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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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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:

noeffingidea · 08/01/2016 06:20

Oh for goidness sake, Math. I've never read such a load of twaddle in my whole life.
The kid got a couple of presents less from someone who she isn't biologically related to, knowing she would get presents from her own grandma. If she can't cope with that then there's something seriously wrong.

RidersOnTheStorm · 08/01/2016 07:14

Well said, noeff.

Math, let it go FFS.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 08/01/2016 09:23

I agree with math - what happened was adults being unkind to a child - who thinks that a 10-year-old should have to 'cope' with unkindness like that, on Christmas Day, when it was so easily avoidable?

SoapandGloryisDivine · 08/01/2016 09:37

Spot on noeff.

What I find very interesting is how dsd moved on from this on Boxing Day, and people on here are still up in arms about it claiming that she was hard done by/upset/treated badly/will need therapy ()/is obviously an outsider of the family etc etc...

As Riders said, let it go.

merrymouse · 08/01/2016 09:37

Keep going everyone. This thread has already lasted longer than Christmas, and with a little bit more effort it will be a thousand poster.

OP, any plans for Easter yet?

noeffingidea · 08/01/2016 09:44

SGTG how is that being unkind? They are half siblings, not full siblings, they have different grandparents. Those are facts. They can't expect to be treated exactly the same by the extended family on the OP's side.
Not getting exactly the same number of presents isn't a hardship, and it's ridiculous to behave as it if it is.
Someone upthread mentioned godparents sending gifts. My sister used to get a present from her godparents every year, the rest of us didn't. Somehow we managed to deal with it. I wonder how? Probably because we weren't brought up to think we were special little snowflakes who must never have our feelings hurt.
If I had been the mother of this little girl in the OP I would have expected her to be grateful for what she had been given and not compared it to what the others had been given.

noeffingidea · 08/01/2016 09:50

Should just add, I would say different if the little girl lived with her dad full time, or didn't have any grandparents of her own. That's not true in this case.

SoapandGloryisDivine · 08/01/2016 11:22

My sister used to get a present from her godparents every year, the rest of us didn't. Somehow we managed to deal with it. I wonder how? Probably because we weren't brought up to think we were special little snowflakes who must never have our feelings hurt.

I bet you didnt turn in to an entitled princess either.

If I had been the mother of this little girl in the OP I would have expected her to be grateful for what she had been given and not compared it to what the others had been given.

Me too if it was my child. I expect my children to be grateful for whatever they get, and I also extend that expectation on to dsd as well.

Should just add, I would say different if the little girl lived with her dad full time, or didn't have any grandparents of her own. That's not true in this case.

Me too. If didn't have any other grandparents then that would be different as she wouldn't have those people to receive presents from. But she has Many grandparents. If she lived here full time she would know my mum better and my mum would have been more likely to spend the same amount on her. She knows my brother's stepchildren a lot better than she knows dsd, so gave them the same as my brother's children. My brother's stepchildren don't have their dad in their lives therefore they also have no paternal grandparents in their lives, whereas dsd does.

SoapandGloryisDivine · 08/01/2016 11:46

OP, any plans for Easter yet?

Usually we go to my dad's for an Easter egg hunt. If dsd is with us that day then lovely she will come too and she will have a great time, but if not then she will be having fun at her mum's instead. I won't feel bad if she doesn't get to do both though and I won't postpone/ bring forward any Easter fun to fit the contact schedule.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 08/01/2016 13:24

Noeffing - how is it not unkind to make a little girl unhappy, when it could have been avoided?

NeedsAsockamnesty · 08/01/2016 16:29

Sometimes in life it is not all about pandering to desires.

Sometimes in life is is not always about one person.

I would be horrified if any of my children thought that in order for someone to be nice to them they had to buy them stuff and that stuff had to be of an equal value to the stuff they brought their own grand children.

Kudos to the op and her DH that this 10yo appears to have a much better grasp of reality than a lot of adults

SoapandGloryisDivine · 08/01/2016 17:35

I would be too. I wouldn't like my children going round expecting things all the time anyway for a start. But for them to expect to always have the same from their siblings' extended family member who barely knows my child... I think I would be having words. I would be quite embarrassed!

