A goat!! Aibu?

[Afrigginggoat]

My kids are 19,17 and 13. A close family member usually gives them £10 each or a book gift card for Christmas, sometimes a little gift. They buy for us too. This year they bought presents for dh and I and envelopes for the kids.

When opened they contained a sponsored goat, mosquito nets and a toilet.

Aibu to think you do this for adults who don't need gifts not for younger people who appreciate a bit of a gift? FWIW my kids have active social consciences and were actually very nice about it, they don't mind. But I mind. The relative has plenty of money and time but has a reputation for being selfish and I feel this year he's taken it out on my kids, he couldn't be bothered so he gave them a frigging goat!
Aibu?

I agree with you op. On the plus side, your DC sound very polite.

To be honest our kids have been so thoroughly spoiled by extended family, I considered taking half their gifts to a refuge on Christmas Eve. I would be happy for them to get something like this. That being said, you know your own family members and their motivations. If you think the relative was doing it for the wrong reasons then I can understand you being irritated

I think it’s a great way of teaching young people that what is very little money to them means a great deal more to the less fortunate. I mean seriously, which teenager these days would appreciate a tenner?? And the ‘kids don’t mind’ but you do? YABTU

Totally unreasonable. The young people would, undoubtedly have plenty. No harm in going without an additional eye makeup pallet to understand there are those less fortunate.
Enough excess at Christmas already.

@violinrosa yes I'm sure the chairman of that charity, on his £100k salary, makes sure that some goats get shipped out to families somewhere. He's got to justify that massive pay packet after all.

Personally if someone is going to donate to charity on my behalf I'd be delighted - if it was to a charity of my choice. I prefer to support small local charities, food banks, homeless shelter, women's refuge, the local hospice - not multi million pound charities that have often been proved to cause more problems than they solve with this fad of "donating" livestock.

@CherryPavlova, crosspost and you even used the same wording!

YANBU The goat thing is very passive aggressive.

What did you and your children buy for them op?

@CoffeeCoinnesseur I think as the person is donating their own money, it is (and should be) their choice. They are not obliged to donate OR give gifts to anyone so why should they not do as they see fit? And by the way, any registered charity can be checked out under the Charity Commission as to how they spend their funds.

I know what you mean OP. It's sort of like virtue signalling but using someone else's gift! I mean...if HE wants to sponsor a goat then great! If your kids had ASKED for a goat...great!

But they didn't! It's weird. It's like saying "You're spoiled Western children...have this and be grateful!"

@TooleyVanDooley WTAF? Passive aggressive? What a load of tosh!

Get over your attitude of entitlement, people! Good point @AdobeWanKenobi, I’m waiting with baited breath for the answer.

I think they are great presents.

My 21 year old has received a few of these over the last few years, and has always welcomed them.

The gesture was nice enough and we do live in a consumer driven society , however, I do have a problem with giving goats. Goat giving became very popular a few years ago until it became apparent that so many goats were left to die as there wasn’t enough food for them. Not surprising as there wasn’t enough food for the local population.
Maybe ask the children which charities they would prefer their gift to go to and suggest this for next time.

@SoTiredTonight if anyone wants to donate their own money to a charity of their own choice then they should crack on.

But don't pretend it's a gift for someone else. That's just virtue signalling.

I'm aware of how to check out registered charities spending (or not), I do that carefully before making my own choices, as everyone should, it's quite an eye opener as to where your money doesn't go, but thanks for that though.

Yanbu at all.
It’s the gift giver stealing someone else’s money/ present and giving it to a charity of their choice to make them feel virtuous.
It’s lovely if the receiver has asked for it.
If the gift giver is so keen to give to charity he/she should have asked for donations instead of presents for him/herself but I bet they didn’t because they would be forgoing something then.

reminds me of friends when chandler give out donation gifts-well he did just walk out of his job

I would prefer if these charity goat givers would contact family and request it as their gift, rather than doing no shopping and thought. But... did you buy him any gifts?

YANBU at all. He can ask for charity gifts in lieu of his own gifts but don’t pretend it’s a gift for someone else because it’s not.

Charity giving is very personal, not everyone supports every charity or agrees with them.

I agree it is virtue signalling at its finest.
It's very "look at me, I gifted you a goat which is going to someone else, aren't I fantastic?"

But the reality is that donating livestock causes more problems than it solves a lot of the time.
They're giving people who can't afford to feed themselves an animal... Who needs feeding... And caring for... And how are they supposed to do that with no food and no money?

YABU. I think it was a cute and thoughtful gift. Personally l would prefer it to more tut lying round the house

Well hopefully a family living in poverty somewhere is tucking into a lovely dinner of spit-roasted goat tonight.

EL888 that’s fine- request it next year but that is not what happened in the OP is it?

Looking at the pile of cardboard waiting to be recycled from the packaging of the gifts my kids family have bought them I'd be bloody grateful if they got something like this instead.

@CoffeeCoinnesseur To be honest, I don’t care if it’s virtue signalling. It’s his money to do with as he pleases. No obligation whatsoever to gift OP’s DC although she seems to think otherwise.
And as you presumably well know from checking in order to make your own choices, not all charities misuse their funds. Or maybe your choices are not to make choices because you don’t trust any? So just maybe ‘donor’ is just actually making responsible choices as to what to do with his (ah yes, that’s right) money...