DH didn’t get DD anything but got his nieces

[Emsieo]

This week DH was in New York on a business trip, he got back this morning. We have 2 children DS is 8 and DD is 6. He also has 2 nieces who are 2 and 4. While on his trip he went to the American Girl Doll store and got a doll for both of his nieces, he told me his SIL sent him the money and told him what to get and it’s for their Christmas. I asked if he didn’t think to get DD one and he shrugged and said doesn’t she already have loads of dolls. She does but she adores dolls and would absolutely love an American girl doll, they aren’t easy to get in the uk so she will likely never have one.
Its upset me that he made all the effort to go to a store filled with things DD would love and didn’t think to get her one for her Christmas. He says if I knew she wanted one I should have told him like SIL did. I feel as a father he should have been able to think for himself and get her one.

AIBU?

What?

The equivalent would be, on his birthday don't buy him the exact same as your sister is getting her husband just because you are in the shop already and actually put some thought into his gift.

🙄

I swear some women just want to make life miserable for themselves

Right ,because not buying a doll clearly oppresses the household. Sinister stuff .

90% of the American Girl Doll fun is the in store experience. I honestly had no idea people outside of the US even cared about them, but I’m from the 1900s and when I was a child it was exclusively the historical dolls and the babies, I know they’ve expanded now as taking my DDs there is like going to a theme park.
They’re also expensive. If it had been me I would have considered it, then dismissed purchasing one as then I’d need to find a gift of equal value for DS and seems he’d already bought them some bits and was just doing something for his sister - which he was probably roundly regretting and trying to finish as quickly as possible, because those stores are huge, crowded, and chaotic.

Completely ridiculous. There's absolutely no suggestion he isn't going to get any Christmas presents at all. He just didn't get one specific one that hadn't been requested 2 months early.

It’s not our job to do the thinking for our husbands. This is basically his argument, isn’t it? It’s her fault for not telling him.

God only knows how all of these men manage at work without their wives there doing their thinking.

Your being ridiculous

Oh yes, clearly men can fly planes, perform surgery, run companies but one missed doll confirms they need need constant supervision . Makes total sense .

Your husband is doing your dd a favour. If the messaging she's getting from you is "buy all the shit even if you've already got 10 of the same thing" then he's encouraging her to think independently, not jump on the materialistic, branded shit bandwagon, and appreciate what she's got.

If my sister asked me to buy $100 dolls on a work trip it wouldn't cross my mind to do the same for my dd. And I'm not even a man. I'd be rolling my eyes at the mindless brand marketing she was being sucked in by. Small children don't love dolls because of the brand, they love the games they can play with them and the imagination it sparks. Let them enjoy that feeling for a bit longer, especially if your dd already has lots of dolls.

Spot on. Responses like these make me cringe for women.

American Girl Doll shops are really quite creepy. It's full of parents trying to style dolls to look like their children and vice versa.
As a pp said it's the experience of buying and styling the doll (including the dolly hair salon and beauty parlour 🤢) that people are really paying for. If you are not doing that then it's just a doll with vaguely the same hair colour and skin tone as you.
I don't think your DH did anything wrong. He brought home a present he thought your children would like, things that are difficult to get here (unlike a doll). He did a favour for his sister. Both are good things.

If you go on line you will find it very easy to get an American girl doll. They aren't difficult to get hold of, plenty to choose from.

Doesn't he know what his own DD likes? Unfortunately, late DH was the same, he didn't really know the DC.

It feels very much like a product marketed at the parents, doesn't it? Most "realistic" dolls are creepy but most of them don't cost hundreds of dollars! It feels like the kind of thing people buy because they think it gives them some kind of status, not because there's any particular quality in the product itself.

This would also explain why OP is so invested in this.They're just kids' toys, you don't need to be so invested.

So he brought back perfectly standard small gifts from an overseas business trip. And spent his sister's money buying the items she has asked him to bring back.

Has your daughter even heard of this brand?

Someone said upthread that this is annoyance with yourself for not having a conversation before he left about bringing back Christmas gifts for the kids your daughter. I agree with them. And either one of you could have initiated that conversation so it is not solely on him.

It does seem to be a case of she would have liked it if she'd been bought it.

Well that's the case with a lot of things, doesn't mean that they all need to be bought!

Especially when the motivation seems to be that cousins will have them!

You sound like my mother. She's a mindless impulsive consumer, just buy buy buy buy buy, because it's there, because it's shiny, because it's new, because I WANT!!! Then it gets promptly tossed aside and the process begins again.

She calls me mean and stingy for not buying impulsively, thinking before buying. I might pick something up, think about it, decide it's not worth it or I don't really need it and put it back. She thinks that's stingy and I'm 'counting pennies'.

Dd had plenty of toys when she was younger. But not piles and piles and piles. What the hell for? I've seen kids doing it, take it, open the package, toss aside, open another, toss aside. They get played with for 5 mins and never touched again, while mummy and daddy are bringing more.

I wouldn't have bought this doll either. She has plenty of dolls as per OP, never expressed interest in this particular doll, it's pricey. I definitely wouldn't have bought it and I'm not a man.

I do get how you feel but it’s only a doll for God’s sake!

Just looked up what they are and imo overpriced tat! But then I'm old and out of touch with what kids want.

Can't you get her a doll in the UK for Christmas? Why does it have to come from New York? His sister wanted this particular type, so he bought it for her -with her money. If you wanted a particular doll, you should have asked. If a doll is a doll to him (which is reasonable) it never occurred to him that you'd want it over one you can buy at home.

This kind of thread makes me roll my eyes. I am one of the first to call out the bad behaviour or thoughtlessness of some men, but this really isn't that. The women on this thread criticising the DH as throughtless and selfish, are not making themselves or women in general look good in their determination that the man must be in the wrong.

This poor man was sent on an errand by his sister to buy an expensive toy, during a business trip. Once he gets home he gets harangued by the OP for not buying their DD a doll in circumstances where she herself would have bought one. Now if that were my DB I would know better than to take up his time by tasking him to buy toys, during a stressful business trip. And if it were my DH I would be annoyed at my SIL imposing on him with her shopping list during his important trip (rather than buying it online and sucking up the extra cost).

It sounds as though he made a decision; not to buy a further expensive doll for his DD because he didn't think she needed one. Shock horror it is different from the decision the OP or some women would have made.

The bad thinking and decision making are on the side of the women involved, in this case. Sorry.

its about time women realised that men just don’t think the same as we do. They are very simple and have to be told to do these sort of things.

Or maybe he thought that he didn’t want to pay for an overpriced doll for a child who already has a house full of dolls. I don’t think that’s unreasonable at all.

You must have read a different OP to me.

I must have, I'm intrigued to hear how im wrong?

The underlying problem here is OP doesnt entertain any thinking that doesn't align to her own.

As i said we'd no doubt have an opposite post lambasting his waste of money if he'd been of the opinion she needed a grossly overpriced doll and OP was of the opinion she had enough.

And the same chorus of women telling us how men are useless feckless arses

Embarassing