AIBU to be annoyed by MIL gift

[Halle71]

I will precede this post by admitting that I am a bit OCD about our house after a 1.5 refurb, and my MIL and I have not always got on but we are ok now although my DH is a bit twitchy about us.

It's my DD's 7th birthday on Sunday and various packages have been arriving from Amazon for her from my MIL who lives in NZ. Today my DH told me that the main package is due today - a keyboard.
That's cool I think. Until he shows me the link. It's almost a metre wide with its own stool. Her room is in the loft with no free wall - bed, full length wardrobe, juliette balcony and chest of drawers so it would have to go somewhere else. Our house is big by London standards but not huge and we don't really have any spare place for it to go. Don't get me wrong, the new kitchen diner where we spend most of our time, is filled with toys, but they are tidied up at night and again, there is nowhere it can go neatly against a wall (I also think that these keyboards are ugly and she will get bored and it will just gather dust). The other packages are learning tools for it so she is expected to learn to play it properly. I told my DH that I'm not helping (we can barely fit homework and swimming lessons in the time we have available) and he said she can teach herself. If it was that easy piano teachers would be redundant!
It will also be the cause of endless arguments with her and my 3 year old DS yawn...
It sound overly dramatic but it is a present that will just make my life harder.

I'm pissed off that she didn't talk to us - I would have suggested a smaller, cheaper 'starter' keyboard that she could use at the dining table or office desk.
She also has 'form' for this - the trampoline that arrived unannounced for her 4th birthday when we were in our old house with its 15' garden - all 10' if it. Sat in our hall for 2 weeks waiting for Amazon to pick up. Oh, and they had been to our house so not like they were thinking NZ gardens.. And as for the crazy battery toy animals she insists on buying - we spent £11 on batteries for the bloody dog last week!
I get that she wants to give surprises but when it's something with practical implications I think it would be polite to check. My mum wouldn't dare do this

Keyboards can be just fun to play on though. You don't have to have lessons. I find it rather dad that no-one in the family seems to have half and hour now and then to spend time with this girl though and that her younger sibling or the housework take priority. My dad taught all of us to play the recorder.
If she's keen surely one of you could entertain the small sprog for a while whilst she plays with it. I don't see why playing the keyboard would be different to any other hobby she might have.
The smaller child needs to be taught that his older sister gets her own space. Yes little kids want to do everything older kids do but they need to be told they can't. The same applies for tiny tots wanting to "play" with an older child's complex lego figures that they are building. When the weather's nice you could take the small sprog to the park if you find stopping him ruining his sister's leisure time that difficult.

She's a MIL. Comes with the territory. It's amazing what you can find room for though. If your DD loves it, let her work out where it can go. End of the bed maybe?

Has anyone suggested getting earphones for your dd to wear whilst playing it?
Those keyboards can be quite loud and when you hear her press all the tempo and demo tune buttons for the hundredth time, you may want to throw it out of the nearest window.

Yanbu, or at least not very. Id be a bit miffed with the keyboard. Music lessons and instruments are usually selected according to what a child wants to learn, and availability of good, reasonable lessons through school - at least initially.
To foist a keyboard (which in our bitter experience will gather dust) is a tad off the mark unless MiL happens to know there's a great teacher at the kids' school. I'm sure MiL had the best intentions, but it's not how it works. My kids learned brass instruments because there was an excellent brass teacher at school. We foolishly bought a keyboard thinking it would augment and help them. It didn't! And the trampoline was obv generous, but not well
Thought through!

I have a similar (well, probably smaller) London home, and I've had some hilariously sized family presents (massive pirates ship being my current favourite which we got a month or so ago). But I make homes for things, see if they get played with, and if they don't recycle them to other friends - very very occasionally sell. I think a keyboard is a lovely present. See if she likes it, then decide?

Slightly different, but go with the logic....DD's grandparents are all a bit elderly and not so brilliant at choosing age-appropriate presents. They base all their decisions on their experiences and "world" (so huge gardens, huge houses, perfect weather in their rose-tined glasses).

They all live in the country, we are in a (small) city, so now they give her "IOU's for riding lessons". It is something that would be a complete PITA to do from where we live (and to fit in) but we sort them for visits back home/holidays and make sure to take lots of photos/phone movies and get DD to chat about them. Yes, they still buy a bit of stuff, but it is at pocket-money prices and usually appreciated by all of us.

DD's school do "taster" music lessons and there seem to be lots of holiday music activities available for the price of "grandparent birthday money". Could you give her a big "steer" for Christmas?

Or maybe she IS just being passive aggressive.....the former approach will help you!

Good luck!

I think it gets harder as the kids get older, for GPS to know what to buy. My Mam always wants to get stuff that's slightly educational, binoculars, telescope, her hearts in the right place I'm sure.

I don't think there's a PoV left to say here but I think you need to wake up to the fact that you have two different children with different interests and needs. The gift was for your daughter and it's hers. If DS want to bang around on it you can buy him a small cheapo for about £10.

Her room is in the loft with no free wall - bed, full length wardrobe, juliette balcony and chest of drawers

Well, it'll prop up in the side of the wardrobe, then, won't it, or lie on the bottom?

A 1-metre keyboard isn't a 3-metre trampoline!

I disagree. Another keyboard would add to the clutter, and I can't see why they couldn't take turns if the youngest is interested.

Bastard, I remember feeling distinctly lukewarm when my grandparents gave me a microscope. It ended up being one of my favourite things! I was really upset when, years later, it got broken.

