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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to think my mother should be renamed Scrooge?

75 replies

twinsufficient · 21/04/2011 12:18

My mum has just given me the Easter eggs for my 3 dcs. They are the cheapest, most tasteless (like cooking chocolate) eggs you could buy. I'd rather she didn't bother. What really annoys me is that she is not poor in any sense of the word. I don't expect lavish gifts but just maybe something a bit more for her grandchildren. AIBU?

OP posts:

cookcleanerchaufferetc · 21/04/2011 21:07

YAnBu ..... Even small cadburys eggs cost a quid and whilst they aren't Guylian or Lindt they will taste fine for the kids and not break the bank. I think your mum is being stingy. Why not buy something decent otherwise don't bother!

MarianneM · 21/04/2011 21:17

I love the idea that Cadbury's chocolate is something other than cheap and nasty (which it is). But YAtotallyBU. What should she have got - Godiva chocolate eggs (do they exist?)?

This is about more than those silly eggs.

ashamedandconfused · 21/04/2011 21:30

I have the opposite problem OP (and yes YABU and so am I)

I buy the DC a small, quite cheap egg (a small cadbury buttons or similar) as I dont see the point in them having tonnes of choc to eat, or paying for the packaging/etc.
They also get one from MIL too - but she always goes for a posher more expensive one and I have always felt this belittles what we get them (all in my head I know). She does the same at Xmas - asks me what to buy them then gets 2 or 3 things off the list rather than one - and our gifts often look small in comparison (I KNOW, SIZE DOESN'T MATTER, RIGHT?)

I KNOW IABU - she enjoys spoiling them because she can afford to and she spends on them what she could not have afforded to spend on her own when they were kids

Just teach your Dc to be grateful, and not expect gifts buit to always appreciate them.

squeakytoy · 21/04/2011 21:42

My MIL would love to buy her great-grandchildren an easter egg, but as she knows so many parents these days are paranoid of letting their little darlings have so much as a sniff of anything remotely chocolate tainted, she is too scared to buy them anything.

Groovee · 21/04/2011 21:45

At least you got eggs. Last year we spent time choosing a lovely plant for my mum and she never got anything and sat looking at me as if I was wasting her time. I then met her work colleague who told me about the wonderful easter present for her grandson. :( I was gutted.

Last week my mother had a bloody cheek to then ask DD to show her the lego website and choose something for this little boy as for lent he'd given up all his star wars toys. Dh nearly swung for her as he knew how upset I was last year.

Trebuchet · 21/04/2011 21:49

yanbu i think folk are being a bit narky and you were just letting off steam.

exoticfruits · 21/04/2011 21:51

So sad squeakytoy-it spoils a lot of pleasure. It should be straightforward, instead of that there are issues of
a, buying chocolate at all when DCs are not supposed to like it
b, buying one that is 'the wrong chocolate'
c, buying one that is 'the right chocolate' but is bigger than the parent's gift.
d, buying one too small and looking mean.

reindeergaga · 21/04/2011 21:54

YANBU. Unthinking. Same as my in laws. Just absolute pointless plastic or inedible tat always. Have to accept it, but fail to understand thinking behind it. I dont mind charity shop gifts - most of my purchases are from there, so its not the money that's the issue, just the perpetual unsuitability of everything they buy. Numbskulls.

CarnivalBizarre · 21/04/2011 22:05

My sister bought my 3 youngest DC easter eggs from Home Bargains (3 for £1) after I had given my nieces nice cadburys easter eggs today - it doesn't arse me - or my DCs for that matter but I was a tad pissed off when I saw that she had given her neighbours kids (5 of them) eggs that cost £4 each and she claims to be on the bones of her arse - ah well I suppose she mustn't like my kids very much

Bucharest · 22/04/2011 07:49

How do you all know where these cheapo eggs came from and how much they cost?
Do you all spend all day following your relatives round shops checking?

Home Bargains may well be 3 for a £1,but they are well-known brands. Only an eejit would go and get the same thing from Sainsbos if they could get 3 from HB.

hairylights · 22/04/2011 08:04

FYI I didn't choose to have twins so I wouldn't bother going down that route. Anyway, got a dissertation to finish - this was just a distraction techniqu

Oh look!

"aibu"

"yes"

"flounce"

handsoffmycake · 22/04/2011 08:12

YABU. My DC never get anything from Grandparents at Easter. Its not worth getting upset about IMO.

TandB · 22/04/2011 08:18

Easter seems to be the new Christmas when it comes to complaining about how much people spend on gifts.

I have no Easter eggs. I have given no Easter eggs. Everyone seems to be surviving.

onceamai · 22/04/2011 08:18

I think I can understand where you are coming from OP. I was once very upset when the PIL didn't buy ds anything for his 2nd Christmas (which also happens to be his birthday!) and waited for the sales to get a reduced plastic tractor. How I inwardly seethed. It had nothing whatsoever to do with money and everything to do with being a pair of tight skinflints who don't know how to enjoy themselves and who have never experienced the pleasure of giving. DH and the SIL's still talk about there never being quite enough food on the table when they were children ....and before anyone asks these are (were) people who pay(paid) top rate tax on their investment income and FIL left a 7 figure sum when he died and that doesn't count anything MIL has or the house!

