I have a very sweet MIL who is excited to be a granny to our kids and my two kids from a previous relationship. I get it, being a granny is exciting, I would be excited as well, it’s lovely. And it’s so nice that she treats her step grandkids the same, she’s a gem.
However, this often manifests itself in a way that honestly feels like love-bombing, especially in terms of gift-giving. We live in a pretty small house, so we’re quite careful about what we buy and bring into the house. It’s also just one of our parenting goals to raise kids who don’t feel they need a lot of ‘stuff’ to be fulfilled and have a real gratitude for the things they have. So at Easter the kids get one nice egg and they’re so happy with that. At Christmas we do the ‘something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read’ thing and a few small stocking gifts from Santa. Again, kids happy and really value their presents.
however MIL will get them gigantic sacks full of presents, two sacks each AND a Santa stocking. It’s ridiculous, like, can’t fit them under the tree or in the living room, we have to open them over several days. And the kids just end up ripping the presents open and putting them to the side because there are so many, so aren’t really appreciating them. I’m sorry to say at the end of the Christmas period we tend to have a present amnesty and some years the kids have ended up donating about 70% of their gifts. She will knowingly give multiples of things that they already have. Last year she gave us all items that she admitted she didn’t even know what their purpose was. It’s crazy.
this year at Easter she said she was going to organise an Easter egg hunt, lovely, the kids got 10 cream egg sized hollow eggs each, which was more than enough. They had a lovely time. We were grateful that she’d put in the effort to do it and she’d organised some games. Really special. But then out comes a plastic storage box full of eggs. The kids get two full size Easter eggs each. Then she brings out random gifts, with their boxes filled with loose sweets. Then more big bags of sweets. A tray of Reece’s eggs for our 5 month old baby…
We ended up leaving with bags and bags of stuff and the masses of gift giving really dominated the day, rather than the egg hunt, games and family time.
my partner is on the same page, but refuses to talk to her about anything (like, wouldn't even talk to her when she wasn’t buckling the kids into the car correctly) and says ‘you can’t stop her’. I completely disagree and think we need to ask her to respect our parenting values, and feel it’s important that our kids overriding memory of their granny isnt extreme gift giving.
WIBU to ask her to kindly and inoffensively
tone it down? And how could I do that without sounding like an uptight killjoy?!