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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:
noeffingidea · 09/01/2016 06:52

FFS Math. Aren't you reading a little bit too much into a couple of presents?
I don't mean to get personal, but you are starting to sound a bit unbalanced.

SoapandGloryisDivine · 09/01/2016 06:54

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?

Actually, I think anyone (adult or child) who gets a gift from someone should be grateful. Especially if they hardly know the person giving the gifts.

noeffingidea · 09/01/2016 07:01

Yes, how awful to be given a nice stationary set and some chocolates for christmas, on top of a load of other presents (including a laptop!).
Some people don't know they're born.

RidersOnTheStorm · 09/01/2016 07:22

Nobody gets to tell anyone else how to spend their money. Ridiculous to suggest otherwise.

Goddaughter has 2 DSs from he first marriage, one DD from her second and a DSD from her DH's first marriage who I have never met. DH's ex comes from a big and very well off family. All the DCs were together on Christmas day. DSD's pile of presents was huge, mostly from her DM's extended family.

According to some here I should have added to that pile. I didn't. It would have made the disparity even bigger. Daft.

SoapandGloryisDivine · 09/01/2016 07:50

Riders Did anyone have a go at you for not giving her dsd any presents?

mathanxiety · 09/01/2016 07:52

It seems we are back to the expectation of gratitude -- no matter what sort of intention the gift giver had, the recipient, no matter what age and no matter what everyone else appeared to be receiving, must not appear to judge the gift, and most certainly must not be so rude as to judge the gift by the very obvious thought behind it but purely on the basis that it was a gift. This is a lot to expect of a child.

We have also seen comments that make me wonder if some would prefer to live in Victorian times, with complaints about '...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' from Noeffingidea. (Was your name Scrooge in a former life?)

That comment and the implication that dealing with unfairness is good for children seems to be an acknowledgement on the part of Noeffingidea that what was done was indeed unfair.

Obviously Christmas is an ideal occasion to teach a child a lesson about unfairness. Well done MIL.

RidersOnTheStorm · 09/01/2016 07:54

Did anyone have a go at you for not giving her dsd any presents?

Of course not, they are rational and reasonable people.

SoapandGloryisDivine · 09/01/2016 08:04

Of course not, they are rational and reasonable people.

Exactly :)

noeffingidea · 09/01/2016 08:09

mathanxiety whats the matter? Did Santa leave you a lump of coal one year and give all the other kids the nice presents? Aw diddums.

mathanxiety · 09/01/2016 09:00

I am back to wondering why the OP posted this thread -- apparently all the adults concerned are satisfied that they are rational and reasonable and the child completely understands that it is not the place of children to express any feelings they may have when faced with the rudeness of adults.

RidersOnTheStorm · 09/01/2016 09:27

She's explained often enough, math.

noeffingidea · 09/01/2016 09:42

math perhaps it would be better to wonder why you're still posting on this thread. You first posted on December 26th. That's 2 weeks ago now. It's not even very important.

NeedsAsockamnesty · 09/01/2016 09:49

I had a really nice experance just after Christmas, I took 4 of my children to two of the children's grandparents house to drop off the gifts the younger two had made for them.

The older two are significantly learning disabled they wanted to come because they had 'helped' the little ones paint and glitter the incredibly ugly ornaments they had made and we're excited to see them being pleased to very ceremoniously hand them over.

The two little ones got given piles of gifts in return. The eldest two got given a hat and gloves set each.

They were both pleased with these and really enjoyed helping the younger ones open their gifts.

It was lovely to watch it.

noeffingidea · 09/01/2016 10:41

Thats lovely, needs a sock .Your children sound very nice. Can I share about my kids?
One year, we were very poor, and I said to my eldest (who was 13 or so at the time) 'I'm sorry babe, I can't afford to get any of you very much'. He said to me, 'don't worry about me, Mum, just get B and D as much as you can'.
Very proud of him. Of course we did our best for the 3 of them. Can't say who got the most because we don't count presents in our family.

bodenbiscuit · 09/01/2016 10:46

Nobody ever said that its the usual thing to count presents. The set of circumstances in the OP is unique to their own situation.

we will all have to agree to differ.

noeffingidea · 09/01/2016 10:55

boden tell that to a certain other poster Smile

NeedsAsockamnesty · 09/01/2016 11:07

One of the things the older two's schools do are a thing called rainbow days.

They attend quite a serious special needs school staff ratio of 2 to each child due to sever leaning disibility and behavioural issues 4 times per year they link in with a nearby special needs school for chiodren with terminal conditions and put on an amazing day for them.

One of the main principles for this is getting them to understand that the woah is me attitude is not a nice one to have

bodenbiscuit · 09/01/2016 11:29

I have a severely disabled child. Her life can be very hard for her. I still empathise with the DSD. Feeling like you are treated differently is eroding of ones self esteem.

NeedsAsockamnesty · 09/01/2016 11:51

It's only eroding if your parents do not do their job.

Teaching children about different relationships and different expectations is part of that.

Off the top of my head I cannot think of one child over the age of about 6/7 that I know well enough to know,who would feel that they had been treated differently in a bad way in this situation

noeffingidea · 09/01/2016 12:05

Agree with you there, needsasock
My youngest is learning disabled , she barely even understands what presents are. Just trying to think of things she might like is really difficult, but we did quite well this year.
Anyway, this thread is strangely addictive, so I'm going to hide it now. Peace to all (even Mathanxiety).

LassWiTheDelicateAir · 09/01/2016 12:54

Can't say who got the most because we don't count presents in our family

That is not, as Boden said the point of what happened in this specific situation.

Headofthehive55 · 09/01/2016 17:27

If an aunt enjoyed the day with you and brought her child, I doubt she would get the same amount of presents for your children as her own.

It's a different relationship, no?

I don't think you can expect your mum to buy the same for all.

Do people expect aunts and uncles to buy the same for each?

mathanxiety · 09/01/2016 19:22

Ooh can I share too, about my DCs?

The three of them who were able to take note of such things at that point were all outraged to notice grandma giving the children they consider to be cousins only a small token item at Christmas, in front of everyone else who received more. This happened two years in a row until exH and I decided not to continue making the long trip (nine hours in the car in bad weather) to grandma's for Christmas.

They were also hurt and very puzzled when we were at home discussing family one day when grandma was visiting us. The discussion arose because school had asked one of them to create a family tree showing country of origin of ancestors, as homework. The tree of necessity showed current generations. The child who did the homework was told by grandma that in fact two of the cousins were not her cousins.

Even though they were fairly young when all this happened, I felt very proud of their response, and their insistence that the children of their aunt are their cousins.

mathanxiety · 09/01/2016 19:34

Yes, Headofthehive, back in the time when all the aunts and uncles bought presents for all the family members in my ILs' family, we always bought gifts of the same calibre for all the children including the two who were brought into the family by their mother when she married BIL. First because they are children and it was Christmas, second because their half siblings were there receiving gifts and their much loved mother was also there, and third because there is absolutely no need to remind anyone, any time, that the children were not biologically related to BIL.

One of grandma's objections to the cousin's secret santa system we developed after deciding it was too much for everyone to get everyone else (14 adults and eventually 17 children) a gift was that BIL's two step children were included as full members. What a curmudgeon that woman was.

Headofthehive55 · 09/01/2016 19:56

I suppose you are wanting to decide its your child, or cousin, but don't we have names to distinguish these relationships? E.g. Step children? Unless they are adopted?

I think it must be difficult to expect your family to build a relationship with your stepchildren They may not wish to do so, and I don't think you can decide for other people how they must feel about other family members or indeed friends that you might be close to.

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