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 !

@billy1966

OP,

You sound lovely but you desperately need to speak to someone about your childhood.

Your parents are self absorbed people.
Neither nice, kind nor interested in you.

You had a highly dysfunctional childhood yet you are repeatedly shocked at them not behaving in a way that they have NEVER done.

They have never done cards or presents for you, not for your wedding so why would you be so shocked about your child?

You know who they are, not very nice people but are stuck in child mode in your head hoping they will be different.

You are allowing them to take your joy.
You need therapy to detach and accept them for who they are and move on with your life.

As for dragging your husband and child over to meet these awful people again?

Why?

Your parents are consistent in their behaviour, their awful behaviour.

Get help for yourself to accept them or you will be allowing these awful people the power to ruin your adult life after giving you a shit childhood.

They have shown you who they are their whole life, it's time for you to start believing and accepting this reality.
Expecting them to behave differently from whom they have always been is delusional and deeply unhealthy.

You need help to untangle this.

Great post

Agree with PP. Your parents are hugely dysfunctional. Disengage with them both completely now, while they are still in good health and financially solvent - people like this are takers and will expect total filial devotion from you when they get ill and old, despite having done little to nothing for you in their role as parents. Your dad expecting you to do his admin free of charge is a classic example. And yeah, STOP DOING THAT.

They will never change. I'm sorry OP. It sucks, it's not fair, it will not ever change. Get angry about it, for sure. Anger is the next step towards acceptance and healing. But stop bending over backwards hoping you'll find the magic spell to make them decent people, loving parents. They will never be that.

I can understand you are upset but perhaps they just can’t afford it. Also it is unkind to compare the two sets of parents everyone is different.

I'm so happy you have a lovely DH and in laws, as your parents seem very uninterested.

Time to take a step back, let dad send his own emails, he will get used to it, he doesn't need perfect written English to get by.

No more cards and presents either.

Match their level of effort and concentrate on those who love you.

From your first post I was going to say YABU but your updates make the situation much clearer. I'm sorry that your parents behave that way. It's disappointing. At least you know now and understand what they are like so you can manage your own expectations and disappointment.

As for presents etc more generally, my parents are not cards and gifts people but roll up their sleeves and muck in people. They give us huge practical and emotional support.

My PIL are 'throw money at it' people who buy cards and SO much unsolicited stuff for us and the kids, it's actually really stressful. They also did the thing of giving us a modest amount towards our wedding and then thinking they could dictate everything...

So as a general rule YABU but in your situation, not at all. Congrats on your baby's first birthday.

You have parents and in-laws at the opposite ends of the spectrum. Your parents do sound very dysfunctional and are probably people who shouldn’t have had children, and so aren’t going to be great with grandchildren either. However, I couldn’t cope with your in laws either wanting to video call every day.