Can't stop mother bringing stuff and it's making me crazy

[Mumindenial]

My mother cannot visit us without bringing toys, clothes and/or food. My OD is 4 1/2 and my YD has just turned 2. She always has toys - substantial ones like Barbie dolls as well as cheap tat, fancy dresses or socks or underwear, and really random food like packs of croissants, biscuits, chocolate, fruit, even meat.

She has been doing this for years and I have tried every approach to ask her to stop, or at least ask me first. The worst thing is, she will show my girls whatever she has brought, then say "ask mummy if you can have this", therefore making me the bad guy if I say no, especially if it's sweets or a toy.

She even leaves things around the house for us to find, e.g. There was a random minion figure (really small, as if from a kinder egg) by the bed in the spare room. She regularly sneaks food into the fridge, which I find days after she's been and it either goes to waste, or forces me to waste other food I already had. One time she hung a very tacky plastic bath toy bag over the side of my bathtub. The other week she left a few of those food saver clips into my kitchen drawer (I have loads and loads already).

It is beyond frustrating and I have explained that it's unacceptable for a number of reasons, including: we don't have room for all the stuff she brings, the house is filling up with crap, DDs have got to a point where they expect something when people walk through the door, which I can't stand, it forces me to be the bad guy, it disrespects me as a parent as she's goes directly against my wishes. I feel that she does it to be liked, but it obviously pisses me off so I don't understand why she does it.

She comes to visit every week, so it's a real problem.

AIBU? Should I just shut up and accept, or am I right to stand my ground and continue to object? I am absolutely incapable of keeping a poker face or lying, even if it's to be nice. So the former would be a challenge...

Ask her if when she visits she wants her grandchildren to look at her face or her hands when they greet her.

She setting a precedent that could potentially lead to the kids expecting something every time, being seen as ungrateful if they don't react excitedly (as they get older and more discerning they won't be as thrilled by it as they are now) and they won't love her any more for it.

Tell her it's her time you want, you've been brought up well to provide for your children yourself. If you need her material help you'll ask her, but in the meantime just want to enjoy doing stuff with her. Get board games out, have her help the kids with their homework/reading whatever. All of this business if going to cloud your kids memories of her. Reassure her she has a place in your home that she doesn't have to buy with stuff. And ship the crap out to the charity shop. This tactic worked with my MIL who'd lived through the war and was determined to give my kids all the sugar, toys, etc she went without as a mum during rationing.

The charity shop is not my friend - that's where half the stuff comes from (to be fair, Dmil has a good eye, it's just the volume)
Dmil has a phrase 'I couldn't leave it there' which is quite telling, I believe these are her issues about getting stuff, rather than a desire to help, even if she doesn't know it herself. Probably the same thinking that leads others to fill their cupboards with Jimmy Choos...

My MIL did this, when we explained we didn't have space for it all she started buying boxes or bags to store things in. She would say, "Don't worry it has a box to keep it in." One year my husband told her he was buying her an elephant for her birthday. He kept a very straight face and was very convincing as she laughed nervously. He said "You have always loved elephants so I think you should have one." Eventually she said she just didn't have room for an elephant. My husband replied, "Don't worry, I will buy a box for you to keep it in."

The penny dropped and she stopped the buying.

I managed to get my DM to bring cash treats for DS by repeatedly saying we had enough of XY&Z but he liked money for his savings account. I was fed up in particular with truly awful designer baby / toddler - small child clothing

Still tends to bring random food items like big frozen lumps of meat all the way on the train for two hours

If you go over to the housekeeping topic there's a poster called daughterdrowninginjunk with a thread called I'm the one whose replies are filling up the house with junk.

This woman literally cannot move in her own home. It's not the thought that counts because in her case it's about her mother controlling her. She has gone LC with her mother to stop the flow of junk.

omg she sounds like my mother . except with my mother now its JUST food and its SHIT food. my cupboards are full of cheapo biscuits and sugar filled monstrosities. It mostly gets thrown away and thats not because im sttict its just thetes so much of it .

i might take the advice of domeone upthread and say can she bring fruit instead. Things like cherries etc that we generally can't afford.

