No baby gifts from my parents

[Peridotty]

How would you feel if you didn’t receive any baby gifts from your parents? No card or gifts. We haven’t seen my parents yet with our 4 week old. We also didn’t receive any wedding gifts from them either.

On the other hand, my husbands family has been v generous. They haven’t been able to visit us, but have given collectively £4000 to put in the baby’s bank account. Also cards from his side of the family.

I feel a bit awkward that my husbands family gives us so much (and they gave us loads for our wedding too-£15,000) whereas mine doesn’t give us anything.

Should I ask for a card? Is that being grabby. Thanks !

Really depends on your family! My parents didn’t do a card or presents at birth, but not out of stinginess, it’s just not something they’d do. But over the last 4 years they have been enormously generous with their time and money when it was most useful to us. They knew we were all sorted with what we needed for newborn, so a gift wouldn’t have been all that useful.

I really wouldn’t judge one set of parents against the other! I assume their financial positions/commitments won’t be identical, so money from one might not have the same effect as it would from the other. They won’t play an identical role in your lives, but they can still be valuable and useful to you if they want to be, and a loving influence on your DC if that’s what they want.

Tradition here when I had my DCs was one set bought the cot and the other set bought the pram. Fairly universal in the 70s/80s.

I do think it is odd to not to send a card and a gift. It doesn't have to be huge but nothing? After all, friends, neighbours, colleagues even, generally buy something for a new baby. I've never heard of grandparents not buying anything at all, they usually want to buy first pram or cot or something like that.

However, don't ask for a card. If your parents are too ignorant to even acknowledge, have some pride and just accept that's how it is.

Definitely don't compare them to your in laws who are probably a lot better off anyway. However their relative wealth isn't the point - a card, flowers and a small gift or a cheque is not beyond most people's capabilities even if hard up. It is possible that when they see your child for the first time, they will bring a gift but try not to think about it.

Op, when your children have children you can be generous to them and no doubt will enjoy being so.

Congratulations on the birth of your baby.

I didn't buy dd a gift after birth of dgs but I did buy her the car seat, the perfect prep machine and all the basics whilst she was pregnant. I also sent flowers and a card to her home when she left hospital but other than food and magazines for dd I didn't take her a gift to the hospital. Ds is now 1 and I regularly buy him either a toy or an outfit if I see something I think dd would like.
I'd find it strange not to buy anything at all but don't think you have to time a gift to coincide with a birth. Dd got lots of outfits as gifts when dgs was born but all in the same size it would have been daft to add to that.

"We also didn’t receive any wedding gifts from them either."

Very strange indeed. Do you have any siblings, op, and do they make comments on your parents' stinginess and are your parents poor?

Yanbu.

Hell a card and small gift such as a book can be done for under a fiver. They sound completely thoughtless.

I'd leave them to it, if they want to show an interest they can get in touch.

I think it's odd not to send a card. Gift giving is difficult when you don't know what a person has - and there would be no point in them giving you even more money. My own DM does not give baby gifts because her own mother bought everything when I was born and she still mourns the opportunity to shop for her own baby.

In general I think it's difficult to stay close when you live across the Atlantic and I have trouble with this myself.

Didn't get anything from pil except a card obviously bought from local sweet shop (slightly brown on edges obviously been there for years very tacky wording). Some people don't do gifts and it's not about money. My dm knitted cardigans etc. In the whole of their childhood (they are young adults) pil visited us maybe 6 or 7 times and they live 45 mins away.

I agree with @RegalRags.
I feel you're getting a hard time here OP and I really think this is not just about the gifts. I can hear the disappointment in your family clearly.
I do think that you shouldn't have been surprised at the lack of gifts for baby given your parents past history, but of course that doesn't in any way stop you feeling hurt and let down.
Sadly your parents are unlikely to change and you will have to try and come to terms with that, and create a thicker skin where they're concerned to prevent yourself feeling upset on future.
Do you have any siblings? What are you parents like with them?

To echo other posters, noone is getting 4k for having a baby. To compare your parents, with in laws like that is like comparing the average 17 year old with the tiny, tiny minority who get a white Range Rover for their birthday.

@Fairyliz

MN is a strange place sometimes. I am 60 so easily old enough to to be your mum. All of my friends who have become grandparents have bought presents I just can imagine a world where you wouldn’t. None of them are particularly wealthy but would do without other things to buy a present. Surely that’s the norm?

Yes. Its the norm in my world too. Some that can afford it would also offer to buy the pram or cot.

Sorry OP. You lucked out there but obviously they've never been any different

I didn't get a card or present off my parents. They were besotted though. Didn't need a card or gift

OP, your family sound totally disinterested. I would put as much effort into them as they put into you. Your own little family and in-laws sound lovely so focus on them. Blood isn’t always thicker than water.

I think the lack of card and present is crap. It doesn’t have to be a lot but an acknowledgment. I think OP, you will just be permanently let down by your family so lower your expectations and leave them to it.

I can't get my head around people saying they didn't know it was a 'thing' to receive cards and gifts for a new born! Have they never been into a card shop and seen the congrats on your new baby cards? I've just sent some baby clothes and a card to a friend's daughter who's just had her first child, and I haven't seen her for years.

