MIL keeps buying kids crap

[Anonymous]

My MIL wont stop buying crap for our child. I say crap, because it's usually useless, fun-for-a-minute type of stuff. Then it sits taking up space.

I've told her to stop buying things, or leave them at her house.

She did for a while, but now, every time they come home, they have another piece of junk, and MIL says, "But they wanted to bring it home SOOO bad."

I tell her to take it home and she insists, "They can bring it back next time they come over."

Tactful way to decline the crap without insulting?

[Anonymous]

If you figure this one out, let me know!

[Anonymous]

Mine brings cakes, cookies, candy, etc. every single time. Told her we needed to limit that sweets for health reasons. Next time she showed up with oranges and apples. Just can't come empty handed so I give up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mine brings cakes, cookies, candy, etc. every single time. Told her we needed to limit that sweets for health reasons. Next time she showed up with oranges and apples. Just can't come empty handed so I give up.

LOL - you are complaining about oranges and apples? Get some help.

[Anonymous]

Yep! ITA.

With all the expense my mil has spent on dollar toys, she could have bought a nice set of a quality toy.

Here's my solution for those toys now: DD and I have had good talks about 'dollar toys' -- I explained to her it's the type you get that are small, from chick fila, just little breakable toys..... I told her she can have a treasure box of those things in her room. We decorated a shoe box. Whenever she brings a new toy home, DD's job is to decide what she wants to keep, my job is to decide where it goes. : treasure box or another box of toys. (If it's a doll, fine it can go with dolls. If it's a ball, it can go in the ball bucket). Otherwise... It belongs in treasure box! The last rule is if the treasure box gets too full, she will have to decide what to toss out.

We established those rules, so now I decide where they belong at nighttime. DD has been doing great with this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yep! ITA.

With all the expense my mil has spent on dollar toys, she could have bought a nice set of a quality toy.

Here's my solution for those toys now: DD and I have had good talks about 'dollar toys' -- I explained to her it's the type you get that are small, from chick fila, just little breakable toys..... I told her she can have a treasure box of those things in her room. We decorated a shoe box. Whenever she brings a new toy home, DD's job is to decide what she wants to keep, my job is to decide where it goes. : treasure box or another box of toys. (If it's a doll, fine it can go with dolls. If it's a ball, it can go in the ball bucket). Otherwise... It belongs in treasure box! The last rule is if the treasure box gets too full, she will have to decide what to toss out.

We established those rules, so now I decide where they belong at nighttime. DD has been doing great with this.

This is a great idea. I love the treasure box concept.

[Anonymous]

I find it annoying too. One option is to store the items in a bag and send them back to MIL's house the next time they go if they go frequently.

What I do is walk around and throw the items away after a few days. DS age 4 rarely notices. If he does, I say it was broken, not good, etc.

[Anonymous]

I have a box that's similar to pp's treasure box. We put all the dollar toys, goodie bag toys/gizmos in it. Whenever we have play dates at our house, kids are welcome to them!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine brings cakes, cookies, candy, etc. every single time. Told her we needed to limit that sweets for health reasons. Next time she showed up with oranges and apples. Just can't come empty handed so I give up.

LOL - you are complaining about oranges and apples? Get some help.

I guess I should have explained better -- massive quantities (big Costco boxes) all cut up -- I have don't have the space to store them in my fridge and we can't possible eat that much before they go bad.

[Anonymous]

You all are so ungrateful.

[Anonymous]

Throw it out and don't worry about it.

[Anonymous]

My mother used to do this so I convinced her to open a bank account for the kids instead so that when they are older they will have an account they can use for something special like a study abroad trip or another memorable from grandma experience. She actually really got into it (and declared it can't be used for a car!!) and loves seeing the account balance rise and imaging what the kids will do with it. My 10 year is aware of the account and will talk to her about it. My nieces go to the bank with her to deposit the funds and it is their outing. My 10 year old has close to $10k between birthday, holiday and random grandma $ so all that plastic junk adds up!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Throw it out and don't worry about it.

+1 Those toys keep the attention of my kids for about 48 hours. Then they go in the trash.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My MIL wont stop buying crap for our child. I say crap, because it's usually useless, fun-for-a-minute type of stuff. Then it sits taking up space.

I've told her to stop buying things, or leave them at her house.

She did for a while, but now, every time they come home, they have another piece of junk, and MIL says, "But they wanted to bring it home SOOO bad."

I tell her to take it home and she insists, "They can bring it back next time they come over."

Tactful way to decline the crap without insulting?

Have her stop watching your kids and milking the free babysitting. Do family visits from now on.

[Anonymous]

My MIL did that and it (along with lots of other things) annoyed me to no end.

With three kids it really added up when she was buying 5-10 gifts each for Christmas and bdays.

I bit my tongue and just graciously thanked her, even as I bitched to husband later after the kids went to bed.

But in front of the kids it was always graciousness and appreciation.

I am so glad I handled it this way instead of choosing to make this a hill worth fighting over and damaging an important relationship over cheap plastic crap.

Over recent years, my aging inlaws have been dealing with increasing health issues, to the point that the past few gift giving events have decreased in quantity. This past Christmas, my kids skyped with grandparents and opened truly minimal Christmas gifts. They were enthusiastic and grateful, because that is how we always behaved when given a gift. It did not matter that one received sweatpants and the other a couple packs of pokemon cards instead of the piles of presents they were used to.

And more importantly, the grandparents got to experience the joy of giving to gracious recipients, whether it was a $10.00 Target T or piles of licensed crap.

Ask yourself this OP, is making a doting grandparent feel bad and potentially damaging a close family relationship worth it over a bunch of cheap crap that you can easily filter out once it is "broken" or "lost"? How important is thia battle of stuff to you? What kind of recipients do you want to teach your kids to be? The kind that intuitively know how to be gracious and appreciative no matter what the gift? Or the kind of person that only wants what they want, and is okay with making someone feel bad for giving the wrong thing?