Things like toilet rolls and dishwasher tablets (over and above what you can use yourself) as well as non-perishable in-date food could be donated to a food bank.

But I do get that it then becomes a job a busy parent has to do and you have to store everything or have it in bags clogging up the hallway until you have time to move it.

Freecycle is also good for offloading unwanted stuff, as is Streetlife if you have one in your area. The advantage there is that people come and pick it up from you

daughterdrowninginjunk has posted on this thread, redexpat.

Havent read the whole thread but....Wow sounds like my mum, but shes now only started bringing toys sweets for a couple of my kids and not all so she shows favouritism which is worse!

I feel your pain. I wish my mother wouldn't waste money on presents. I wish she would save it for herself, or put the money into a university fund, or theatre tickets or something instead. Our children have so many toys.

Things I have tried:

• One in, one out rule.

• Taking stuff they don't play with/duplicates to the charity shop.

She became upset. My objection was that these toys were a triple duplicate of toys she had already given us. They were form a charity shop so I couldn't get a refund. I checked my dsis didn't want them, and then took them to another charity shop.

• Directing her help to something more useful - socks and hairbands. You can never have too many, so that is working better and children just as happy.

Christmas is a nightmare. Children get so many clothes and toys that we don't feel we can buy our own dc anything. The IL get the children 1 present each at xmas.

Last year DD (who is not Dudley Dursley usually) said to my in-laws: "Huh. You haven't given us many presents. Gg and Gd always give us loads..."
I was so embarrassed, and I've warning my DM this would happen for years.

In our case the underlying psychological reason may be that they didn't have much money as children - they spoilt us at xmas too - and there's some weird competition with my much richer in laws (who ironically wouldn't notice and just buy 1 present anyway, they think what our dc get is crazy).

YANBU at all.

I've said on another similar thread that my DM would have a little present for DS each time we visited, but when I pointed out to her that he'd begin to expect a present every time he saw her and I didn't want that, she stopped. She switched to buying DS, and DD once she arrived, clothes intermittently, and lots of stocking tat as well as a present at Christmas, which they were both happy with. Shame for DD that she was only three when DM died as DM was her main source of pink clothing. LOL!

To be fair to my DM, she was disabled by the time the kids came along and couldn't do things with them, which she'd have preferred, so she compensated by buying stuff, but she still had the sense to moderate and adapt once I'd pointed out the pitfalls.

PILs over the years has always bought the kids three or four presents for birthdays and Christmas when one would have done, so they have so much stuff they have no space in their rooms to play with it. Things have improved as they've got older and what they want is smaller, but no amount of talking to them changed things, which was very frustrating.

For all of you who have pointed out the pitfalls and yet it still continues, I hope you all find a solution.

Ah yes! My MIL is a feeder... Only utter crap mind. Usually the 3 for a £1 sweetie bags from a well known supermarket. I don't mind the occasional bag but it's usually at least 3 or 4! The record is 7 at one time! 7 bags of sweets!!! He has just turned 5. I am now at the stage of making increasingly pointed jokes about the state his teeth would be in if he ate all of this plus pointing out that we still have at least 6 bags of sweets left in the cupboard! The sad thing is, it's her time he wants not the sweets... He genuinely isn't that bothered about them but she doesn't see that.

My Gran used to bring stuff every time she visited, but only for me - she was a seamstress & would make doll's clothes with the scraps.

My brother would ask as a toddler "what have you got in your bag today Gran?"

"Nothing, Darling"

Mum asked her to bring for both or not at all.

I also could have written this and have come to the conclusion that thats what nannys are there for my children love their nanny mostly for the time she spends with them tho the tat is an extra they love her and the patience she has with them to slow down and see what they see and make it magic I would not change it for the world.

Another one with a mil the same.
I am sure that had I still had a Mum she would have been the same, but my Dad was presents for birthday & xmas (just one present each time), easter egg and maybe a small souvenir (postcard, badge) if he had been on holiday.

