To object to M-i-L's gift?

[SharpLily]

To get it out of the way, my M-i-L is a horrible controlling, manipulative woman. Huge family resentments surround her but my husband, although he doesn't like her or enjoy her company, is a dutiful son and prefers to ignore all of it. I don't want to make him upset or uncomfortable so I keep my opinion of her to myself and do my best to remain civil.

Before Christmas, M-i-L called me to ask what Christmas presents would be good for our four year old daughter (M-i-L has eight grandchildren but because all her other kids and stepdaughter hate her, our daughter is the only one she has access to and so she tends to spoil her. Fair enough.). M-i-L said she'd seen some bed covers she liked.

At this point I said that sounds lovely but please not bed covers - I explained politely but clearly that for various complicated reasons my husband and I have not yet been able to make a nice bedroom of her own for our daughter but we are currently in the middle of reforming the house and soon she will have her own lovely bedroom for the first time - this bit M-i-L knows. I told her that we had been looking forward to doing this for a long time and had promised our daughter she could choose her own things (from an edited selection!). I explained that she is excited about her bedroom, we had looked through Pinterest together and she had shown us how she would like her room to look and we had all agreed to make her room look like this.

Cut to Christmas Day and what has M-i-l bought? Fucking bed covers.

They don't at all go with the style of room being planned. They're very nice and good quality but they're just not what we've been looking at and planning for so long. I hate waste however and am gnashing my teeth at the thought of just giving them away or of having to keep them to use them just when M-i-L visits. I'm just really annoyed that she she ignored our clear wishes just because she had to do things her way. Am I being precious or is she a cow?

A weird thread. Why do so many people 'hate' your daughter? Sounds very extreme.

Many years ago someone told me they didn't like Bailey's and I bought them Bailey's because that had stuck in my mind. It happens. I was sorry but forgiven because the person LIKED ME. With something like Bailey's it can be re-given so not a big deal.

You are being a bit OTT. Next year write things down and give to those who are going to give!

Still don't understand how many people 'hate' your child, doesn't seem real.

How can your MIL be closer in age to you than your husband is? How did she manage to give birth to him and be younger than him?

@FenellasRedVelvetDress , that's quite simple. The DH could be 25, the OP could be 40 and the MIL could be 45

Do people really make such dramas out of nothing? As for a four year old sleeping in a cot - sounds like neglect to me.

focus on getting your daughters bedroom ready for her pronto. She is 4 years old and still sleeping in a COT jammed next to your bed?? That must be too small for her - she needs a bed FGS! And what are you going to do when the baby comes in 6 weeks? Jam it in the cot with her??

Er, thanks, we are aware of this and it was not by choice! We are sleeping in the dining room and believe me if there were anywhere to put a bed, we would! She actually still has plenty of room in the cot but we are still doing our best to get her out of it. Do you think we would have actively chosen for our four year old to not have her own bedroom?!!!

A weird thread. Why do so many people 'hate' your daughter? Sounds very extreme.
What? Where have I said anyone hates my daughter? What are you on about? I know you hear about people not reading the thread properly but this is next level nonsense.

As for a four year old sleeping in a cot - sounds like neglect to me.
How dare you? My daughter is absolutely not neglected! She is very well loved and cared for! Since when does not having a lot of room at home translate to neglect?!

How can your MIL be closer in age to you than your husband is? How did she manage to give birth to him and be younger than him?
Er, she's not younger than him. He's younger than me and she had him when she was young.

No, thats not a valid excuse to behave like an ungrateful twat.
So to be upset that someone bought something they were asked not to buy because it was something special to my husband and me is ungrateful now.

Haven’t rtft but I would just keep them as spares. A four year old sleeping in a cot isn’t neglect that’s just a ridiculous statement.
Op put them on take a picture to show mil then put away and only use them if you need them.

Considering your DD is the only grandchild she buys for, a duvet set is a really crap present! 😅 I would sell it/give away or try and take it back to the shop for a credit note.

Jill Murphy and the 'Large' family are pretty standard story books in our schools in the UK.

@SharpLily I am a fan of Jill Murphy’s Worst Witch but it doesn’t sound as though the elephant books have dated well.

As a member of the children’s literary establishment I give you permission to retire them from circulation.

The answer to your original question was that MIL bought the items so that she could tell you you were wrong to do things the way you were. And that’s succeeded beautifully with other people on thread proxying for her.

I think eBay’s the best option. I bet you give to the orphanage anyway and they’re the wrong size so annoying for anyone. And when she asks what happened to them say “I can’t remember” and don’t engage any further.

His mother is so horrible that all of her other children have cut contact. He has worse boundaries than his siblings. He is still in contact.

You are desperate to avoid her kicking off because it will end up with him cutting contact with her too and that will make him feel sad. Therefore you have to lower your normal boundaries and avoid normal behaviours and this enrages you.

