Family and ‘we’re only buying for the children now’

[NemophilistRebel]

Am I the only one who thinks you skinflint?

Family member who has 3 children which we have always bought for along with the parents decides as soon as we have first baby that now we have children (1) we can buy for children only at Christmas and birthdays.

So that’s years worth of buying for their 3 and them not having an issue, and now they just buy for one.

Is this typical with CF family members ?

Apart from the cost of having to buy something for Adults ,Its such a pain to think will Sue and John like this/have they got one like it ,hope they havent spent too much on us! We have only bought for DC for some time and likewise .YABU a bit I think

Prior to last Christmas my in-laws did Kris Kindle between the adults with a spending limit & we generally asked eachother what we wanted. My sis in law decided to scrap it. It makes sense in that family as all four siblings are very pragmatic rather than sentimental and my husband and his brother used to shake hands in lieu of gift vouchers.
From now on it’s kids only, one couple don’t have kids and I’m going to gift them a little something even separately to say thanks for spoiling the kids, just to acknowledge it.
Sounds awful but I often dread getting presents. I’m drowning in clutter so I really don’t need more stuff.

As a childless person i bloody hate the lets all just buy for the children rule sweeping through my family

If you try and object to it people think you are grabby (as explained above)

Slowly but surely every single group around me has done it, my friendship group, my cousins, my siblings. At christmas we used to get together and unwrap things together and feel a bit united. Now i buy many gifts and recieve nothing in return.

Often on christmas i may have been invited round but have to watch as the kids open presents, my sister and mother unwrap things from their spouses while i watch on. I had to fight to get an agreement i could buy my own parent's a gift. My sister said that it was too many to buy for and that its wasteful but i dont think realised the rule had meant I was made to feel awkward if i bought for any adult in my life, and while she might feel she gets enough gifts from her children, partner etc that others didnt get that. Whilst im sure for some people it does all seem a waste, there are people where they might have very little else

Its wasnt until i met dp that i realised how isolated that rule had made me feel.

Ultimately it wasnt about giving or recieving gifts, it was about feeling like i was being expected to have "grown out of" being a daughter, sister and friend and those relationships had been completely redefined as an aunt, godmother etc. That the adult relationships no longer mattered to people anymore and I was being left behind .
It meant there was no expressions of thoughtfulness, of i just saw this and thought youd love it, or lets do this together? It wasnt about the gift it was about feeling that i wasnt allowed to value my friends and wasnt thought of by them. Its similar when these days i get cards from the kids, (cute as they are) but no message from the parents who are friends of many years.

I completely understood it for my cousins group (even if that meant that i was buying 15+ gifts for occassionally someform of sympathy present eg a box of dairy milk from one couple) but it was hurtful when it was applied to my sibling groups, close friends etc.

YABU and grabby. Christmas isn't (or shouldn't be) a transactional swap shop where one household gives another £100 worth of unwanted tat in order to receive the equivalent value of unwanted tat in return. Presents should be given with love and for the mutual pleasure of the giver and receiver. Something given grudgingly or in expectation of getting an equivalent return isn't a present at all.

We have cut out presents for everyone but our adult D.C. and little kids. Christmas is so much happier and more relaxed now. We focus on a full house with good food, games, karaoke, lots of wine and fun. No one misses presents at all.

Out of interest was it someone with children that suggested this?

My DC are much younger than their many cousins and I suggested this to my siblings when my 2nd was born (I have 4). In theory I was the big loser as I’d bought their 14 cousins for the previous 20 years and now mine wouldn’t get so I thought it would be better coming from me as I had nothing to gain. My eldest DS called me later to say thanks and confess she used to lie awake at night worrying how to afford everything. It’s meant we can spend a little more on our own if we want to instead of filling each other’s homes with unwanted items.

Well, the end result is that you all have to buy fewer presents.

I suspect the family with the three kids would have liked to have stopped buying presents for adults years ago (I think loads of families don't buy gifts for adult siblings; pretty normal) but if they'd said 'Let's just buy for the children' when you didn't have any children, obviously that would looked terrible, because then you'd have been buying gifts and they'd had been buying nothing. But now you have kids it makes sense. They're not being CFs at all.

There is always going to be some disparity in gift-buying if one family is larger than the other. Not really sure what you expect them to do about that. My brother has to purchase one joint present for my household each year, because there's just me and my DP and we only do Christmas for the adults in my family, not birthdays. I have to buy seven Christmas presents and six birthday presents for his household each year. That's not actually anyone's fault. It's not like he had six kids to spite me.

This is really common and what we do in our family - we buy for child free adults and then for the kids of family who have them. It's been this way in my family for generations.

Only have one sibling but I usually send him a hamper or voucher. He's got 4 kids and buying 6 separate gifts would be crazy. I spend about 100 euro on a voucher. I always ask him for a lidl voucher for us.