Even though he has Special Needs my son soon learned that Grandad didn't keep buying him stuff and he didn't ever pester for it. BUT he still loved seeing Grandad just as much because Grandad would actually play with him!!

The main feeling I get when reading all of the posts, is that I'm so glad I am not alone.
My mother is like this. I do think it's a form of control. In her case, it's also a form of a weird type of affection-showing. She;s not good at showing me affection in the normal mother-daughter way, so she brings stuff instead.
Now she mainly brings stuff for DD.
Usually it's large and doesn't fit into our tiny flat.
When DD stays at theirs, she always returns home with a new toy.
The rule is: new toys are fine, but they stay at granny and grandpa's house.
I have taken toys over there for them to store, saying that I have no space (which is true, but I also want to make a point).
It's tiring when they don't listen....but my mother will never change.

I wish I could stop Mil bringing stuff round. We don't even have DCs, but we get a constant stream of food, crockery, ornaments, sheets and towels which we don't even like and just general tat.

I've told her nicely that we don't have room for all this stuff, so she started giving it to DH when I wasn't around. I told him not to accept it, which he tried, and she got angry, shouty and started crying when he tried to knock back a coffee machine, food mixer and set of cooking dishes that she'd randomly bought for us. Honestly, I despair. DH has told her as well that we don't need the stuff and please stop buying it, but she can't seem to stop herself.

My mother does this. She has a love of tat from the B&M store. She will prop up a couple of novelty scarecrows in the front garden. I notice she has put two plastic tortoises on the outside window ledge of my lounge.
She buys tinned goods and puts them in my cupboard.
I keep a good stock of stuff, and the other day went to get out a couple of cans of tomatoes. i knew in the back of my mind that the cupboard was full, and tinned tomatoes are something i use a lot of, so bound to have a supply. But no, not one single can of tomatoes,
But 27 cans of beans! We hardly ever eat tinned beans.
Soap too is a bug bear. She will buy a new bar and throw out the one on the sink to replace it.
Ihaven't bought a bar of soap myself for 20 years. I would be nice to choose for myself sometimes.
My mother loves buying stuff.

My gran used to do this- we couldn't visit her (as adults) without her sending us home with bags of wine gums, tea bags, random cheap jewellery, boxes and boxes of tea cakes, despite us telling her we didn't need/want them. If we said we liked something once, we would be bought it in bulk for years. She died 2 years ago and now I long for those boxes of tea cakes! She just loved buying stuff for us, her way of showing she cared.

I have to hold my hands up and say I'm like your mother. But so are all of my family and my closest friends so I guess it's a bit different for us. My friends have keys to my house (have done ever since we lived together in college) and so do my folks and I frequently come home to find bottles of wine in my fridge, or a note saying my bro was taking his dog out and picked mine up on the way. Likewise I never go to someone's house - not even my own mothers, without something in my hands. I guess it's just the way we are.

But I do admit that if you aren't like that yourself that it can be annoying and awkward - especially if it's sweets and toys and stuff and so I can totally understand where you are coming from with this.

My only advice woudl be to say, quietly, to her that it's fine once in a while, but you don't want your kids to come to expect it every time because you don't want them spoiled.

I think sometimes grandparents especially tend to dote on the kids so much that they don't realise they are doing things like this.

I haven't read the full thread but I had this with my Mil.
It came to a head some months ago when I specifically asked her not to on a particular occasion with notice and she ignored me.
Resulted in a heated discussion between us but it's not happened since and won't.
I feel too strongly that I don't want my kids expecting presents all the time to let it go plus it caused tension on the other side of the family as mil just took over every bday and xmas.

Are you me? My mum is the exact same and when we visit hers we can never come away without a plastic bag full of crap.

YABU I know it's annoying and my DM did this but now she's no longer with us I would do anything to have her walk through the door with all the random bits and bobs.

I know it's not a solution, but I'm sure a lot of food banks would appreciate any sugary foods as treats are rarely donated...