Dsd's mum was moaning a few years ago that someone one her partner's side of the family hadn't bought dsd anything for Christmas. It was early on in the relationship and he bought the other children some presents (his niece/nephews) but not dsd. You can't expect people to just fall over themselves to make sure a stepchild is treated completely the same as their grandchildren/nieces/nephews whether early in to the relationship or years down the line. It will never be equal when you also factor in that child's other set of grandparents. It's all swings and roundabouts.
Maybe that person should have bought dsd little token gift that Christmas, but you can't honestly expect him to have treated dsd exactly the same.

catkind · 08/01/2016 18:40

Thought of this thread this morning when I was very unkind to my DD. I gave her brother a chocolate croissant and I didn't give her one . (Because he chose to save his from yesterday and she ate hers.) She was very upset.

Do you think we should book the counselling now math?

SoapandGloryisDivine · 08/01/2016 19:01

cat You wasn't unkind to your DD but if it was your DSD then you would have been unkind not to give her another chocolate croissant after she'd already eaten hers!

noeffingidea · 09/01/2016 02:37

SDTG I'm sorry, I really don't get your point. Why should this child have been unhappy because they got fewer presents from their half siblings grandmother when they knew they were going to get more presents from their own grandma? Is she really that spoilt and pampered?
I never got a single present from anyone other than my parents my whole childhood (and that wasn't much). I think I literally would have cried tears of joy if I had been in this little girls position. To have been given a couple of presents from a lady who wasn't even my own grandma.
I'm beginning to understand what people say about the millennial generation now if this is the kind of namby pamby parenting that goes on. Everybody must get exactly the same. No one must ever be unhappy.Life must never ever be unfair. Yeah, right.

noeffingidea · 09/01/2016 02:54

catkind I think that comes under the category of mental cruelty. Report yourself to social services immediately .

mathanxiety · 09/01/2016 03:35

I would be horrified to have a mother who went out of her way to do something so unkind to a child, getting a token gift purely based on her own feelings and on a very cut and dried attitude to the concept of family, and without regard for how the child would feel.

Why didn't the grown adult entertain the idea of being kind instead of underlining legalistic technicalities, on Christmas Day of all days, and in front of the father of all the children?

Why do the other adults here expect the child to appease everyone, when what was done would have made many people blush?

noeffingidea · 09/01/2016 03:59

math sorry, can't understand what you're babbling on about.

SenecaFalls · 09/01/2016 04:03

I haven't been on the thread for a while, but I see it's still going. I agree wholeheartedly with math.

I have actually been quite shocked at all the people who think that what the step-grandmother did was fine, and even more shocked at some of the unkind things that have been said about the child.

I know families are different. I understand that. But I would have been very upset if my mother had treated DH's children differently from her blood grandchildren. Luckily for all of us, she didn't.

noeffingidea · 09/01/2016 04:26

Well, Seneca, I guess some people are just more easily upset than others then.

mathanxiety · 09/01/2016 06:34

...blithely ignoring the fact that this was a child who was needlessly upset...

SoapandGloryisDivine · 09/01/2016 06:37

I'm beginning to understand what people say about the millennial generation now if this is the kind of namby pamby parenting that goes on. Everybody must get exactly the same. No one must ever be unhappy.Life must never ever be unfair. Yeah, right.

It won't be standing them in good stead for the big wide world. Suddenly kids who thought the world revolves around them will realise that it actually doesn't.

mathanxiety · 09/01/2016 06:43

And also the complete inexplicability of it all.

Why would someone set out not to give a nice Christmas gift but to use the gift giving occasion to underline the fact that you don't know someone but given the circumstances feel you have to give something? If you tried that on an adult you know your 'gift' would be stashed under the stairs and regifted the following Christmas. Why is a child expected to be grateful for a gift that told her exactly what it was intended to tell?

mathanxiety · 09/01/2016 06:44

Why did the MIL here think that Christmas was all about her feelings?

mathanxiety · 09/01/2016 06:44

(She puts the MIL in millennial)...

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