I sympathise OP, and no it's not about the money it's the thought, or lack of. My MIL is incapable of thinking about anyone other than herself, and when our first was born (her only grandchild) she visited empty handed. We had neighbours we hardly knew bringing handknitted items, cards, flowers, but nothing from the baby's grandmother. But she was happy because becoming a granny made her centre of attention for a while at the golf club.

I can understand you being disappointed at the lack of acknowledgement of your newborn by your family but it sounds like they have always been this way so they clearly don't consider such things to be important. Doesn't sound like they'll change now and if you got a card after asking for it you would still hold the same resentment. Accept who they are and learn not to expect anything from them.

On the basis that your parents haven’t been able to see you yet and meet your baby, then yes that’s really crap they haven’t written or sent you a card. It is thoughtful, kind and loving to mark those important moments in life, even more so when you’re not able to share them in person.

But it sounds as if your mum just isn’t like that, so you may always be disappointed.

BTW, the idea that you FIL is writing a poem for your child is the most wonderful gift I’ve ever heard of! Lucky you, lucky baby.

Oh poor you OP - guess this is your firstborn. So now you are a parent, you are getting the creeping sense that how you have been parented all your life is, well, a bit off. A card won’t make it better. Even a gift. Your parents are not good enough, that don’t sound that bothered about you or anything that’s important to you, and you’ve just normalised that.

On the other hand your in-laws are unusually generous so that’s not a fair comparison. But enjoy the attention and gifts!

Please enjoy your baby and your life in the USA. And don’t feel embarrassed or ashamed about your parents lack of interest- that’s their shame and embarrassment, not yours - maybe think about getting some counselling to support you as you learn how to parent.
Congratulations on your baby

Yes I wanted to ask for a card because I wanted it as a keepsake for my baby. I know we would love to look back at these cards in the future.

I'm afraid he really wouldn't. No children ever have displayed the least interest in the cards their parents received when they were born.

hiredandsqueak Tue 30-Jun-20 08:06:33
I didn't buy dd a gift after birth of dgs but I did buy her the car seat, the perfect prep machine and all the basics whilst she was pregnant. I also sent flowers and a card to her home when she left hospital but other than food and magazines for dd I didn't take her a gift to the hospital. Etc...........

Sounds like you bought and buy a lot of gifts! They don't have to be presented on the day, it's usually before or after. The op has received nothing! However, on reading her other posts, it sounds as though neither of her parents are that interested in anyone other than themselves so maybe she will feel better if she just lets it go. There's not much else she can do anyway.

Cards are for friends and wider family. I’d have been startled to get a card from my parents.

When ds was born mil showed up at the hospital despite being told no visitors..
Then she came to our house with a huge huge box. Inside was load of separately wrapped little gifts...
From her boss who I had never met!!
Nowt from ils!!
No wedding gift either!
If you have never had a birthday card then for that I am sorry - my cupboards are full of sentimental stuff like cards and pictures - mainly off the dc. A tradition you can start with your dc -

It’s absolutely the norm to get a card/ token gift for a new baby. Some mn posters like to act as if they’re in the own personal Yorkshireman sketch, ‘we never had anything, no one got us anything, not even a lump of coal, didn’t even know there was such a thing as a card’.

Seriously. And lol at ‘didn’t realise it was a thing’ - honestly? You’ve never been in a shop and seen ‘congratulations on your new baby’ cards, gift bags, balloons even? Never been in a florist for something else and seen a new baby arrangement. Never visited a friend or family member with a new baby and seen their cards up? Never given a new baby card or gift yourself? Or seen it happen on tv? What remarkably sheltered lives.

OP your in-laws are off the scale generous (and I guess wealthy) so I wouldn’t compare them to anyone. I know you say it’s not about the money but you did go out of your way to quote the amounts in your posts which suggest it does matter to you a bit? Maybe it’s just the huge contrast with your own parents which is emphasising it.

I’d be gutted if my family didn’t acknowledge the birth of my baby. My parents aren’t around to sadly, but I’ll be very sad if I don’t get at least the odd card from other relatives.
I’m not too fussed about presents either, in laws have paid for the pram which is very generous and we’re very grateful, but we have everything else we need. But I’d be sad if they didn’t make a bit of a fuss somehow -
as I’ve done and will continue to do for all the babies born to my friends and family.
It’s just nice and it’s what you do! Even an excited congratulations text message - just something.

If your parents have never been like that though it’s going to have to be a case of managing your expectations and not allowing yourself to keep being disappointed. Do you feel they care for and love you in their own way? Is it enough? Sad as it is might it not be better to just accept you’re not going to get that kind of relationship from them and to stop striving for it and giving them the opportunity to let you down?

YANBU but my family always do gifts, its the norm. Did you have gifts growing up?

It sounds like your parents have always been like this, they will not change, they’re doing nothing wrong in their eyes.

Yes I can see why your hurt and disappointed but you need to stop expecting them to do something they won’t ever do.

Your dd will not miss a card because she will grow up knowing what her maternal grandparents are like.

I cannot imagine not buying a gift when my own grandchild is born. It’s mindboggling to me that people wouldn’t do this, unless they were destitute. I even buy my colleagues gifts when they have a baby! We got a shedload of stuff from family and friends and colleagues when we had DS.

I think it’s pretty shitty, OP. I also think it’s bullshit to expect you to feel bad about your inlaws paying for your grad school. If you’re close to them, and they offered, why the hell not? It would have been crazy to turn them down in case it offended your parents, who frankly seem disengaged to say the least.