AIBU to refuse gifts from my parents / in laws.

[NattlesNat]

I have a 2 year old son, he is the first grandchild on both sides, and so my parents and the in laws want to spoil him. This is lovely, but it’s the type of gifts they get that drive me mad. They are all about spending, spending, spending with ZERO thought. Things they have bought;

1. cheap tat from abroad with loose parts, choking hazards, button batteries, etc, that’s all completely age inappropriate.
2. duplicates of stuff I’m guessing they don’t know we already have (they never bother to ask).
3. duplicates of things they know we already have (e.g. two play hoovers, two doll prams, two bubble machines.) they explicitly say they got it because they know we already have one but “this is a slightly different version / style”.
4. stuff we would never want (e.g. a ten foot trampoline when our garden is only 20 feet long and wide).
5. hampers of chocolate (our son in allergic to dairy, which they know).

I’ve tried politely reminding them no gifts are ever expected, that if they really want to buy him something to ask and we can at least tell them if we already have it / whether it’s suitable. When niceties didn’t work, I bluntly told them “he already has this, you can either take it back or I will sell it (second hand for less than you paid)” to which they told me to sell them. But yet it still continues. I am honestly sick of having to do a big display of gratitude (they expect it) for these endless useless gifts. Can I just refuse to accept things now? How can I make them get the message?

It really doesn’t sound like you are doing a big display of gratitude, you’ve literally just said you tell them bluntly you’ve already got one etc. So carry on doing that.

It all sounds like a ridiculous waste of money! Why not open a savings account for your son so that they can contribute money to future things like his first school uniform, bike, phone etc

Sorry, probably should have been more clear, I always do the: thank you for the gift (and always make my son say thank you as well), then remind them gifts are never expected, spiel, because that’s decent manners. But then I tell them if it’s something we don’t want or need and so I will sell it if they don’t take it back. I think it’s more the big “thank you grandma” show they like from my son, not necessarily from me.

Just give it to a charity shop or regift when invited to a party.

We already have one. And I’ve repeatedly asked them that if they must spend money to gift to his account, but they like the whole “open a present” thing.

Then stop making your son fake it, you can’t have it both ways!

We already have a savings account for him, and I’ve repeatedly asked them to donate to that instead. They ignore me.

Also massive assumption they are chavs? Where the hell did you get that from? Not that it matters, but one side is working class, the other is wealthy. And both are the same with gifts.

Just donate them to a charity shop so other children can benefit or sell online and donate to a good cause. No big deal really.

You could bag anything that's not harmful and ask them to keep it at their house as you have one/do t have room. Any tat goes in the bin

Are you living my life??? 🤣

while i do have a big glass of wine after each episode I tackle each of these differently

1. Dangerous stuff - " that's dangerous. Please dont buy temu" i then put in away because they cant return it, then once they depart directly into bin

1. Smile politely, sell on vinted or put in gift cupboard

1. Smile politely, sell on vinted or put in gift cupboard when questioned on where it is "hmmm not sure.. i saw it yesterday! Want a tea?"

1. "We cannot use that we dont have the space, you should return it because i wouldn't want you to waste your money!"

Continue to say similar while smiling a lot ignore all protests and insane "explanations" as to why they HADto buy it
If needed take their keys and put it back in their car

1. chocolate

Take and put away in Dhs snack box and produce a NOMO snack for your upset 2 yr old. Politely say he's allergic to chocolate. Every. Time.

4 is the one I go hardest on...

Have also repeatedly sent links to the kids savings accounts 🙄

You've tried asking nicely so yes I think it's reasonable to refuse politely but firmly now. I don't agree with the donate/sell it approach - that leaves it your problem to sort out.

Try to pre-empt too. Not just savings accounts, but activities (little jonny would love zoo membership/panto/whatever. We could all have a lovely trip together...).

Yeah, we’ve done this too. Starting sending them home with things they’ve brought. I hate the throwing things away though, but some of it genuinely doesn’t feel safe (e.g. button batteries only loosely secured) and I would never gift / donate these things, so in the bin they go (minus the batteries, which I then have to get rid of appropriately).

The thing is, it's a hassle to sell stuff on line or drag it to a charity shop when you shouldn't have to. You need to be absolutely blunt. Quite frankly I would have openly questioned their sanity when it came to the trampoline and thoroughly shamed them with dangerous toys from abroad. "Thanks MIL, but you do of course realise that your grandchild will almost certainly choke to death or lose an eye with that" and then put it straight in the bin in front of them.

