Unfair Grandparent Gifts

[PupPupPupAndAway]

My PILs have given my nephew an expensive 18th birthday gift and I’m fuming.

DH is one of four DC, there are a total of 9 GC. 5 have already turned 18 and have been given lovely gifts. This weekend DN turned 18 and was given a gift worth 20x what the other GC had been given.

DH is upset, but to worried about fall out to say anything. I’m angry and want to tell them to fuck off. We won’t say anything but AIBU that such obvious favouritism in a family is really shitty.

Again, it is their choice. Nothing to do with right or fair.

What context is missing exactly?

I’ve repeatedly stated there was no specific reason for the outlier gift, that all DC would have benefited equally from receiving the same gift, that there are no special needs and no additional financial support for those not in receipt of the expensive gift.

Who knows? Maybe there's been a family rift.

Either way, I still believe PILs - and people in general - are free to spend their money and time how and where they wish.

You don't have to agree with me.

But I’m not asking you whether they are free to spend their money as they wish. I know you think that.

I’m asking you how the fact that the GPs have given the smaller gift to all the GCs bar one, including the sibling of the favoured child, fits with your idea - the one you’ve just been putting forward and which was the point of my response - that the GPs actions have got something to do with their feelings about the OP.

Something tells me I’m not going to get an answer to that.

It’s possible the GPs might be upset with the OP, and that could be part of why things played out the way they did with the gift. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re making a big statement about the other DCs — sometimes these things are more about a specific relationship than a blanket judgment.

Maybe there has been tension with some of the other DCs too? If so, it might not just be about the OP — maybe there have been a few bumps in the road with more than one person, and this is just how it's come out.

Either way, I’m not sure this one incident can really be taken as a sign of something bigger without more context.

@PupPupPupAndAway maybe you shouldn't have tried to force a relationship that wasn't there in the first place from your latter posts. You can't shove your 'family is important' belief onto people that can't be bothered. In that case it was good of the GP to give them anything.
You also wouldn't have had to reassure them they were loved as you wouldn't have been pushing for that outcome and everyone would have been happier. (well you wouldn't have, but everyone else)

What about the fact that the favoured child's sibling has only received the smaller cost of gift too, @Famallama? So all the cousins, bar one, have been given one value of gift, and just one has been given one worth 20 times more - I can't see that as anything other than favouritism of one grandchild over all the others.

Only if you believe peoples' choices exist in a moral vacuum, @Famallama.

What about the fact that the favoured child's sibling has only received the smaller cost of gift too, @Famallama?

So how is it favouritism? It's the PIL's money and they can spend it as they wish.

Without knowing the dynamics between all the family members - and the actual gifts that were apparently given - it's hard to know what's really going on here.

So the more money spent, the higher someone's moral standards?

I don't think that's how it works, but we don't have to agree.

You’re determined to cling to the idea that the GPs are upset with the OP.

Now you’ve been reminded that the favoured child’s own sibling received the smaller gift, you’ve slightly changed it to ‘it might not just be about the OP’.

I can’t see any evidence it’s about the OP at all, still less any evidence she has brought it on herself, but you have consistently stated the opposite without pointing to any evidence. A poor way to behave on a thread.

As you keep saying, you don’t have to agree.

I'm not clinging to anything.

Surely you agree that families and relationships are complex. We've only heard one side of the story over a few posts from the OP.

I believe there's more going on than that which may influence the GP's decisions, and that these incidents don't happen in a vacuum.

We all know they can spend it as they wish that’s obvious you keep repeating it but it’s a shitty thing to do, again would you do it with your own children? Most people know it’s weird I don’t get why you keep pushing that it’s not unless you do the same

So the only acceptable behaviour is our own?

This reply seems a bit contradictory. Not sure what you're trying to say.

Come on, this is sounding like faux ignorance now. You know perfectly well what that poster means, there’s nothing contradictory about it.

Maybe contradictory was the wrong word, but I don't agree that that just because the PILs can spend the money, they should.

It's expectation like this that upset OP in the first place.

I read your post as saying that choices are just choices, nothing to do with rightness or fairness, @Famallama - but I believe choices do have a moral aspect to them - they can be right or wrong, fair or unfair.

Then let's agree to differ 🙂 I don't think where and how people spend their time and money is a moral issue.

So if you buy one child a present worth a £100 every year, pay for a party and buy then expensive clothes but do not for their sibling, causing a lot of emotional damage, that’s not morally wrong?

I can't tell if you're being serious.

I would say people who emotionally or physically abuse people are morally wrong.

Can we get some perspective here and remember that the 'issue' @PupPupPupAndAway had was that the PILs only spent £2000 on her darling children's prsent vs +£2000 on another grandchild.

Either way, these are vast amount of money but rather than focus on what her children did get, she's focused on what she thinks they should get.

Entitled much?

It’s interesting you say that, because I thought the opposite.

The posts of another poster on here, calling OP entitled and full of expectation for her children, have prompted me to go back and read the OP’s posts again. I was struck by how her very first post, setting out her stall as it were, didn’t mention her own children particularly at all, but all the other GC who got the smaller gift.

She only really started talking about her own kids in response to direct questions about them.

I can’t tell if you’re serious tbh, money can be used as a tool to emotionally abuse people. You keep making blank statements and not answering more specific questions.

I didn't miss that part, I just didn't know they were ex at the time.

That changes things. It sucks that their dad would allow that.

What specific questions haven't I answered? I don't think we agree on this issue, and it's probably not the best use of either of our time to keep going back and forth over it.

You twice haven’t answered my question in response to you stating that I was entitled/ only interested in money because I’d mentioned the gift was expensive.

so I’ll ask again, how else could I have described the huge disparity in approach without referencing the value of the gifts?