girls, so I'll make a note of those and ask gifts to be donated there instead. That would be much more useful than another stuffed animal.
You can't give someone a pirate ship in one game, and then take it back in the next game. It's rude.
Some tips from what I read earlier:
1) If you see the in-laws that often, you may be able to come to some sort of agreement. They can give your kids whatever they want, but the kids have to pick other toys that must be donated (to make room). Also, if your MIL works at a thrift shop, she should (I say "should" but I understand that carries a lot of weight) be willing to take 1-6 toys from you guys on the regular that can be donated. Again, I fully understand the "well *I'm* the one who gave it to her!" factor.
2) If you're able to talk frankly, there's a good chance that whomever bought your daughter the Kindle also has a Prime account. Have them add the Kindle to *their* account and hopefully it won't cost anything. And if it does, that's a gift that keeps on giving.
3) I was going to 100% suggest 529 contributions because that's what my wife's extended family does for us every year for the Holidays. With that taken care of, I recommend either clothes or GCs for clothes stores. I'm willing to bet your girls already have fairly full closets just like mine; however, we are starting to notice that nearly everything is getting small all at the same time. Tell the family to buy things 1-2 sizes too big so that the kids can wear it during the next season.
Re: screens -- I bought both our kids Samsung tablets from Woot about 2 years ago. At first, they largely ignored the devices, but lately they have been watching a fair amount of YouTube. Not a big deal, but we are starting to notice some changes in their behavior when they watch, so we are starting to limit their time. Every kid is different and every situation is different, but know that you're in decent company on that one. And, ultimately, there may not be a workable solution in the short term.
This may not be helpful since the kids are still so young, but once they start showing interest in sports or hobbies, that would be a perfect way for family to sink some gift money [sports equipment, jerseys, hats, socks, recital outfits, etc]. I know for our girls, we've set up an "art cart" because they are constantly drawing or writing. My wife's sister is an art director for an advertising company, so the kids love doing art projects with her when she comes to visit. All those markers, paint, paper, smocks, scissors, tape, sticks, and other supplies need to be bought sometime (and they're consumable to boot, so it's an easy restocking gift later).
That's really not okay. It can very easily lead to the kids expecting a gift every time from everyone who visits (through no direct fault of the parents or spoilers), which is obviously not a good place to get to.
Let the extended family know that gifts are made special by their rarity, and excessive gifts will be politely but firmly refused, and any attempts to circumvent this policy will result in the kiddos spending less time with the family member who can't follow a simple guideline.
Two of my nephews were getting spoiled rotten by some of their relatives, and it got to the point where my partner and I would show up to visit, and they'd greet us with "did you bring us presents?".
We stopped going until the parents sorted it out with the rest of the family. They get a small present for Christmas, a slightly bigger and better present selected specifically for a long-term life (skateboard, LEGO, that kind of thing) for their birthdays, and that's pretty much it except for a few chocolate eggs at Easter. We don't have the money to try to keep up with the wealthy family members (makeup manufacturers from South Korea) so we're not going to bother trying.