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?

CoffeeCoinnesseur.

Ah bless, you actually think a family somewhere will be getting a goat, rather than the money going to the charity's multi million pound wages bill

Do you read the daily mail by any chance? Your comment just screams entitled well off person who wants an excuse to not give their money to charity.

And OP YABVU, this person normally gives your children a tenner. They are old enough to understand that this is a far better gift. If your children were 9, 6 and 4 I would get it but your youngest is 13 ffs and I imagine got loads of other stuff. They were hardly waiting with baited breath for uncle's present to make Christmas complete.

I sponsor a child in Burundi whose family were given a goat last year. She writes to me about the goat loads! It's been great for them as arable farmers as the goat manure has enriched the soil and their crops this year have been much higher as a result.

The goat has just had a baby with a neighbours goat, and we're all super excited about Goat 2.0

I got my sister and BIL a sponsored goat for Xmas and they were dead chuffed.

YABU and a materialistic dick btw.

Yanbu. It's not a gift. It's giving someone a piece of paper showing your donation to charity. Not a gift for them at all.

Frozen Thank you, couldn’t have put it better! 🙌🏻

coffeeconnoisseur without those wages, how do you think charities are run? And attract the best staff? They don't run themselves!

And fyi I sponsor a child via World Vision but I don't give someone else sponsorship - it's not a gift for them in that instance. It really is virtue signalling - if you want to sponsor/donate great, but don't pretend it's a present!

It's not about entitlement for me. It's about that person basically taking out a full page ad in the papers, saying "Look how wonderful and charitable I am".

I'd rather they gave no gift at all and just sent the money quietly to charity.

Its a crap gift. YANBU.

Exactly cuddlymunchkin

Let no charitable deed go unannounced

@Welshmaenad I too have seen firsthand the difference lifestock gifts make. Sick of the entitled, materialistic BS of people who wouldn’t think twice about spending a tenner in Starbucks on 2 large pumpkin spice lattes but whinge about people being a little more altruistic. Ah no, sorry, that’s virtue signalling. Merry fucking Christmas!

YANBU

If people want to sponsor goats, donkeys or anything else they're perfectly free to do so.

But giving it as a 'gift' is virtue signalling imo and letting everyone know you've done something for charidee.

Just get on with it quietly.

Was just going to post almost exactly the same thing! I’m really not keen on thee virtue-signalling gifts.

And don’t get me started on ‘not sending Christmas cards this year, I’m donating to charity instead.’

What!? The two have nothing to do with each other!? If you cba to send cards, then don’t! If you want to donate to charity, then go for it. But I don’t see how a) it somehow gets you out of sending cards, and b) needs to be publicly announced.

I think at the age your dc are they don't really need a tenner in an envelope and can well enough understand that others have greater need.

My late FIL bought dd an Oxfam goat when she was 6. It was the last christmas before he died. She really didn't get it and thought the present was the fridge magnet. She was delighted with it and now she's 18 and we have a fridge magnet collection from about 200 days out and holidays. The goat one is still there although a bit tatty these days.

I do remember at the time thinking it was a shit present for a 6 year old.

It’s not a present.

Virtue signalling at its finest. They can’t just quietly donate to charity, oh no, because if they did that how would everyone get to know about it.

And funnily enough, the people who do this never choose to forgoe a gift themselves.

It's the virtue signalling that winds me up - when it's not actually reflected in their own very consumer society driven lifestyle.

Somebody asked what we gave them? We got them the kitchen gadget they asked for - ice cream making accessory for their £500 kitchen aid....

I’m in the camp of the goats being nauseatingly virtue-signalling.

Obviously the giver doesn’t have to give gifts. Personally, I would rather receive nothing at all than a charity donation chosen by the giver dressed up as something for me.

Just give quietly to the charity of your choice, it doesn’t need a fucking mariachi band to announce it.

I prefer to give to charity AND give a gift to those I want to. What’s wrong with doing both? I have no idea which charities most of the people I give gifts to like to support, any giving is done because I support the charity. Therefore any ‘gift’ actually benefits me (in addition to the charity, of course), and not the putative recipient.

These things just aren’t gifts, are they?

Give the kids the gift the relative gave you if it bothers you. You can have the goat

When people say what MNism a lot of people say :

"Oh I hate the term virtue signalling, No One says it in IRL"

And that may be true but online I think it IS the perfect shorthand for a certain breed of tedious cunt

Like everyone immediately knows one :

Eg Celia who posts a lot about Understanding Autism but doesn't see her autistic DGC from one year to the next because it's "too upsetting"

He should have asked for all his gifts to go to charity. I hate this virtue signaling with somebody elses present

I agree. As a family we choose our own charities to support and do so. I think 'donating someone else's gift' to charity is a poor effort. If he wanted to support these charities he should have done so quietly with his own money and leave you out of it.

afrigginggoat
Doesn’t surprise me in the least.
Surely people justifying this behaviour doesn’t think it’s ok for them to ask for an expensive present for themselves and then make donations on behalf of the OPs children?

I think it’s a lovely idea

morgankitten
It’s a lovely idea to steal someone’s present money and give the money to a charity that you have chosen? How is that lovely?

I think it is bad manners. HE could have asked for his gifts to go to charity instead.

Reciprocate accordingly at every opportunity you can for now on and encourage other family members to do so too!