Excess buying from grandparents

[excessmess]

I know this will be polarising, and it is not intended to be in-law bashing, I'm just trying to establish a way to manage this.

My in-laws love our DC dearly, they are their only grandkids. They are very generous towards them, and this is where we are struggling slightly. Every time we see them they buy the DC gifts, every Christmas, birthday and easter they shower them with lots of presents and in-between time they sometimes just send gifts in the post too.

I feel absolutely unreasonable and ungrateful BUT we have found this difficult. Firstly, it's just wasteful (it's stuff they don't need / often duplicates of things), secondly, I don't think it sends a great message to the kids to spoil them to this degree and thirdly, we live in a small home which doesn't have much space. For every thing they buy the kids I have to get rid of something else. The kids are at that age where they get attached to everything, so this process of constantly rotating stuff in and out of the house isn't easy and we come out as the bad guys. I also find it means we have to pare down what we buy for the children ourselves because we know the tidal wave which will come from them. This is fine, but sometimes I would love to be able to treat my own kids.

We have spoken to them about it several times (trying not to be ungrateful but asking them to reign it in for all of the reasons given above). We have suggested gifts stay at their house (doesn't work as they just forget and leave it to us to tear the things out of the kids hands as we leave which makes us the bad guy, so we gave up). We suggested that they buy other gifts for christmas / birthdays (e.g. a trip out) which doesn't work as they just by this as well as other gifts. We have explained the reasons and tried to express gratitude but it doesn't work, the stuff stops for one visit and then resumes again.

I recognise that we have a difference in values and it's a grandparents prerogative to spoil the grandkids. I'm just finding it hard because their values are intruding on our home if that makes sense. So AIBU and how can I deal with it?!

@ZealAndArdour I had to get my MIL on side to stop my FIL from giving my dog biscuits - human biscuits! He goes to theirs for 'dog day care' and gained so much weight!!

Aw OP, I am worried my mam is going to be the exact same as you ILs! Baby isn't even born and she has gone crazy buying. I like the idea of days out, could you sway them towards that? The kids get great memories and granny/ grandad get to spoil them for the day. I loved going places as a kid. Thankfully my MIL is very against tat so has bank acc's set up for her grandkids I don't know if that would work with your ILs, I don't think it would work with my mam. But I have very firmly told my mam I do not want my house filled with crap, I can let her know what he needs. So maybe your DH needs to talk to them.

I would also not even be giving the posted presents to them, and if GPS asked about them would explain why, even if it hurt their feelings. Same if they ever visit yours and ask "oh where's the x we bought them?" Say " oh I took it to the charity shop, I did tell you we don't have room for all these toys." They don't care about your feelings and convenience so don't worry about theirs.

Other than that, next time they visit don't bother tidying but get ALL the kids clothes, toys out and stick them on every spare surface, don't leave a bare inch of floorspace. When they comment on the mess say "we know, it's awful,I keep telling people not to buy them stuff but they don't listen"...

Maybe try one last speech around the lines of "look you've clearly spent more than 500 quid this year on buying the children stuff that to be honest they don't need and don't really use. Imagine if you put that in a savings account-by the time they were 18 they'd have 9000. They could buy their first car or put it as a deposit for their first.house and then they'd remember you fondly for the rest of the lives thinking how lucky they were that they could do that because of their generous grandparents. Whereas they almost definitely won't remember the random nerf gun/fart putty/whatever they played with for a week when they were 6"

If they still don't get it you'll just have to leave it. As the kids are older they won't want so much random stuff and you might be pleased that grandparents can buy the £150 must have trainers!

This is a lovely problem to have, lucky you! But I think the savings account is a good call as suggested.

I would suggest saving half of what they plan to spend in a junior isa or other savings account for adulthood, university costs are high, would be so good for the grandparents to have contributed

Firstly, you don't spoil children by giving them things, they are only 'spoilt' when it becomes an expectation and they start demanding things.

You could cut down on your own gifts and put the money you would have spent into accounts or on experiences rather than stuff.

You could set up an Amazon wish list for things they would like.

Or you could just smile and say thanks and charity shop/sell the things you don't want.

Lots of options without falling out.

