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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be pissed off about this

174 replies

Frogdoglog · 08/04/2023 12:56

At Christmas my eldest dd (12)didn’t really know what she wanted for her main present she is young for her age and seems at an awkward in between stage where she is past kid stuff but not interested in things that older girls are into.

I said I would give her £100 and take her for a shopping trip after Xmas without younger siblings to buy clothes and out for lunch etc which was a big treat for her as we rarely get the opportunity to do things on our own. She was pleased with that and we had a nice time on the day. When we discussed the money before Xmas I said it would mainly just be for clothes and but she could buy maybe something else if she had anything leftover. She loves teddies/soft toys and would spend £100 on those easily, but her bedroom is full of them and she was getting more from her dad for Xmas so I was clear that the money wasn’t for soft toys and she seemed happy with the plan.

I have just found out that after Christmas she went to her dads and he told her that it wasn’t fair that she had to spend her Christmas money on clothes and reimbursed her the money to spend in soft toys/crap at his house. He told her not to tell me.

Aibu to be really pissed off about it? I had to organise childcare for younger dc so we could have this day out and it was a treat for us both because we never really get a chance to do anything just the 2 of us. Not to mention that £100 is a lot of money in our household. I thought we had a really nice day but I feel like he just went and told my dd I’d given her a rubbish present. Maybe I was being unfair to tell her that she couldn’t spend the money on whatever she wanted, I should mention I absolutely detest soft toys in all their forms so I find it hard to be supportive of her adding to her already enormous collection!

OP posts:
category12 · 08/04/2023 14:17

hay5689 · 08/04/2023 14:09

Am I the only one on here thinking that everyone who disagrees with clothes as a present has very young children? Once mine hit their teens thats all they wanted for birthdays and Christmas.

Yeah, maybe.

Money for clothes or me going round as a walking wallet goes down very well with my teen/young adults.

And I remember the rare day out shopping for clothes with mum as a big treat when I was a teen, being able to buy frivolous dresses she wouldn't have gone along with normally. 😃

Original poster
Frogdoglog · 08/04/2023 14:17

@Viviennemary you have missed the fact that I asked her what she wanted she didn’t know because she was already getting the toy she wanted from her dad and I put this to her as a suggestion and she enthusiastically chose it as her Xmas present 🤷‍♀️

OP posts:
OIivia · 08/04/2023 14:17

mybeautifuloak · 08/04/2023 14:09

If I buy my dd clothes for her presents, and I do (cool, branded, what she wants) am I a control freak who is dictating what she gets? How is that different from saying 'here is some money for you to choose some clothes'? Why is buying clothes as a gift ok but giving money to choose her own clothes not? MN is batshit

Show quote history

MN is batshit when someone thinks that saying "here's a gift but you can only spend it on what I say" is the same as giving a gift that has been chosen. A chosen gift is that gift, not an open gift to say spend me wherever you want to. A money gift is generally that, unless someone puts controls on it.....bashit.

Original poster
Frogdoglog · 08/04/2023 14:19

@oliva this was the gift she chose! She could have asked for pretty much anything and she wanted this.

OP posts:
Justalittlebitduckling · 08/04/2023 14:19

I don’t know why so many people are saying that clothes aren’t presents. Who makes these rules? Is it the same people the other day who were saying that books and puzzles aren’t presents? I don’t see why not!

category12 · 08/04/2023 14:22

Frogdoglog · 08/04/2023 14:19

@oliva this was the gift she chose! She could have asked for pretty much anything and she wanted this.

It was a great present.

I think your ex is a bit of a shit to make out it wasn't.

SuffolkUnicorn · 08/04/2023 14:24

We call them dust catchers my 7 yrold has loads I say get rid we don’t need anymore 😂

yanbu

Time4achangeagain · 08/04/2023 14:25

OP, don’t let the aibu hardcore upset you. What you did sounds lovely and a special
day out together. Your ex shouldn’t have undermined you and asked DD to lie but also he was allowed to get what he wanted too

Original poster
Frogdoglog · 08/04/2023 14:26

@SuffolkUnicorn spider storage here, my dd2 is a scared of spiders and they seem to be drawn to the teddy mountain so they cause a lot of upset in the autumn when the big spiders come out 🤦‍♀️

OP posts:
DrPrunesquallor · 08/04/2023 14:32

The day out is a lovely idea.
Christmas money that she has to spend on clothes isn’t a present.
Her dad is right

Summerpetal · 08/04/2023 14:32

Sorry
agree with your ex husband,

GoodChat · 08/04/2023 14:33

HerRoyalStressHead · 08/04/2023 13:32

I'd have made her have a clear out before Christmas and then let her spend her money on more.
That's what I do with my kids every year before Christmas and birthdays. They clear out unused or broken toys. Unused but in good condition get donated. Broken binned. If they really can't decide what to get rid of I do it for them. They soon decide what they really want to keep and what they want rid of.

But she didn't want more and she doesn't want to get rid of any she already has.

I'm sure if before the shopping trip she'd said "actually mom I think I'd like to buy roller skates when we go shopping" the OP would have been fine with that. It was just clutter for the sake of it she didn't want to buy, which is perfectly sensible.

TheChosenTwo · 08/04/2023 14:33

It’s another case of mum doing the daily grind, the grunt work, the essential stuff, then Disney Dad swanning in and showing himself in a heroic light.
OP I can tell you’re a great mum and doing your damn best for your kids. And I totally disagree that quality time is not a present, I think it’s the best thing we can ever give our kids - and I’m working full time and having a supportive partner I can say my kids still don’t get as much quality time with as I’d like them to have.
You keep carrying on as you are, I hate the abundance of ‘stuff’, my kids have enough ‘stuff’ and one of them in particular gets very overwhelmed with the arrival of more at Christmas and birthdays.
Someone asked how clothes take up less space than toys/teddies, I don’t know how it works in anyone else’s house but our clothes go in wardrobes and drawers and doors/drawers close them all in tidily. Teddies and games and toys just take up additional space in a room which, if small, can lead to overcrowding and messiness.

