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?

Learning that the goat-givers asked for and received a kitchen accessory for a present makes this situation different from one where they hadn't asked for a gift. They should've asked the OP to donate to charity for them instead of buying a gift. If they'd done that, buying goats for the OP's family would have been fair enough but it's hypocritical to request a gift for oneself but (effectively) say to others that the money should go to a more deserving cause.

It's taken more trouble to organise than a tenner in an envelope. Perhaps they thought that your children might like and appreciate the gift?

I give money/gift card to two family members of a similar age to your DC. I’ve never yet had a thank you. They might get a goat next year.

Need gifts? No one needs gifts, that is why they are gifts.

Well, that’s not really true, is it? Some people who are on very low incomes DO need gifts to be practical, or stuff for the kids they could otherwise not afford. While that doesn’t sound like it’s the case for the OP, it does annoy me when this kind of thread gets full up with people whingeing about how kids these days get too much, blah, blah.

Yes, some kids do get rather a lot (though on what criteria do you define what they get as too much?). But some kids really do not. There are millions of deprived kids living under the poverty line in this country, who really do not get too much.

In this instance the gift giver gave the kids a goat, while asking for a completely unnecessary luxury kitchen tool for themselves.

I know who I view as the selfish, grabby ones, and it’s not OP.

I dislike charity gifts for other people, unless specifically asked for by the recipient.

Charity giving should be something you do for yourself, not on behalf of others. I don't need someone else to make a charity donation for me. I choose to donate myself to different causes which are important to me and my family.

If you'd rather not buy a gift for someone that's fine. Just say beforehand that you aren't doing gifts this year. A charity donation for someone else is not a gift for them - why do we pretend it is?!

Well arranging the goat would have been more effort than just sticking a tenner in a card.

Not really. It's a click of a couple of buttons on lots of charity websites. You don't even have to post the envelopes out yourself.

I think it's a lovely idea. I sponsored rescue donkeys for my nephews before and they went to visit them in the Summer.

Maybe you would have preferred them to be given lots of plastic tat OP?

They didn't give your children anything. They selected which charity they wanted to support, funded it be depriving your children rather than depriving themselves, then sent the card to gloat.

The dictionary definition of ‘deprivation’ is the damaging lack of material benefits considered to be basic necessities in a society.

The gifter has not deprived the children by giving them a charitable gift instead of money. OP, they’ve given your child a gift you don’t like; it was more than likely given with good intentions and it’s a shame you weren’t appreciative of the effort they put in. They had no obligation to give your children anything. Plenty of people are happy to receive charitable gifts and plenty of people think they are nice gifts to give.

They haven’t been unreasonable, but you have BVU to be so offended by it.

So obvious that this was a message meant to say 'you kids are selfish and self-centrered, only show an interest in my existence when Xmas is around the corner, you expect presents, well, here what I think you deserve'

Utterly bonkers.

Oh. I came onto say that when my cousin was younger, about 10 or 11, some travelling people gave him a goat because they’d chatted and they liked him.

He hid it in the wardrobe in his bedroom. In a second floor city centre flat. Clip-clop, clip-clop, it went up the stairs.

TBF, didn’t take my aunt and uncle long to realise. Once they got over the initial “That sounds like a goat bleating? No it can’t be. Must be the neighbours TV” period.

They made him give it back. He did cry though, because he liked the goat.

So, maybe it’s better it was a donated goat OP. Look on the bright side. Saved your DC a sad farewell.

I don’t think Gary* ever really got over the goat. He still thinks about it sometimes.

*My cousin, names have been changed to protect the mostly harmless.

At least he still had the wardrobe. He tried growing cannabis in it when he was older, about 16. Took my aunt and uncle a bit longer to discover that one.

It had Narnia-levels of adventure that wardrobe.

We got them the kitchen gadget they asked for - ice cream making accessory for their £500 kitchen aid...

In that case the whole goat thing is just odd

The fact that the family member asked for an actual real gift himself says a lot tbh.

What he should have done was asked for the op to get him a charity gift, or said that they weren't doing gifts this year and just donated himself.

A charity donation on someone else's behalf is NOT a gift.

It's just a way for you to donate and to make sure others know about it, pretty much.

Charity giving should be something you do for yourself, not on behalf of others. I don't need someone else to make a charity donation for me. I choose to donate myself to different causes which are important to me and my family

If you'd rather not buy a gift for someone that's fine. Just say beforehand that you aren't doing gifts this year. A charity donation for someone else is not a gift for them - why do we pretend it is?!

Exactly!

YANBU

It's virtue signalling from the giver. I don't want anything given to charity on my behalf thank-you. I give plenty and also volunteer. There are also certain charities I'm not keen on for various reasons. Christmas for kids is exciting. It should be. They shouldn't be made to feel guilty about it.

It's shit OP but you won't get told that on here as MN is full of the same sort of people 😂

YANBU

completely ridiculous gift - patronising and superior, the giver sounds like a virtue signalling twat frankly.

If you want to be charitable, by all means, you should. But spending money on a gimmicky "charitable" gift (great business they are!) is just laughable.

I would laugh about it - has the "generous" giver declines ALL gift this year? of course they haven't. People who do that are the most materialistic of everyone. It is funny.

People are never happy, 'my present was too expensive woe is me', 'my present was so cheap I feel cheated', 'I got no gift', 'I got too many gifts', blah blah.

GET SOME PERSPECTIVE PEOPLE!

(Sorry for shouting but it gets my goat)

welsh do you mind saying which charity you use. I would love to sponsor a child and my kids would like to receive letters. :)

I’m surprised people are getting so prissily outraged. It’s not uncommon, and it’s basically a less useless equivalent of socks or Boots boxes of scented bath stuff, which aren’t tailored to a particular recipient and that no one particularly wants.

I've made small cash donations to my widespread family's local foodbanks as my Christmas presents, and put notes in their cards explaining. Now I hope none of them see it as 'virtue signalling'.

I'm terrible at buying presents to start with and we're all quite capable of buying whatever we want, so it would just be token unwanted gifts anyway really. It might open some of their eyes that there are people in their area with a need for foodbanks as well.

I agree with the OP. We've been given 4 similar presents by the in laws this year. All from Oxfam - a charity that has justifiably been seriously criticised for its overseas operations.

As a family we are actively involved in three local charities- red box project, a heritage project and our local foodbank. If the in-laws had wanted to donate to any of these I would have been delighted.

Their gifts are nothing to do with us but are all about them.

I have three favourite charities that if people asked for I would be happy to have a gift sent to them rather than me but that’s an active choice.

To have a gift sent to a charity I don’t support nor did I agree to is all about the person gifting and nothing whatsoever to do with me. If they want to donate or highlight a cause fine but don’t dress it up as another persons gift because it isn’t. I would feel very differently about them after.

It’s a crap “present”. Why not donate money you would’ve otherwise spent on yourself? Why choose to donate the money you would’ve otherwise spent on the recipient? It’s just someone making a big song and dance out of donating to charity without actually sacrificing anything of their own (just money they’d otherwise have spent on a gift in any case) and they get to brag about it with a novelty card stating what they’ve done too. How very generous.... 🤣 I’m afraid I’d be getting them charity goats, chickens and toilets for every gift from now on.

It's a nice thing to do off your own back. But it's not a present. The receiver doesn't benefit in any way.

I understand, I was also a bit disappointed when DH and I got a goat for our wedding. We were actually quite hard up at the time and had spent the absolute minimum on our wedding in order to make ends meet. It felt as if the person giving it was saying to us 'well, if you're not going to give me a good time, I'm not giving you anything either.'