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Original poster

What would happen if you DIDN'T buy your children the toy they are absolutely desperate for this Xmas?

46 replies

MrsMerryHenry · 27/09/2009 23:59

Would they die? Would anybody die? Would the world implode?

DS will be 3 this year and is just teetering on the edge of the 'I want this' age - not that he knows Xmas is a time for getting great gifts, but if he sees something he likes in the 'let's-over-commercialise-your-innocent-and-impressionable-wee-kids' pages of an otherwise good comic, then he has a barny about wanting the stuff.

I don't believe that kids should get everything they want. I think that is astonishingly bad for them - and adults, let's face it (recession, anyone??). However, I've read a few threads on here which show that some parents really feel the pressure to buy, buy, buy.

Is it something all parents struggle with, or does it depend on how strict you are about stuff? We're pretty firm about setting boundaries in our household, so I imagine that whenever DS really gets into the whole materialistic childhood thing we'll give him gifts as we see fit (hoop and stick should be fine till he's 15 ) and still be firm about the rest. I certainly don't intend to stress about whether I can afford a £200 gift for him - don't think I've ever had such a pricey gift since my wedding day, so why should he?

Are we in the minority?

OP posts:
TheButterflyEffect · 28/09/2009 14:30

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Original poster
MrsMerryHenry · 28/09/2009 15:41

Do adults actually still remember with longing (or even regret) the toys they never got as children? I shan't say what I think about that, it would be too offensive. Unless all those statements were ironic? (pleeeeease!) FGS it's just stuff, it doesn't mean anything and just as snapple said, you enjoy the fantasty - and then you move on.

OP posts:
PortAndLemon · 28/09/2009 16:37

I don't think it's the stuffness of it that rankles; as I said above, it's not generally the expensive things that make a lasting impression. I think it's actually the (perceived or real) injustice behind some of it that is felt keenly by the child and lingers into adulthood.

So it's that tummytickler's parents thought that she was so incompetent she'd mangle her fingers in a Mr Frosty, or that my parents didn't get me a chemistry set when they did get one for my younger brother, or that people were told that they couldn't have something because they wouldn't look after it properly. The child within still wants to argue that they are not a hopeless inadequate unable to cope with basic tasks unaided.

In fact, I'd would venture to suggest that if the reason for not getting the is "it's a pile of nasty plastic tat and far too much money", rather than something rooted in the parent-child relationship then it's far far far less likely, and probably not likely at all, to be still annoying into adulthood.

For example, I wasn't allowed Sindy dolls, even though I really wanted them, because my mother disapproved of Sindy dolls as a concept. That doesn't bother me at all now and I would adopt at the very least a severely restrictive Sindy/Barbie policy myself. But in contrast it does still rankle that the boy got the chemistry set and the girl didn't. It offended my sense of justice and gender equality when I was ten and it still does (to be fair to my parents, I think now that they had planned on a blanket "no chemistry set" policy but then someone else wanted to buy one for my brother and they didn't feel up to overruling it).

Are you really a perfectly balanced personality with no hangups whatsoever from stuff that happened when you were a child?

OrmIrian · 28/09/2009 16:53

Hey! Good luck with that mrsmh

Seriously I do see where you are coming from but it's so hard to follow through. WHen all their mates have a X, then a X becomes an object of desire. And it becomes more than a mere thing. We tend to compromise a little - if any of ours want something big they have to save up for a proportion of their pocket money towards it. It's a token really but it helps to ease my agonised conscience a little

The thing is I see nothing wrong with buying DS#1 a guitar for christmas - about £100 - as it's what I think of as something constructive and possible long-lasting (rather than a shortlived whim). But he feels the same about an X-box. But who's to say I am right? After all a gift is a gift and shouldn't come with strings. It is never simple.

OrmIrian · 28/09/2009 16:54

And no the world won't end. But that is the one thing they may remember about that christmas day. That they didn't get what they really really wanted and how unfair it was.

GrimmaTheNome · 28/09/2009 16:59

Orm, a guitar is a gift that definitely should come with strings!
(sorry, someone had to say it)

angelene · 28/09/2009 17:05

Orm I'd have thought that a guitar would be one gift that really should come with strings.

angelene · 28/09/2009 17:06

X-posted....