@NattlesNat i have a MIL who were like this. When dh & I first got together and had our first child, we were honestly quite young & broke.
MIL (tight but no money issues) made a big show & tell of displaying all the baby stuff she had bought (in hindsight, very basic purchases, think baby towel, vests, clothing only bought when on sale) whilst I stood there 2 days postpartum in pain. At the time, I felt they were being generous, but as I’ve gotten older… I see it in a very different light. It’s much more about her

Her need for praise, for the big thank yous, for the validation, for the attention.

If they had truly wanted to help us, she’d have given us something towards a big ticket item, like a car seat, pram, furniture. My parents put towards these, and what we couldn’t afford to buy in cash, we put on a cc. Nothing of any significant use or value came from my in-laws, but every small purchase from the likes of Tesco clothing sale had to be grandly acknowledged.

As the years have gone on, I just grey-rock her, “that’s nice, thanks” is all the input I give. She’s never stopped buying absolute crap that’s reduced in the sales to nothing (think plain summer shorts reduced to £1, when I’m buying uniforms, school shoes, school bags, etc, at the end of August) whereas my parents would have taken them to Tesco to buy the lunch boxes & stationery for the new term to actually lighten the load a bit. It’s never stopped, her need for the grand gesture of thanks have never stopped, I just stop giving her any of my headspace. She’s wasted so much money on pure nonsense over the years that has ultimately been thrown out. Buy cheap, buy twice…

People like this don’t really change, so just do what you can to not be disappointed or annoyed by it. I also used to send a lot of the crap toys back to their house, rather than them clutter up mine.

I think this is what I need to do now. I don’t want hurt feelings, but the hassle of disposing of things, the gratitude shows I’m making my son put on (hard not to when they arrive and shove gifts in his hands when I’m making a tea / having a wee / out of the room for a single moment) and the fact it’s just plain wasteful, financially and physically.

I would donate to charity, though I appreciate this is just one more task for you. They definitely need to nip this in the bud though, because he’ll be at an age soon where he’ll notice when things disappear and it’s unfair to give something to him for it then to be taken away. It’s not his fault - it’s theirs.

I think this is such a tricky subject. When my kids were little my parents were very much like this. I found the other thing they didn’t seem to get is that we generally don’t keep loads of ‘stuff’. Not exactly minimal but we don’t have loads of excess, nor do we have the room for it. I think this is a little generational as well and my parents generation seem to be the ‘show love in things’. They are incredibly generous and the toy/things problem did slow down eventually but we just found we had to reiterate it frequently as you do.

Yes, OP get tough with them. It doesn't sound as if there's much point in lecturing them about landfill, sweat shops or the consumer society but there are other ways to make your point. Don't worry too much about trampling over their "finer" feelings. They certainly aren't bothered about yours.

Why chavs?

It's good you can stand up for yourself but they are still not listening. I'd just get a bin bag and take them to the charity shop or bin. If they ask I'd just say I've told you we font need this stuff , we have duplicates etc so I've taken to charity shop. My MIL was like this with clothes , no matter how much I said please stop , dc didn't even use 3/4 of it she just wouldn't listen . I just started putting things in bags and out of sight

have you tried a sit down conversation with them to say “we don’t want to raise dc to expect gifts and we will only give him gifts at Christmas and birthday. Anything else I will have to ask you to take away again. Too many gifts are dangerous these days and are not suitable”.

and once you’ve had this conversation, stick to it. Give the gifts back straight away and say “I’m so but we can’t keep this”. Don’t let dc see it or say thank you. Just put it in a bag and give it straight back for them to dispose of.

you could also think of 2 or 3 things dc can have (haribo, colouring book) and say that those are the only treats you allow.

YANBU. They are just gratifying their urge to buy something and using your son as an excuse. My PIL were the same, thankfully dh was absolutely ruthless about refusing to accept anything from them or we would have drowned in shit.

It is wrong on every level, and you shouldn't feel you have to conform to the pressure of pretending it isn't.

It sounds almost as if it is routine giving for form's sake rather than anything meaningful for your DC. To give chocolate to a child who is allergic ... its more about the perrformance than the substance of giving.

God, I used to hate that too. When my kids were little we had no spare money for stuff beyond birthday and christmas presents for nice thing like day trips out to the zoo or aquarium etc, tickets to shows, cinema etc. I tried dropping hints that instead of multiple presents each time which they just didn’t need or appreciate they may like to buy just one small gift if they insisted on an actual item for them to open and then buy zoo tickets or whatever as the main thing.

What would have been brilliant is if they had actually taken the grandkids out for the day to those places themselves so they could also have got something out of their enjoyment. A win all round I would have thought.

but no. They grew up with mountains of plastic tat a lot of which broke pretty quickly. And hardly any nice day trips anywhere - ever. When I did take them it was use tesco vouchers or I just ended up spend my own birthday money on it.

I think they just like the feeling of being popular as grandparents even if it’s only fleeting while they open the presents.