The youngest can have a (very supervised) go when the eldest is at school. Or she can be given a tambourine to bang in time to the music or something.

I can see where you're coming from OP, and I feel for you! What a nightmare! What will she send next?

However.....have you spoken to your DD about whether she might like to learn the keyboard? If your uncle had spent time with a keyboard instead of a guitar do you think you might feel a little differently about the choice of instrument?

But on the bright side, at least she didn't send a piano!!!!!

Yes Garlic my ds was clearly 'meh' when she gave him a set of tracker books, all different... fungus and flowers, bugs and insects, birds etc, he loves them now, and is always looking things up 😊

I get where you are coming from. My mum bought my son a keyboard for Xmas as a surprise and it's that sort of size too.
Luckily we have a playroom so it went up there on top of a long low storage unit.

The antique electrified dolls house for my then 2yo was slightly more annoying tho - it's the size of a small playhouse and dd was warned not to 'break any of the antique furniture'

Sorry haven't read the full thread. I do understand, my late MIL had form for buying big unwanted presents but a keyboard is a good thing for kids to have a go on. I don't know if its national but round here they all do keyboard in senior school and knowing a bit about music will be a big advantage. My DD started keyboard lessons at 3 and a parent had to go as well. I was a great asset to the class as I knew absolutely nothing about music and the kids all progressed more quickly than I did, they loved it as they were all confident that they would be the class failure as that was my role. It was fun, obviously they got older and parents didn't have to attend so my progress stopped but I do understand a bit about music which was a bonus. You can get tutorials online now, my grandson who is a year older than your daughter is teaching himself, his progress is slow but he loves it.

My DD is a teacher now and has had to cover for music teacher a few times, she said trying to cope with 30 kids who hadn't got a clue was a nightmare so if one or two knew the basics they were stars.

Her keyboard used to stand up in a corner of the dining room and didn't take up much space if we needed the space but to be honest she played it such alot it was usually set up on its stand.

Like I said I understand how you feel but it might be worth giving it a go.

2rebecca
The most insulting comment of all!

"I find it odd that no one spends half an hour with this child and prioritises her sibling and housework. WTF?"

During the week I either get home too late to do anything other than bath and bed, and the two nights I finish early she has clubs. When we go on days out/ to the park/bike riding/meals out it's generally with her friends and their families not DS', we watch her at more clubs than we do him, I spend a lot of time with her reading and doing homework. I am on her PTA not my son's nursery committee (although we are helping with their allotment on Saturday).
And as for housework - if you count putting food on the table and having clean clothes for work/school then yes, guilty as charged, but as for general cleaning, I leave the majority to the cleaner (boasting alert).

Anything extra would have to be at the expense of something we already do, or my minimal downtime (although this is usually after bed time).

I'm going to let her have it without stand/stool and the keyboard bag is a brilliant idea for storage, but I don't want to be involved with teaching her. Shit mum or not I just don't have the time or inclination. We can't all be perfect

But I'm sure she will survive.

Purplehonesty, my daughter's dolls house was much more of a nuisance. I can't blame MIL as my husband built it. It became a huge project and I think he forgot it was supposed to be her present not his! She has now left home and her trusty keyboard has gone with her, I am still stuck with the bloody dolls house as DH can't bear to part with it so there it sits on the landing looking at me and gathering dust. I keep suggesting it would be lovely for the children's ward at the local hospital but I haven't quite persuaded him.

Halle71, she will survive and as she gets older she might learn at school or online. I hope she enjoys it and it doesn't drive you completely mad. Headphones are a good idea.

Our son's godfather buys him random gifts like this. Goes on amazon, thinks "wow, cool! I'd have loved that!" and buys it. Most of the gifts are loved for a week or a month and then passed on. The keyboard moved from the middle of the floor to under the bed to onto the wardrobe to the garage to some friends. You really don't have to put any effort into this.

God, I completely understand where you are coming from.

I love my mum but she has already started buying presents for xmas this year and when she tells me I sigh inwardly.

She is desperate to buy my 1 year old some kind of electric car/ ride on toy thing but I have no where to put one and nowhere to use it safely, I suspect DD will end up with one quite soon though!! It will just gather dust which is a real shame.

OP, I'm so much moanier than you are -we'd finally had the bathroom redone after living with a mouldy wall for four years and I'd spent at least 20 hours painting, listening to Mayo and Kermode's film reviews until 3am for several nights in a row before getting up at 7am to go to work, such was my desperation to get it looking all lovely. Finished it the day before PILs arrive and day 2 of their visit they present us with a stand alone shaving mirror, probably inoffensive to most but I was fizzing . DH was

It's still there.

I do get it though. I live in an awkward house, spatial arrangements are a big issue. The piano fits on one side of the fireplace but not the other because of the cable point. I've had a shelf cut back to allow DD's bed to fit. If I was in your position I'd have to lie down in a darkened room with a packet of frozen peas on my head.

This is all about your relationship with MIL and not to do with the size of your house or time available to support another activity. That's a rationalisation. However, I DO sympathise! I also had a MIL who imposed her ideas on us without apparent thought or consultation. My advice is to let things take their course. If your DD loves the keyboard I think you will find the space in your house and your life, if not, you won't, and Ma-in-Law will probably have moved on to the next thing.

You are being very unreasonable! I have a tiny house but I have managed to fit a piano. Music lessons are one of the best things you can do for a child.