My DM is obsessed with buying things

[bonboncherie]

Wondering if anyone can advise if you’ve been in a similar situation!

My DM has always been obsessed with buying stuff. Birthdays and Christmases we were given tonnes of presents, and she’d take photos of the piles of presents rather than us opening them. And it really was just ‘stuff’ - as we opened the presents, she’d go ‘I don’t know what that is/what that does’.

I think she does it as a status thing. As I got older, I got embarrassed by the amount of stuff we were given, so I’d move my presents away upstairs almost straightaway. When my cousin came round one Christmas day, he was surprised by how many presents there were, and my mum said ‘oh yes and bonbon has lots more upstairs!’

Our tiny house was crammed full of stuff, to the point where my sibling and I started to throw our things away before birthdays and Christmas in anticipation of the (often big, expensive) presents that would come later. I think we had a really weird lack of attachment to gifts etc because things seemed ‘transient’ (?), we knew we’d end up getting rid of it to make space for next year’s.

Added to that is DM’s really difficult behaviour emotionally. When we were little, she’d throw away our toys when we were ‘bad’ (we were meek, shy children), and my dad would get them out of the bin and hide them in the garage.

She would shout and scream at us or give us silent treatment, and we were scared of her, but maybe she thought the presents made up for it. As a result of years of her behaviour, we don’t have a close relationship.

As we got older (into our 20s), she started doing Christmas Eve boxes and the amount of gifts has never reduced even now we’re in our own homes with partners of our own, even though we’ve asked her to please not overdo it.

I’m currently expecting my first DC. I’m about 15 weeks and told DM a week ago. In that week, she has asked me three times if I’ve started buying for the baby. She’s said ‘we will need to go shopping’, ‘it will be having [X thing]’.

I want to form some boundaries around her involvement with my DC in any case, because of DM’s behaviour over the years, but the presents/shopping/stuff feels invasive/intrusive.

Growing up, it felt like we were never able to choose anything for ourselves, she chose everything (clothes, toys, bedding etc). AIBU to think that she’s had her chance and this is my time to choose things for my small DC, until they can make their own choices?

I know she won’t stop at just one or two presents, we’ll be totally overwhelmed with stuff that we have no space or use for, and she’ll never stop because she doesn’t listen. It isn’t actually about whoever’s receiving her presents, it’s about making herself feel better (maybe?).

Please help if you can! Thank you for reading if you’ve got this far

Yes I think you got all of this right

it is a sort of performative parenting by her, and you are in your right to tell her to stop now

You’re unlikely to be able to stop her. If you don’t want the item, offer it free on Facebook - it will get snapped up

My mum is a bit like this.

The main thing I do is divert her onto something where I don't really mind if she buys excessive quantities - books for the kids has worked well for example

And then I have also got really ruthless at getting rid of stuff she gets me that I don't actually like.

My mother was the same (probably not quite as bad as your dm.) My siblings and I asked her for thirty years to please cut down on the presents. She never did so I gave up saying anything because it made no difference whatsoever. It only stopped when she got ill and couldn’t go round the shops buying stuff.

Donate it all. Just put it straight into a charity shop.
yanbu, and it sounds horrible, being flooded with stuff like that, with no loving words or behavior to make it meaningful.

this is your time, you are right, and she doesn’t get to have control over it.

I know it’s easier said than done, but just keep reminding yourself that you’re an adult, and you don’t need to keep anything you don’t want.

Tell her if you want to buy a particular item. Tell her that you do not want an excess of stuff. Tell her that if she doesn’t follow this, any excess/things you don’t like/duplicates of things you’ve already bought will be going straight to charity or being sold and money in to the baby’s savings.

She will then just have to deal with that.

It is an addiction, shopping disorder.
Makes her feel better by giving her a dopamine high.

Address it by telling her that you have battled with her shopping addiction for years and the resulting effort of binning the gifts to charity or the actual bin but now you have a child YOU want to have all the pleasure of providing for them.

You will give away immediately any of the unwanted stuff that she buys for the baby but respectfully request if she wants to do something lovely for the child, she buys premium bonds or starts a savings plan for them where the money that would have been spent on tat could now be invested wisely and actually be of some use to the child.

'Mother, you have wasted thousands over the years and it's all gone into landfill. Now that you will be having a grandchild it's a chance to overcome your shopping addiction and do something useful and practical for them instead of frittering your money away.'

