Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to think that my mum got her enough?

904 replies

LookingForwardto2016 · 26/12/2015 17:33

My mum came to visit today, and she brought the children's Christmas presents from her.

I have three children and my dp has one child plus the three we have together. For our three, my mum got them a toy, some pyjamas, some chocolates, some colouring things and £30 each. My mum got my dp's child "just" some colouring things and some chocolates.

Am I being unreasonable to think my mum got her enough? My dp agrees with me because my mum doesn't really know her but wanted to make sure she still had something to open. Plus my mum is aware that she has a whole other family on her mum's side that she will have got presents from. But she was looking around for "the rest" of hers and was really ungrateful about the ones she actually did get. DP had to explain to her that she can't always have everything the same when her siblings have different family to her especially when they don't know her very well.

I'm not saying that she doesn't like her, but she should be able to give her grandchildren a little bit more because they are her grandchildren surely. And my children should be able to benefit from their mum's side of the family in the same way their sister has with her mum's side of the family.

What do others think?

OP posts:
LocatingLocatingLocating · 28/12/2015 08:38

Surely DCs have plenty of occasions where they get different amounts of presents from other family members, depending on relationships, who is giving etc.

If we go to GPs house on Boxing Day to meet up with my DSis's family, sometimes the GPs will have already given my DCs their presents, so only DNs will get presents on that occasion. Everyone seems to cope with this fine.

And previously DHs father has joined my extended family for Xmas. He has bought my DCs their normal presents, and then a token gift for DNs. This is quite normal and accepted IMO.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 28/12/2015 09:48

"Wow.

I cannot for the life of me imagine a gentle way to tell that to a child, when the more 'important' children are her own half siblings, with whom she shares a father."

Neither can I, mathanxiety. Nor can I imagine giving some children their 'proper' gifts and giving the other just a token - because I wouldn't want to make a child feel sidelined and second best in their own home.

But we are wrong, apparently. Hmm

NeedsAsockamnesty · 28/12/2015 10:21

Ofcourse they do location it's a normal part of growing up amd a valuble life lesson.

One I expect several adult posters on the many waaaaaa they didn't spend enough on me threads they are dreadful meanies, didn't actually learn.

When adults make life choices that impact on their children, often because they 'couldn't help it' it would be wise if they also accepted that this is their choice the children sort of have to go along with it because that's what happens but nobody else has to,and many people don't think its plesant watching the children in their own family being placed at a disadvantage to accomadate a parents desire to eradicate the fact that the children have different parents.

there are enough step family situations around where the kids do not want the additional relationships despite longevity to suggest that in some situations it's not wise to blunder along with the my family is your family school of thought.

In seperated families it's now quite normal to share events (quite rightly) but a by product of that is that in many situations children will be exposed to their own and other children's different family relationships, given how frequent and normal this sort of thing is children sharing normal life in each household inc none related extended family members visiting or all children making more adjustments and altering their normal to accomadate adults inability or lack of desire to prepare them in an age appropriate way is a very interesting discussion to be had

Original poster
LookingForwardto2016 · 28/12/2015 11:37

One I expect several adult posters on the many waaaaaa they didn't spend enough on me threads they are dreadful meanies, didn't actually learn.

There are lots of entitled adults out there. At least dsd won't become one of them as she will realise the world and its dog don't revolve around her. As you say, good life lesson.

OP posts:
Kacie123 · 28/12/2015 11:42

Hmm riiiiiight

differentnameforthis · 28/12/2015 12:02

As a step child/step grandchild I am glad that my step grandparents treated myself & mys sister equally to their blood grandchildren at least in front of everyone

Everyone was treated equally in terms of gifts, as far as I was aware. Now that I am older, I realise that there may well have been times where the others got more than us, away from our presence, but that was NEVER ever shown to us.

All gathered together, we were never anything except equal.

PolkadotsAndMoonbeams · 28/12/2015 12:03

If I were to think about it (as the grandma) I'd have given them all a toy/main present, chocolate and colouring stuff and given money straight to you.

You could then go and choose 'grandma's pyjamas' after the ten year old is back at her mum's. The little ones won't care about getting money - they just like having stuff to open!

differentnameforthis · 28/12/2015 12:04

At least dsd won't become one of them as she will realise the world and its dog don't revolve around her. really? You think it will be that cut & dried? Because aside frmo how my step father & step grandparents treated me, my mother always treated my sister better.

And it still hurts to this day. Don't count on it being a valuable lesson for her, because you have no idea how she perceived the gift giving at all.

merrymouse · 28/12/2015 12:23

STDG, you aren't wrong to say that this could have been handled more tactfully.

However, this was not some life defining moment, just one of those things. Step siblings and half siblings do have different relatives. You can avoid underlining the fact at Christmas (because it's even a bit awkward when adults exchange vastly different gifts), but there will be different holidays, different funding for education, different help from extended family, different family gatherings, etc. etc.

I think it creates more security to be a member of a loving blended family where people are honest about the different relationships than to be in a family where there are sudden new family members who you hardly know but are expected to love like your own granny and half siblings and step relatives who are either never mentioned or shoe horned into some roll that they clearly have no desire to occupy.