It is the same. I have the same problem with my parents, gran AND the in-laws
Clothes/sweets for dd and dsd every visit
Dreamies for the cat and a jumbo bone for the dog that gives her the shits

Thank you for all the suggestions (and I do acknowledge it is a very first world problem, we are lucky they are involved and want to make them happy!). DH has had numerous conversations with them about it, but unfortunately things haven't changed. I think it's this aspect, of not respecting boundaries, that bothers me more than the physical stuff (though that bothers me too as I find it a bit overwhelming to deal with constantly).

We opened the kids a bank account a few years ago in a bid to give an option other than the physical gifts. They put some money in once but never since. To be fair we have felt awkward pushing this any more as we didn't want to come across as grabby, sort of happy to take their money, but not their gifts. I don't think this will ever be popular with them really as it doesn't have the gratification of gift giving.

We have tried 'wishlists' for birthdays / christmas to try to direct things a bit. Unfortunately the first we tried this they bought the whole list rather than one or two things. So this year we sent them one or two things they need but they bought that plus a whole bunch of other stuff, so that didn't work well either.

We also tried one of the suggestions to ask them to buy secondhand only, so that it wasn't so wasteful (also I find it helps with getting the kids to give up stuff when they're finished with it, as they know they only got it because another child gave it up). This was a total dead end.

We did manage to steer them towards more practical gifts, like clothes for a bit, but then that got out of hand too so we stopped pushing that as an idea. However, we could definitely remind them about books / more consumable stuff as at least that is easier to manage out of the house quickly and doesn't take up too much room.

@Ponoka7 I love how kind and thoughtful you are with your gift giving. It's been several years since we had a proper holiday and I can't tell you how much we would love to take the DC away properly. I think that's another reason I struggle with the gift buying, it's such a waste of money when that money could be used for such great things (like a holiday) which the kids would love! Your idea about a day school uniform shopping is fantastic, we will definitely suggest that some time.

I think sadly it's probably just a values clash, I guess I just need to learn to deal with it without getting annoyed.

This is the reason i make my DH ask his sister what to get his niece for gifts. I know some mums on here think it's a burden but I'd rather ask than give her stuff she has to worry about storing. For my sister I don't even ask, I know she appreciates the days out instead of stuff. Maybe you could ask for family days out that they attend? They'll still get the gratification and thank yous from the children .

It drives me crazy too. What annoys me is that we have enough money to ensure things we buy (clothes, toys) are produced ethically - we try really hard not to fund sweat shops for instance, and to buy British - yet the in laws (despite being very wealthy) will head to places with absolutely no values and supply my kids with mountains of tat no doubt made by kids a similar age to them being robbed of their childhood on the other side of the world.

My MIL and mother both do this - I suspect competitively. I don’t mind so much with MIL as she has much better taste 😃 I just buy them less stuff and try to direct where possible, and think it’s nice people want to spoil my children

@Fairisleflora

that is a very good point and the main issue with cheap toot, it’s usually unethical.

Next bag that arrives tell mil it is going to the charity shop unopened so the dc can't get attached to anything as you have no space.. As you have previously mentioned...

University will be unbelievably expensive when they get to that stage and they could make such a real and meaningful contribution to this.

Would DH be able to broach holiday with them. It seems such a shame they are spending on tat and money could be used for something the children would enjoy.

This. And you concentrate on good times rather than things. Brilliant days out and holidays paid for with the money you’re not spending on stuff.

Same here, and our requests to reduce the gift buying have fallen on deaf ears. Like yours, my MIL stops for one or two visits then resumes with even more than before. Sweets, toys, clothes. I have often tried to steer her towards books as that seems better than toys really. Also, since we realised that no matter what we say she was going to carry on anyway, we decided to start dropping hints as to what the kids might actually need. So instead of wasting her money on toys that get played with for five minutes, we’ll say things like ‘gosh the kids get through so much coloured paper!’ and hope she will at least get them something more usable.

@Blossomtoes & @AuntieJoyce actually that's a really good point. We can't change their mindset but we can work on our own. The DC don't care who presents come from at all and they're always delighted with a day out so if we can make sure to let the grandparents know what the kids really want/need we can be the ones to treat them to a day out and pop a bit of money in their bank accounts. Thanks, it's nice to get a different perspective on it.

I have exactly the same problem. Suggested buying experiences, DM says yes then continues turning up with plastic tat and sweets. Gave details of savings accounts and a long attempt at getting her to put savings in there instead. Says yes. Continues with the plastic tat and sweets. I give up, it really winds me up as it’s so wasteful and bad for the environment and I’m guilted too if they don’t have it prominent in the playroom when they visit