If she gets the hump that's down to her. She might moan to her friends if she has any and they will also set her straight.

If you feel you can't say it to her then write her a letter. Mahdi se that anything she buys will be got rid of immediately.

You should sit her down and be very blunt...she won't take it well because all the behaviours you've describe suggest some serious issues and it sounds like she uses shopping to self medicate these and make herself feel better, the explosive anger as a child suggests and your Dad's response suggests she's quite controlling and not used to people standing up to her. However, whatever happened in her life to make her this way doesn't excuse it.

You need tell her how all the excess stuff makes you feel and that you don't want it. Tell her that she can buy one thing for the baby before it's born and if she buys any more you will be leaving it at her house. She will no doubt go bananas and lay on the emotional blackmail and tell you that you're ungrateful. At that point, get up, tell her that yet again she isn't listening to your feelings and walk away. Have nothing to do with her until she agrees to modify this behaviour. She either will or she won't but you do not need to tiptoe around these behaviours that are making your life miserable just because your Dad did for years. Good luck op.

We don’t have room for all this. If you must buy it then it stays at your house for when baby visits.

maybe she’ll tire of all the tat and clutter?!

You won't change her. Just stick the stuff on marketplace and save whatever money you make in an account t for DC for when they are older. It's a waste of her money but that's her choice.

I had a similar experience, although in my case the shopping was a symptom of mental illness diagnosed very late. I felt physically sick when the piles of things arrived because it was often the start of a manic episode.

It only really changed whej I explained how it was making me feel, which was a really hard discussion. I actually had some therapy which helped me feel more confident saying what I needed from her as a mum myself now.

We now have a few rules that are a compromise and each have a rationale that I repeat often and isn’t just “I don’t like all the stuff” which makes her feel defensive. So she buys all my child’s shoes, which means a trip to the shoe shop together, that they both enjoy. She knows that if she buys multiple of things then I will take one unopened to a baby bank or similar, which means other children get the treat of new clothes. And she can buy new books, but for toys she does eBay or charity shop not new which means less plastic waste. Maybe worth thinking about what she might be more responsive to and starting there?

Tell her to stop. If she doesn’t, just donate it. She may play the victim and say she’s being nice by buying things, but actually, if she doesn’t respect your boundaries, she’s being the opposite. If she doesn’t start respecting boundaries and reduce her buying to a normal level for a GP, then see less of her.

Maybe she needs to actually see you giving things away, a photo of the items when you hand them over to the charity shop, or as soon as she gives you stuff, put them in the boot of your car in a black bin bag? It might help her to visualize that you are rejecting her stuff.

She definitely won't change and sounds like you are spot on with why she does this.

So - deal with what you can change:

I'd spend a bit of time today researching local Baby Banks or charities that help families or women's refuges. Then you can almost create a partnership with one and just take everything you don't want straight there.

You will start to feel lovely about how much you can help them, each excess gift with give you a lift instead of dread as you know you are helping them. They will help you to appreciate her very misplaced generosity.

What WonderingWanda wrote earlier. However, your mother is completely unlikely to modify this or infact any aspect of her behaviour now because its deeply ingrained. Its not your fault she is like this and you did not make her that way.

What if anything do you know about her childhood because that often gives clues. Such buying is often associated with mood disorders.

Donate it all to charity shops and have no compunction about doing so. I would also consider if you actually want your mother to be around your child given her behaviours towards you and your siblings. Such people do not change and if she is too toxic/difficult/batshit for YOU to deal with, its the SAME deal for your child too.

Thank you all so much for your replies. I’m so so thankful that nobody said I was being ungrateful and DM is only trying to help and be generous etc.

It’s a hard and weird thing to come to terms with, that materially you had everything in your childhood you could possibly have wanted and more, but that there was emotional neglect/abuse alongside that, and that the material stuff was all for display anyway, to show outwardly how ‘perfect’ we were.

I’m not sure why DM behaves like she does, but she seems to be deeply insecure in many ways, so maybe it stems from there somehow. She’s always competing with my MiL in some sense, although I don’t think MIL realises that, or with other women.

She sees that money/stuff = love. With the rest of the context, though, it can feel like she’s trying to buy us or buy our compliance, if that makes sense? We can’t criticise her behaviour if she’s so generous as to buy us all these things (even if we don’t want them).

thank you again x