That doesn't stop members of a step family from having close, loving relationships. It's just something that should be real, not a make believe version of a different family.

Original poster
LookingForwardto2016 · 28/12/2015 12:25

different But with you it would have been constant, every day. Plus your mum is your mum- very important person to any child. Your situation is much different.

With dsd she has constant love and fairness everyday from the important people in her life. My mum is just one person. One person who she isn't likely to see again for a long time. Hence why she didn't get as many presents. Because why would people who you barely know buy you more than a couple of token presents?

Not a good life lesson for you, but definitely one for Dsd.

OP posts:
merrymouse · 28/12/2015 12:26

my mother always treated my sister better.

There is a difference between a mother treating her children differently and not being given pyjamas by your half sibling's grandmother who you hardly know.

NeedsAsockamnesty · 28/12/2015 12:26

I used to get very upset about the on the surface equality.
I would routinely watch my step siblings (those who lived with my NRP) get the same as me in the full knowledge that behind the scenes I always got more much much more,Those poor kids could never have an outing or a holiday or a decent treat with out me being included,this also meant that I got much much more of those as well.
When I hit about 12/13 I started trying to tell the grown ups involved to stop it but they couldn't see the situation for what it really was.

It was actually quite hard, because on one hand you have people who are actually related to you and want to show that with time care attention and the occasional treat on the other you have people who are just trying to appear to make things equal which ones are you meant to say stop to.

bodenbiscuit · 28/12/2015 14:12

The idea that treating everyone with kindness 'devalues' particular relationships? What an utterly bizarre, nonsensical concept...

merrymouse · 28/12/2015 14:18

Treating somebody kindly does not mean treating somebody like your own granddaughter. The OP has been critiscized because she does not think of her step daughter as her own daughter and her mother doesn't have a grandmotherly relationship with her.

merrymouse · 28/12/2015 14:21

And for the billionth time, it has been agreed that the present exchange could have been done more sensitively. However there is more to being a parent or grandparent than presents.

bodenbiscuit · 28/12/2015 14:46

It's not about the presents - it's about a clear disparity between one child and three others on Christmas Day...

bodenbiscuit · 28/12/2015 14:47

Well, actually if I was living with someone I would expect them to treat my children like their own....if they didn't I probably wouldn't live with them in the first place.

Original poster
LookingForwardto2016 · 28/12/2015 14:55

Well, actually if I was living with someone I would expect them to treat my children like their own....if they didn't I probably wouldn't live with them in the first place.

I do treat her as if she is my own though in every day life. Cooking, laundry, helping with homework, taking her from a to b, I gave her some calpol last night, we do fun things together, I tell her off when needed, I decorated her bedroom, etc etc... It still doesn't mean she's my child though.

OP posts:
Original poster
LookingForwardto2016 · 28/12/2015 15:03

Also, it doesn't mean my mum has to see her as a grandchild. My relationship wasn't her choice and also by not seeing each other a lot it further reinforces that my mum and dsd aren't grandmother and grandchild because that relationship and those feelings simply aren't there on both sides.
If I was in a long distance relationship with a man who has a child and I saw that child every so often I wouldn't see them as a stepchild because I wouldn't have built that relationship. People say all the time on here that you shouldn't call yourself stepmum willy nilly, so I think the same should apply to "stepgrandparents" too. If you never see them then you aren't one. Simple as.

OP posts:
SenecaFalls · 28/12/2015 15:05

And for the billionth time, it has been agreed that the present exchange could have been done more sensitively

It hasn't been agreed, not really. What about that important life lesson several posters are going on about?

It was unkind to treat the children differently. She will have had life lessons enough merely by having to negotiate her blended families.

Original poster
LookingForwardto2016 · 28/12/2015 15:15

I am in two minds about it really. Yes it could have been handled more sensitively such as holding presents back. But then again she is 10 nearly 11 and there is a life lesson in there which she is old enough and mature enough to understand. After do explained to her she was fine.
Plus how would I possibly hold presents back without offending my mum?

I don't want to rub it in her face though so like I said next year I'll be seeing my mum when dsd isn't here.

OP posts:
merrymouse · 28/12/2015 15:27

The reality is that while all the siblings are loved by their grandparents, they aren't all the same people. What is so awful about the SD knowing this? It's as though being in a blended family is so awful and damaging that it has to be covered up by pretence.

SenecaFalls · 28/12/2015 15:44

So we are back to the whole experience was actually good for her?

Original poster
LookingForwardto2016 · 28/12/2015 16:00

Seneca I wouldn't go out of my way to create these types of situations, but on the very odd occasion that they do happen it is a good life lesson, yes. "Looking's mum isn't my grandma and I don't know her very well. I know my brothers and sister are close to her and she has brought them some presents and at the same time I have received a couple of presents too which was nice of her. My own grandma gave me some lovely presents too just like theirs has. We are all so lucky."

OP posts:
merrymouse · 28/12/2015 16:08

She will have had life lessons enough merely by having to negotiate her blended families.

And this is an example of a child negotiating a blended family.