GrimmaTheNome · 28/09/2009 17:08

If my DD asks for something in particular then I'll feel under some pressure to get it because she usually doesn't ask for anything... I have to beg her for hints (last year she helpfully asked for 'a suprise' ). When she was little she would make perfectly reasonabl erequests 'a drum' one year, 'a trumpet' the next (ie a tenner max from ELC. Bless).

She still hasn't spent her xmas/birthday money going back over 2 years.

OrmIrian · 28/09/2009 17:29

Yeah Ok I fell into that one

Original poster
MrsMerryHenry · 28/09/2009 17:45

P&L - when I talk about people holding on to the memories of gifts unbought, I'm not talking about cost of those gifts.

To answer your question, when I was a child I wanted a bike post age 7 but my mother said I couldn't have one 'because I was a girl'. I was furious at the time. I am now 35. I have my own bike. I have got over it, so it really doesn't affect me in the slightest. I really hope that doesn't sound holier-than-thou; I am genuinely baffled that people would still hold on to these things when they matter so little.

Orm - thanks for the luck wishes - he is barely 3, so who knows what I'll be saying in 2 years from now! I think it's not so much how much we choose to spend, but the fact that parents feel they're under so much pressure - that's what I'm interested in.

OP posts:
sarah293 · 28/09/2009 18:05

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wheredidiputit · 28/09/2009 19:33

We told dd1 (5.6yrs) that we have to give santa x amount of money for the presents so he will choose the best things from her list.

So she understands that she will not get everything she ask for but she will get some of them.

I can't think of a single thing that i asked for and was disapointed not to get.

I can think of things i got (from my dad) which i neither wanted or needed. But that a whole other story.

ByThePowerOfGreyskull · 28/09/2009 19:42

We have told DS1 that Father Christmas chooses what to give him based on his list, we won't know what he gets until Christmas day

Eddas · 28/09/2009 19:47

My sis and I always asked for Mr Frosty, every birthday(my bday end Nov, dsis beginning of Jan) and christmas. We never ever ever got one So when I was about 19 and was working I bought one for us and my little brother to share

It was rubbish!!! I have to say my parents were right to not buy it!

I think I learnt a lesson from that though tbh, and my children only get things I think they'll use rather than things they see on adverts and 'need'.

ProfessorLaytonIsMyLoveSlave · 28/09/2009 20:34

It's not as though not being given a chemistry set has blighted my life or is something I think about every day or will occur to me on my deathbed. It might cross my mind at most once a year, generally when threads about "what did you want as a child but never get" come up on Mumsnet . But when it is recalled to mind I do have a mild regret that I never got one, and specifically that I never got one because I was a girl. So feel free to think your so-offensive-they-can't-be-repeated thoughts about me . It does seem a bit harsh over a little bit of very occasional mild nostalgic regret, though.

ProfessorLaytonIsMyLoveSlave · 28/09/2009 20:35

(Sorry, have changed name temporarily for no particular reason)

GrendelsMum · 28/09/2009 20:46

The worst that can happen is that they grow up to be like my MiL, who is still so sad that she was never bought the presents she wanted as a child that she buys everybody presents at every possible opportunity. Seriously, I have received cards and presents from her because I'm going on holiday. It's both charming and very bizarre - and our local branch of Neals Yard have now got quite used to me coming in with the latest goodies from MiL and swapping them for things we might actually use / not be hopelessly allergic to.

Original poster
MrsMerryHenry · 28/09/2009 21:51

at Professor! It was more that someone said they brought it up every now and then in convos with their parents, so it sounded like it was still a sore point, to which I say .

OP posts:
milknosugarplease · 29/09/2009 02:35

The one thing i always always wanted was "baby all gone" the one where she "ate" the cherries off the spoon...i'm currently in therapy trying to deal with it

actually really wanted one! would still like on now (for the sheer nostalgia, not because i'm some weird mnetter with a doll instead of kids!) Mum just doesn't understand

but seriously, I never got one, but i survived! ok, when threads like this come up i DO think "would have loved 1 of those " call me ungrateful for all the fab presents i DID get, but i cant help it

this doesn't mean i'm not grateful for what i DID get it just means i was very slightly dissapointed! but not enough for it to ever ruin xmas!

if anyone has a babyall gone ill send you my address

milknosugarplease · 29/09/2009 02:36

Didn't mean to post that! had no bareing on the OP's post!

sorry!

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