I give hand me downs to friends, not cousins

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First cousins are (a phrase borrowed from Reddit) choosing beggars - they are upper middle class but make make lots of bad financial choices and expect us to pass on our high quality hand me downs. We are not close, we are not even friends. But their mom occasionally sends me emails asking if I have “cleaned out the closet lately?” But, we have very close friends who are stair steps below our kids in age and gender, so we give them our hand me downs.
These kids are more like cousins than their actual cousins.
Just wanted to get that out there.

Oh man, you're a gem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So weird that she even asks. Hand me downs are never asked for - if someone gives, that's wonderful. But asking for them is just tacky!

Hmmm. So OP derides her first cousins for making poor financial choices and squandering their UMC income, but also they shouldn't try to save money because that's tacky. Quite a conundrum.

Give or don't give, but getting this upset about a request is strange and doesn't reflect well on you, OP.

[Anonymous]

Give the clothes to whoever you want. Why do you need to make it into a whole moral referendum?

I have a relative like this. Whenever I give away used toys or clothes to interested friends or acquaintances, she always wants to know whether the recipient "really" needs them or is just trying to save money. Who cares?

[Anonymous]

Eh, it causes friction among cousins when they are old enough to know they are getting hand me downs because their parents can't afford to buy them clothes.

Tell her you already have an agreement with the neighbor and / or you sell them to find additional clothes purchases.

[Anonymous]

Yup to the above. I always got to wear my older cousin's clothes and it was awful. We knew their house was nicer, their car was nicer, they went more places. now I had to wear her clothes too? Given by my condescending aunt. Good times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, good Lord! Do you really need to post this? It’s so ridiculous. And to the dummy who said they give their clothes to kids that don’t stain them so they could get them back! No kid should have to be careful so they can give the clothes back to you. Only on DCUM! Once I had a friend that offered to lend my daughter clothes and then wanted them back — no thank you! Keep them. I can’t believe some of you want the clothes to look good on the third child wearing them!! Make it stop.

High strung much?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So weird that she even asks. Hand me downs are never asked for - if someone gives, that's wonderful. But asking for them is just tacky!

Hmmm. So OP derides her first cousins for making poor financial choices and squandering their UMC income, but also they shouldn't try to save money because that's tacky. Quite a conundrum.

Give or don't give, but getting this upset about a request is strange and doesn't reflect well on you, OP.

I think what OP is implying is tacky is that they're making their financial problems hers, by attempting to control what she does with her kids' clothes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So weird that she even asks. Hand me downs are never asked for - if someone gives, that's wonderful. But asking for them is just tacky!

Hmmm. So OP derides her first cousins for making poor financial choices and squandering their UMC income, but also they shouldn't try to save money because that's tacky. Quite a conundrum.

Give or don't give, but getting this upset about a request is strange and doesn't reflect well on you, OP.

I think what OP is implying is tacky is that they're making their financial problems hers, by attempting to control what she does with her kids' clothes.

No, they are just looking for free clothes.

Op, giving the children clothes is a kindness to them. You aren’t accomplishing anything by trying to send a message to the parents.

[Anonymous]

I give the clothes to people I like and sometimes let the kids pick. I do like seeing the odd item again for nostalgic reasons so preference goes to people we see often. Plus when I clean it out I want it out now.

[Anonymous]

Tell her you consign them and use the proceeds as part of your kid’s clothing budgets.

Or just say you don’t have anything for them. That’s true at least.