GrumpyPanda · 08/04/2023 14:33

Frogdoglog · 08/04/2023 14:14

re teddies- i think loads of kids have a lot of soft toys my others do too. She likes to collect them which is fine but there has to be a limit. They aren’t small either for example the last few Christmas’s she’s has asked for and been given the huge melissa and Doug animals so we we aren’t just talking about Ty beanies here. She had asked her dad for another giant animal that she wanted and was happy with that and brought it home.

She likes to collect unusual animals and in her stocking she got a soft toy snail and aardvark which were animals she didn’t already have so I do support her collecting but I’ve said that some of the older huge soft toys that aren’t part of her collections will
Need to go before I will support her adding more as there isn’t space. I’m sure I could do what other parents do and sneak in there with a bin bag and she wouldn’t even notice but I would never get rid of them without her consent. So she has to decide if she wants to keep what she’s got or make space for her collections. We have a tiny house and she shares a bedroom with dd2 so she can’t just keep adding to them indefinitely. Their dad lets them buy soft toys everytime they go into a supermarket with him and they bring them home so we are still adding to them every fortnight no matter what I say.

Their dad lets them buy soft toys everytime they go into a supermarket with him and they bring them home so we are still adding to them every fortnight no matter what I say.

Sounds like this is the main problem. So why not make a rule that whatever gets bought by dad, stays with dad? Maybe justify it by saying dad needs somebody to keep him company, too. If they still bring toys along after visits, just send them back to him next time they go over there.

Modaboutyou · 08/04/2023 14:36

LadyMargaretDevereux · 08/04/2023 13:16

I think a shopping trip with you, with £100 to spend is a fantastic gift - very grown up and fun. Spending money on clothes for fun is great!

Yes, shopping trip with spending money is a great gift as long as she gets to spend the money on what she wants. Dictating what she has to spend it on is no longer a gift.

Original poster
Frogdoglog · 08/04/2023 14:43

@GoodChat yes exactly, I probably would have let her spend her money on pretty much anything except giant teddies. I specifically mentioned teddies to her because I knew she would see one she wanted and we had already discussed why she wasn’t getting more. She did buy some other little bits and pieces over the day like jewellery and she even bought the dog a little present that she thought he would like! so I wasn’t really strictly dictating how she spent it on the day, just that the main purpose of the trip was clothes shopping.

OP posts:
Original poster
Frogdoglog · 08/04/2023 14:45

@GrumpyPanda believe me I’ve tried but the kids want the new toys to be here not dads. It would just cause an argument trying to put them back.

OP posts:
PrincessScarlett · 08/04/2023 14:48

My DD is a similar age and wanted clothes for Christmas so I don't think clothes in themselves are a shit present.

However, I do think giving money as a gift and then dictating how it is spent is a bit rubbish. Although I appreciate your DD said she was happy with this.

I wonder if your DD has gone to her dad's and moaned about your present, despite her pretending to be happy and enthusiastic about it to you? Or whether in hindsight your DD regrets spending the £100 on clothes and was just venting?

Moonshine160 · 08/04/2023 14:50

TidyDancer · 08/04/2023 13:07

Encouraging your DD to lie to you was a shit thing to do and doesn't bode well for the future but apart from that I agree with your ex. You dictated what your DD could spend her own money on because you didn't like the things she probably would've wanted and made her spend it on things that should be provided for her anyway.

I don't think for a second you had bad intentions, and as I said I disagree with your ex encouraging your DD to lie to you, but you've misjudged this one imo.

I completely agree with this.

He shouldn’t have lied. But your daughter should have been allowed to spend her Christmas money on what she wanted, not what you wanted.

AgrathaChristie · 08/04/2023 14:55

I’m with you on this one, OP.
Your dd chose what she wanted. She had a nice day out with you.
Presumably her father had already given her his Christmas gifts so shouldn’t have interfered in yours. His attitude screams “ like me, like me”
At least the soft toys are in his house, not yours.
My dgd is younger and she’d have loved £100 to spend on clothes after Christmas.

Beautiful3 · 08/04/2023 14:55

Clothes aren't really presents, unless it's an expensive branded piece. Sounds like she wanted to spend it all on toys?

OIivia · 08/04/2023 14:56

Frogdoglog · 08/04/2023 14:19

@oliva this was the gift she chose! She could have asked for pretty much anything and she wanted this.

That's not how the first across though, so that's prob why people have all said it was unfair. But the point I'm making to that poster is if that were the case it's 2 very different things.

AlwaysGinPlease · 08/04/2023 14:56

So let's get this straight, you gave her £100 for Christmas but it was to be spent on clothes, something that you are supposed to provide her with. That £100 wasn't a gift then was it. You were trying to pass it off as such. This is sounding very familiar. Clothes aren't a gift. She's your child and it's your responsibility to buy her clothes. Do better.

soddingspiderseason · 08/04/2023 14:58

I'm a single parent too and £100 is a lot of money, so it's a lovely gift. And I would, and have, done the same thing. If you don't have a lot of money, it's hard to buy your pre-teen everything they want clothes wise from the shops they want them from. Hollister for example. So yes, I'd be pissed off at your ex for undermining you, but just focus on the lovely day you had with your daughter. It's precious time that matters, not how much you spend.

CurlewKate · 08/04/2023 15:01

He was out of order if he said it was a rubbish present. But my dd at 12 would have loved a shopping day (she was allowed to choose whatever she wanted, yes?) so I don't see why the day out was spoiled. Am I missing something?

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