Reindeerbollocks · 22/04/2011 11:21

YABU

My mum has Scrooge like tendencies when it comes to gifts despite being more than comfortable. She once bought DS value crayons and a value colouring book for christmas (just an example of her behaviour).

However, she gives him so much time and love. She could tell you all my DCs favourite things, such as food, colours, best pasttimes, what days they like most etc. She knows nearly as much as I do about my children and she adores them, really really adores them and their company.

I have a MIL who showers them with gifts but rarely sees them. I know who is the better grandmother - it's about love not material items.

atswimtwolengths · 22/04/2011 11:55

Why are people being so vile towards the OP? Her mother has bought nasty cheap chocolate eggs for her grandchildren. Bearing in mind that Cadbury's eggs are 3 for £10 in the supermarkets, her mother is being very, very mean.

What's wrong with her complaining? She's said her mother can afford Cadbury's eggs, not that she wants to take all her mother's money and run off with it.

Am I the only person here who would enjoy buying a nice big Easter egg for my (potential) grandchildren? It's a lovely thing to do and isn't expensive, so why not do it?

I think a lot of posters are seeing a sense of entitlement where it doesn't exist. The OP isn't suggesting her mother sells her house, is she? Just that she doesn't buy unbranded chocolate!

Bucharest · 22/04/2011 11:59

Has she said it was unbranded?

I think people are being "so vile" to the OP because she came across as incredibly materialistic and, erm, yes, showing a huge sense of entitlement herself. I have no idea how much money my Mother has, or what she spends it on, she always buys dd clothes in the sales (as do I) and she hasn't sent dd anything for easter. And it matters not a diddley. She's my Mum, she loves my daughter and she could not spend another penny on either her, or me as long as she lives and it wouldn't matter.

Tryharder · 22/04/2011 12:31

I am a scrooge and wasn't going to bother buying my DSs anything for Easter but saw little eggs in a Toy Story mug going cheap somewhere so got them one each.

My mother on the other hand has got them massive Thorntons ones with their names written on... She's wasting her money...

Perhaps that is why your mother has so much money, OP, because she doesn't waste it on tat. I agree that Easter is total overkill and thus completely undervalued. I remember as a child getting one egg and it was a big, big event. Now kids get at least 3 or 4 eggs apiece and so it's no big deal.

[old gimmer emoticon]

southmum · 22/04/2011 12:37

um atswim - OPs sense of entitlement sticks out like a knob in a barrel of tits

"They are the cheapest...."

"This is when I'm paying £1500 per month childcare"

"I'm not talking green & blacks or anything like that, just cadburys or similar"

diddl · 22/04/2011 13:20

I know that my mum would probably have bought a cheap egg if it was a character that the children were interested in iyswim.

Generally they got Buttons ones.

atswimtwolengths · 22/04/2011 13:23

southmum, she was saying she'd hoped her mother would buy "Cadbury's or similar", not that she was critical of her buying Cadbury's!

diddl, Buttons eggs wouldn't have got a complaint, as far as I read the OP.

manticlimactic · 22/04/2011 13:29

My mum told me the other day she wasn't buying any of her GCs eggs. I wasn't bothered (and I know she just can't be arsed going out). Her choice and my DD isn't really that fussed either.

If Easter had some meaning to me (religious, what it's all about really, or should be) then maybe I may be a bit pissed off. But it doesn't. Are you religious OP, go to church and that at Easter?

So what if she's got money but moans about it at the end of the day it's her money and has nothing to do with you BU about the quality of the eggs she buys.

whatsallthehullaballoo · 22/04/2011 13:36

YANBU - I agree that I try to get the best that I can afford for my money. If I had £1 to spend - I would buy a Cadbury's egg. I wouldn't just think 'oh I have a quid I will get the first one I see for that money because I cannot be arsed.'

Some people are just tight but get a present just so they can say they did. Unfortunately it is not just the thought that counts if no thought actuallyw ent into it.

Bogeyface · 22/04/2011 13:46

the trouble is, if you have a stingy parent then you do look U if you mention it because you cant put it into context.

My mum is the same, she would charge you to smell her farts if she could and it really annoys me because it shows in the way she treats the kids.

I have no problem with the amount of money spent, but as the saying goes "its the thought that counts" and her thought is always about how cheap she can get something over whether it is appropriate for use! And stingy people are usually stingy in other ways too, with their time for example. It just shows that they dont consider you or your feelings as important, and money is just a way it comes out rather than the issue itself. Its really hard to explain but stingy people are hard work and it really ISNT about the money!

That doesnt make much sense but I know what I mean!!

PaisleyLeaf · 22/04/2011 16:20

yabu to have been eating the kids' eggs already.

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