I probably could have worded that a bit better! Essentially I’m asking whether it’s acceptable for my sister in law to expect us to spend £40 on her only child and then only spend £15 on each of our children? I’m wondering if it’s because we have 3!
For context: we asked SIL what her child would like for Xmas and the suggested Amazon link costs £40. She rarely asks what our children would like and the presents they receive are always pretty inexpensive or something she’s picked up at the school fair. On one occasion is was a knitted teddy type thing each which couldn’t have cost more then a fiver. Recently she sent us a message asking us to buy a particular item of clothing for her child that cost around £25 as a birthday present. She didn’t mention my son’s birthday which is a few days before her child’s. We obliged and then as an after thought she transferred £15 into our account as a birthday present for my son. She didn’t send a card or wish him happy birthday or anything. Last year for Xmas she said she would like to buy the present from us to her child. We had a family gathering at our house just before xmas and she dumped a bag of stuff on me to urgently wrap while I was hosting. She then told me what I owed her which was £30. The presents she gave my children would not have cost anything like that amount.
For the record I don’t begrudge spending £40 on her child but I do feel it’s somewhat more than the average amount that side of the family spend on each other and it feels a little greedy given what her budget is!
She is very focused on her child but she will almost always forget my children’s and my husbands birthdays. She never asks what they want.
For the record she is very well off financially, think several holidays a year- annual ski trip is a human right! We, by comparison are much less well off, we are self employed and our business has been hit very hard by the pandemic. I genuinely don’t feel remotely jealous btw- I just feel we are a bit less materialistic as a family generally. I wanted to make the distinction before people say perhaps she can’t afford to spend more.
I don’t expect everything to be even to the penny and I know my kids don’t need her to spend a fortune on them. They’re very lucky and are grateful for what they receive.
It’s just the disparity in budget and also attitude that I’m finding a bit odd but perhaps it’s me who is wrong here.
So, AIBU- yes- a budget should be total per family, split between how ever many siblings are in the family.
Not unreasonable- each child should receive a gift of roughly the same value even if one is an only child and there are 3 kids in other family.