We have one young child (3yo). MIL made quite a big deal at Christmas over what my parents had gifted our DS vs what she had gifted him. She told DP and I that we need to tell my parents to stop buying extravagant or big gifts because it’s “not teaching DS anything” and makes other gifts look poor in comparison which isn’t fair on other family members.
The same conversation has just been had after DSs birthday. She was very upset that either “we didn’t raise the issue” with my parents or that they’ve “completely ignored her wishes”.
Firstly, just to clarify…gifts have always been given separately - they’ve never been given infront of the other.
We specifically requested when coming up to DSs 1st Christmas/birthday that from then on we would really appreciate if people buying him a gift would please stick to just one gift rather than buying him multiple things, which everyone happily agreed to.
MIL only knows what my parents have bought because when she’s been round to play with DS she’s asked him who bought him X/Y/Z and he’s told her it was “Grandma and Gramps”.
He’s such a lucky boy and has been gifted lovely toys from both MIL and my parents. He plays with everything equally and genuinely loves it all! Each have been great and stuck to our “one gift rule” that we requested. They’ve all put thought into gifts and bought stuff that they know he is currently interested in which is amazing!
Would you mention anything to your parents and ask them to reduce what they spend or buy smaller items? Or would you leave it as MILs issue? Just to be clear - this is 100% not an affordability issue. MIL is considerably better off than my parents. She just feels that their gifts are “going to make him spoiled”.
Just to give examples of the type of gifts:
- my parents - lovely Brio starter train set/MIL - beautiful chunky wooden alphabet & number jigsaw
- my parents - plastic slide for the garden/MIL - set of toy cars
- my parents - pop-up tent + tunnel/MIL - playdoh set