How about instead of lowering your boundaries, you keep them in the right place, you behave normally. As you well know normal would be either (1) ebay the sheets, say nothing about it unless asked, if asked say "they didn't fit and didn't suit the room, just like I told you, so we sold them on and bought x instead"
(2) return them to her saying the same, suggesting she gets a refund and saying the other presents were more than enough anyway.

Lowering your standards to help your DH maintain a fiction that his mum isn't awful does not help him or your growing family in the long run. Be normal. If she is weird she is weird. It is sad to have a bad parent. Appeasing to hide the badness does not end well.

Better sort out your hoarding tendencies asap too because your house will become an absolute tip as your children grow up and become tat attractors if you don't.

She called my 13 year old a "slut" because she liked to experiment with makeup (in her own bedroom)

Would never see any of my children again! No joke.

Who is being dramatic now?

How can your MIL be closer in age to you than your husband is? How did she manage to give birth to him and be younger than him?

Massive LOL here. Women don't have to be younger than their husbands

Oops "Who is being dramatic now?" was responding to this.

Do people really make such dramas out of nothing? As for a four year old sleeping in a cot - sounds like neglect to me.

Hey OP what if you keep them and use them when MIl visits so she can see how awful they are with the new decor?

When dd has a whine about wanting the nice duvet you can feel quietly smug

Either keep them as spare/use for picnic blankets/make curtains from them or give them away/sell them. I really wouldn't devote much time to worrying about the bedding.

Oh and weren't the Large family books written decades ago? Sure I remember them in the 1980s at least though DS had the full set around 10 years ago and loved them.

It's bed covers. Stick them.in cupboard and forget about them

Honestly, I can't see why you're even asking. She got a bunch of gifts, one was inappropriate, just give it away/charity shop etc. Job done. You already know what she's like, so don't give it any more headspace (or house space!).

And the poster saying it's neglect to put a child in a cot is insane. If the child still fits it's no different to a bed, and the OP was clear it was an unfortunate situation and not through choice, so it's cruel to berate her.

Plenty of cots are designed to be a bed too. I highly doubt the OP is folding her dd in half and jamming her in a Moses basket size cot!

It’s nothing to do with the actual present, it’s the fact that you’ve not been listened to or blatantly ignored. That’s why you’re so pissed off. My mum is a kindly soul but she cannot help herself when it comes to gifts. Every Xmas she asks what we would like, every year I reply vouchers for a certain shop. But she cannot bear just to buy us vouchers without giving us something else. So this year DH gets the most hideous tie ever (and he never wears a tie) and I get a scarf that is just not to my taste and has a strange odour. I now try to emotionally distance myself from the gifts as she’ll never change.

She probably bought the bedding as she realises a 4 year old in a cot down the side of your bed is ridiculous and is giving you a gentle nudge to get your dd in a proper bed.

If MIL lives 6 hours away and won't be seeing the sheets on the bed anyway, then give them to charity and be done with it. You're making a mountain out of a molehill here OP.

Maybe she's given them to you because she thinks that might get you to put your daughter in an appropriately sized bed instead of a cot. You need to get your priorities in order.

MIL buys DD lots of clothing that I absolutely hate. I just think it's nice that someone out there loves her and is thinking about her and choosing gifts for her. DD has very different tastes to me and is closer in taste to her gran, so I just let her wear the tacky clothes and grit my teeth.

DD's cotbed was that same size as a toddler bed, maybe marginally shorter, so I'm sure the cot is ample size for her. She's small for her age and was in her Moses basket until six months because we couldn't fit a cot in our room. We had a few raised eyebrows, but she had plenty of room and it was perfect in every way.😉

Just to add, I know what it's like to deal with a difficult family member, but it's difficult to explain to other people based on a few isolated incidents.

Maybe she's given them to you because she thinks that might get you to put your daughter in an appropriately sized bed instead of a cot. You need to get your priorities in order.

Our priorities are in order, M-i-L knows perfectly well what our situation is and that we are doing something about it, which is why a conversation about bedding came up in the first place - I have already made it clear how important it is to us to give her a bedroom but carrying on bitching, why not?

Every penny and every minute we have for the last four years has gone on making us a house after losing our home, future and everything we had to flooding when she was two months old. As I said, this is not how we chose to live and we are making the best of it that we can. I hope the same never happens to you and if it does, I hope you don't get such bitchy comments about neglecting your child, FFS. If it makes you feel any better, our daughter's bedroom floor was screeded yesterday afternoon, we are getting there. She should be in a bedroom and a proper bed by February.

You know why she sent them (it's there in the start of your OP, where you describe what she is like)

You can decide to let this bother you, or you can decide to not gibe it a second thought and move on. Use them or give them away to someone who needs them, but don't let her "win" by it taking up so much head space