To find this frustrating.. fair kids xmas gifts

[thefinn]

So DH and I are childless however we have loads of lovely nieces and nephews from his side of the family. My dh is already tired of buying for the children, I personally am not (we get nothing in return which is a nonissue for me) however BIL and SIL insist that same exact amount is spent on all their 3 dc. One of the dc, the oldest is saving whereas the younger two wanted special items. AIBU or would we be not to top up the cash gifts for the other two to exactly match the eldest childs cash? The difference is like 50/35/35... I am ill and we can't really come up with anything extra. Christmas eve is the main day here. The inlaws are the type of people to check the exact value. The entire reason for me not to automatically do as demanded is mumset. I think I am being nice to them and that this should not be a problem.

All this fairness stuff drives me crazy...If I pair up the youngest with my ds that is wrong too as he is just a baby!! he should be left behind so I can take the 3 girls in my sil view
I don't think making the older ones do something the younger ones can do is necessarily fair though, so fairness isn't the issue.

If your son is 4 and dn 5 then other dn is 8 and DD 9 (for example) then it's totally appropriate to not include them all Inn the same stuff.
if you take the oldest to the theatre twice a year, ice skaing at Christmas, the cinema once a month and you do nothing with the younger ones then no, I don't thinks that's fair on either of the little ones but I think treating them all to stuff but different stuff is fine

Oh my god Bruce. there went the relief that gifts were sorted
Luckily Bruce is chill about gifts and budgets

Too late now but it was the perfect time to mention that to 'be fair' they should be spending the same amount on you

We only ever got £50 for 18th birthdays... all the others were £20

If you think £35 is an odd amount then give £40 or $30 whichever is closest to what you have spent on the others. It's not like you will be giving £33.95 or whatever the exact cost of the other presents anyway.

*£30, hit the wrong key

@thefinn wow thats rough, my Dsis buys for me DH and DD so i always buy her what she asks for (around £20) and give a gift card so its equal as she has no DC... id never allow for her to buy for DD and us not buy her something in return, the rest of us just buy for each others kids.

I only have one child but I I had more I would never insist the value is exactly the same. It is really hard to do that. You just need up with presents that aren’t really needed to fill the gap. It is very wasteful.

Your BIL and SIL are cheeky fuckers who shouldn’t be insisting anything. As long as one child isn’t getting a big box present and the other a selection box there is no issue. A child wants what they want and they mya not even realise something doesn’t cost a lot.

My mum’s a bit obsessed with making all the grandchildren the same, I always tell her not to worry. They all get plenty. It makes sense to me that older children may have more expensive presents for example, a younger child often has toys that look more for the money.

@sleepingstandingup exactly! They are 6,7, 10 &11. SIL believes the 7yr old must be included with the 10/11yr olds. For example on cinema trips. 2 weekends about a month apart, 2 different (age appropriate) films. Because the older ones film came first dn11 wasn't allowed to go without her younger sister. (Actually they still expected me to take dn7 to second film too as I recall - because she wants to see it!) Never mind the fact that I didn't want to take 4 kids out together! Needless to say I take DC friends out these days rather than dn's which is a shame.

Hopefully the ILs are just trying to make things fair (rather than being CFs), but I think they are getting this wrong - a 3 year old doesn't need the same amount of money spending on them as an 11 year old. My kids have a 4 year age gap and youngest was always told that he'd get xx type present when he was old enough for it and that it'd all balance out and be fair overall, over all the years.

Some years youngest has had more spent on him and some years eldest has - it's an impossible job to keep the amounts identical as they have different needs at different ages.

Thanks all and sorry to hear about similar problems. When we take their kids somewhere it also has to be them all which makes it tricky. They do take the fairness bit very seriously and my DH might think they're cfs. His other siblings aren't like this and it's easier all around.