MIL didn't accept Mother's Day gift

[Gina97]

So I got my MIL a $25 Starbucks gift card for Mother's Day. We have a newborn so I wanted to get her something easy. She came by yesterday and when I went to give her the gift she told me and my husband that she didn't like Starbucks and didn't take the gift. I didn't make a big deal of it but am I right in thinking that this is insanely rude?

I guess it depends on your relationships.

I wouldn’t do it with friends but with my family, we love and respect each other, and we speak our minds. No one would take offence at this. Know your audience.

If your DH's idea of treating his mum for Mother's Day is to invite her round and have you make a cup of coffee and open a pack of biscuits then skivvying probably doesn't apply, but it's certainly not something I would expect his mum to take as a gesture of his appreciation for her and her role in his life.

The point here isn't that OP sometimes does domestic stuff for DH's relatives. It's that this is supposed to be a Mother's Day gift. And MiL's child (DH) appears to have done fuck all about it other than nod assent when a gift card is suggested. So in the spirit of "it's the thought that counts" it's not surprising that many people seem to think that the thought that was supposed to be behind this gift was absent.

I’m surprised that so many adult women are so hung up on Mother’s Day that they weigh up the perceived value of a gift card and decide that there’s not quite enough thought gone into it and that only a present from their actual offspring will suffice (as opposed to the adult who happened to be at the shops that day or online). It must be utterly exhausting to be in some of your families - the utter drama over nothing.

So many surprising surprises on this thread - it’s a wonder we’re not all reading it open mouthed in amazement.

@NumberTheory my mother in law is always perfectly happy with a cup of coffee and biscuits and really doesn't care who is the person that actually makes it.
Her relationship with her son (my husband) and her other son and daughter is amazing. They are a very close family.
They don't need big fancy gestures to show this.

Nobody is saying this is about the specific gift here, @SirChenjins.

The point is that the DH should have bought it (or anything else for that matter) for his own mother.

Leaving it to your wife who has just given birth, or in any circumstances, is lazy, entitled behaviour.

I agree with this absolutely. It would never occur to my DH to expect me to organise presents for his DM or for anyone in his own family. Similarly, I always take care of my family’s presents.

it clear, though, that the OP always organises her MIL’s presents, so it appears unlikely to me that this is the reason why she responded in the way she did to the voucher.

But this thread isn't about your MiL loving a cup of coffee and some biscuits. It's about OP's MiL, who did not seem to appreciate the Mother's Day gesture she received.

Don't buy her a gift again. It's rude behaviour.
My in-laws were always rude about gifts tbh that I'd put lots of thought into such as a fancy tea set, a teasmaid and a blender. They would announce they'd given them to their daughter or say "what did you get that for?"
I stopped buying gifts and left it to my husband who mainly forgot.
Years later and they began to be more appreciative

But that isn't what's happened at all, the OP chose it and bought it, the DH nodded and said it was fine because he clearly couldn't be arsed.

Hey love, I'm in Starbucks getting a coffee with Gem. I'm gonna grab my Mo ma voucher for Mother's Day. Shall I get your Mom one too?
No its OK, I'll sort it.
OK, what are you getting her?
A Starbucks voucher.
But that's what I'm saying. I'm here now. I'll just pick up too.
No no, it's too much for you. I'll just pop by on the way home or at the weekend.
But we're miles from Starbucks! And I'm in it ordering more cake.
It doesn't matter. I would never expect you to pick up something for me, that's not how team work works.

I mean that makes perfect sense right??

Well I love sb and would be happy with a voucher

but even tho she visits I can kinda see why she is met over it as one place

would have been better to have brought an Amazon voucher so could have brought anything or some flowers perfume or chocolate

tho if you got those I would have been the wrong type 😂

@SleepingStandingUp don't be silly....no conversations between husbands and wives must never happen like that in the strange parallel world that is Mumsnet world 😂
Married couples are supposed to keep their 'life admin', blood relatives and their finances completely separate. They're not even meant to do each others laundry (in my house there's one laundry basket and one washing machine... when basket is full one of us sticks it in the machine....)
I wonder why some people even bother to get married?

Perhaps she just didn't want to accept something she wasn't going to use. My mum will always say if she doesn't like a gift and I really appreciate it!

A Starbucks gift card for Mother's Day though? Really?

@SlatsandFlaps it was established about a million pages back that the mother in law goes to Starbucks regularly.
Why wouldn't she use it?

People saying it is fine for somebody’s wife to buy their Mother’s Day presents for them because men are too busy and important to bother with life admin - how would you feel if your MIL bought all of your husband’s anniversary presents, Valentines flowers and birthday presents, on the grounds that your DH was to busy to think about your feelings himself? Bit pissed off?

People on here would be telling you to LTB. But if he can’t be fucked with MIL, his mother, that is totally fine and as things should be

the SIL said her mom drinks Starbucks all the time a $25 gift card is perfectly fine she didn’t have to get her anything it’s not her mother

How is getting someone a gift card to a store they go to frequently thoughtless ? Her daughter who even works for Starbucks said her mother goes there all the time the MIL was just trying to start shit because she felt entitled to more

Or felt entitled to something from her actual child on Mother’s Day, not something from her child’s partner because her own child couldn’t be fucked.

@Changechangychange the OP never said her husband was too 'busy' to buy the gift card. She just said she got it (well them...she bought 2) because she happened to be in Starbucks.
Maybe she likes going to Starbucks. Maybe she was desperate to get out the house for half an hour and husband was at home with the baby.
This place is such a husband hating place sometimes.

@Needmorelego OP says that since they married she has bought all of the presents for DH’s side of the family. Sounds a lot like he can’t be fucked to me!

What did your DH get your mum?

Honestly, it would make me feel quite shit if my adult son hadn't put forward any effort and my DIL had had to and had got something so generic. I would rather just have a card.

@Changechangychange maybe she likes doing it? I like getting the gifts for both my mum and my mother in law because they have very similar tastes and interests. I can pretty much get any gifts for them from the same shop - and usually something for me at the same time because I like similar things.
But apparently - according to many on this thread gift buying is some sort of terrible chore and 'life admin'. Weird. I have never ever thought of gift buying that way.
The actual issue the OP had would have been the same if the husband had bought the card. The mother in law said she wouldn't use a voucher for a place she is known to regularly go to and handed it back. It doesn't matter who bought the card. It was the mother in law's odd behaviour over it that baffled both the OP and her husband.
The thread has typically turned into a 'all men are lazy bastards' thing. But that's Mumsnet for ya. Men hating place 🙄

@Classicblunder the husband bought his mother in law.....a $25 Starbucks gift card.
Both mother's got the same thing.

No, the OP got that for her mum

Yes, that's quite rude.