The most unsuitable presents your dcs have ever received?

[GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER]

When dd1 was only 2, a BiL (quite a lot younger than dh) gave her a book entitled Cuba For Beginners.
It was all cartoon style, but quite obviously for politically-minded adults.
When I laughed he said, ‘Well, it does say for beginners…’

For years he gave dds nothing, but did finally make up for it when they were mid teens - with 2 x crisp £50 notes each. And that was ages ago, so to say they were delighted is putting it mildly.

@FrizzledFrazzle We have that book! Its brilliant. Maybe you should stick with 'Junior how to be a tory'?

Actually, I've sent copies as presents. Do I kmow you?

Can't remember which child (😳) but they were 2 years old and were gifted a snooker table the size of a wardrobe by PIL.

We refused to take it home.

My then 6 year old very girly DD was given a set of sharpies and a Halloween ghoul make up kit (think zombie, fake blood) from FiL. Left the sharpies at his and gave away the ghoul make up.

One Christmas when my niece was about 6 I asked her who had bought her the lovely fluffy barbie pink handbag (it was cute for a 6 year old) only to discover it was a gift to my sister from her MIL 😂
I shouldn’t have been surprised as a few years before she’d bought her a snorkel and mask. She’s never snorkelled in her life 😳🤣

My mother gave my (at the time) 7 year old a heavy linguistics textbook.

I have a linguistics degree and even I didn't understand it. It was really, really heavy theoretical stuff.

A trilogy of horror novels for my toddler son.

@BellaTheDarkOverlord that's quite sad about your DM and her odd gifting. Sounds a bit unhinged? Maybe she always wanted dolls and money boxes herself?
Especially sad as your DD said what she would like.
My MIL usually gifts really well but she recently bought 2 mid teens kits to make sock animals.

@AbacusAvocado You'd think they'd look - but dp still can't tell the difference between my (adult 5), ds (4yo, size 11), and dd (1yo, infant 5) socks...

@Lastnightsbolognese I'm not a Tory, thanks for the judgement.

I stand by my post that the book isn't developmentally appropriate for babies/toddlers at the board book age. I got it off the shelf to read with my DS and it just doesn't hold his interest. Even abandoning the words entirely and just pointing out things he's interested in - look a cat, another one, look at all these eyes, a crane! etc - didn't help. I think the issue is that the concepts are too abstract and the words too unrelated to the pictures. I honestly think that much of the content is more suited to mid-primary age, at which point it doesn't need to be a board book.

When my sister was about 12 (in the 80s) our gran gave her what I think was called Apri Scrub (facial cleanser) and a "buff puff" (exfoliating thing). Basically stuff for her acne which was pretty bad. I still remember how deflated she looked having maybe hoped for some makeup or perfume etc.

Fisher price toys for my 6 year old aimed at 1/2 years olds. From a charity shop so couldn’t even return or exchange them!

My creative and craft loving dd was given a craft set from MIL this year. Unfortunately, it's already half used and poor dd brought it to me when we got home quite upset. MIL obviously picked it up at a charity shop and didn't check. I hate the sheer laziness of it. A colouring book or pack of felt tips from the supermarket would have been a better present!

Apri Scrub was the biz in the 80s! That and Clearasil. Remember the Clearasil "Cleansing Milk" that was like wiping your face with vinegar?😃

My DS got a Lynx gift set from PIL for his 5th birthday. He quite liked his Spiderman eau de cologne at the time so I guess that's where the thought came from!