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My mom's friends sending me gifts...is this kind of strange or a normal trend?
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Anonymous
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So we just had baby #2 a few months ago. Since she was born, I've received baby gifts in the mail from about four of my mom's friends - all of whom I've either met once, not at all or in the case of her best friend, haven't seen in at least 20 years. And in each case, my mom is sending me emails like, "Did you get so and so's gift? She said she sent it off on such and such date. Did you get it yet?" And in another case, she wrote me telling me how pissed she was that another friend hadn't sent me a gift at all. What!!!???? Essentially, I don't even know these people and feel like the only reason they are sending me something is to get points with my mom, who is clearly keeping score (which I find a bit annoying, but frankly there are several things about my mother I find annoying, including the type of things she deems important in life). I just think it's just kind of strange. And, this is probably horrible, but while I normally try and send thank you notes to everyone, I haven't made much (okay, any) effort with these friends...because again, I don't even know them. Instead, I just tell my mom to tell them thank you for me.
I"m just wondering, have other people experienced this and is it typical for friends of your mom or parents to almost be "required" to send something to you for these events? I think the same thing happened when our son was born so just curious if it's just another weird hangup of my mom's or standard behavior. |
Anonymous
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Absolutely my mother's friends sent me gifts. They sent the good ones. I was thrilled to get each and every one of them. And I dutifully reported back to my own mother so that she could measure the gift sent to me against whatever she had sent to her friends' children. I also wrote lovely thank you notes for each gift so that the friend could tell my mother what a nice thank you note she received and how lucky my mother is to have such a wonderful daughter and new grandchild.
It is things like this that make my mother happy and feel validated so who am I muddy the water for her. |
Anonymous
| This EXACT same thing happened to me and my mom would harass me to death with the same thing - "so and so said they sent a gift, did you get it yet?" Sometimes or more times than not I had received the gift but had not yet gotten around to writing a thank you note. I appreciated the gifts but just the mom meddling part got to be REALLY annoying. |
Anonymous
This is standard, I also received gifts from many of my mom's friends and even some of her co-workers. I didn't think it's strange, some of these are people I knew since I was 5/6, others (co-workers) are some that mom has worked with over 10 years, and while they are not friends in the sense that they visit at home or vice versa, they have seen developments in each others lives for some time. I take it as a reflection of how these people value my mom, rather than me  It feels nice though to know that so many people value my mom.
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Anonymous
| My MIL's friends threw me a huge baby shower for DD#1, and I barely knew them. They just wanted an excuse to make a big deal about my MIL - it was her first grandchild. |
Anonymous
| yes, my parent's friends sent me gifts for wedding and baby even if i do not speak or see them often. i think that is pretty common. i figure my mom talks to these people every week and i am sure she is talking about her kids and grandkids. i think it is normal for older people to talk to each a lot about the family and so then you feel connected to your friend's grandkids etc. when i think about how many pictures of dd are plastered over my mother's house--anyone who has ever been in there must feel they know my dd quite well! |
Anonymous
Ha! Funny I wanted to be the dutiful and accommodating daughter, except DC1 was a preemie, stayed in the NICU, had issues, and we never got around to sending thank you cards for any of the gifts we received. Luckily no one hates us because of this.
But if you can, please do send an acknowledgement. It's not for the friends, it's for your mother. |
Anonymous
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I'm having this with my MIL, so I've never met most of the people sending gifts. MIL made it clear throughout our wedding that she was keeping score of gifts. It is so not the way I was raised, but I think it's not that uncommon. You MUST, however, right a thank you note. Especially since you don't know these people and they really want to be sure you recieved it. Annoying, I know, but you really must.
10:15 summed up the "game" pretty well. You may not agree with it, but go ahead and validate your mother (you're certainly not going to change her, or her friends)...and enjoy those gifts! |
Anonymous
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10:27 again--MIL also wants to know how much people spent, which I really don't feel comfortable with telling her. One of her friends sent a pretty large gift card to BBB and this was more of a frenemie, so I did tell MIL in the hopes she would ease up on this women. It was nice to catch a windfall from this frenemie's desire to make peace with MIL
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Anonymous
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I guess I am lucky in that my mom's friends gave the gifts to her (as in - here are things you need to have around the house when your grandchild visits). It's really a celebration of her becoming a grandmother.
I guess I did get something from one of her friends - but it was delivered by my mom with an index card with an address to send a thank you card (written by my mom). Point taken. |
Anonymous
| My mother's friends actually threw her a shower when I was expecting her first and only grandchild. I think part of it was because I didn't want a shower and they didn't want her missing out, part of it was that she was excited to be finally getting a grandchild, and part because they felt that she had bought all of their kids presents over the years attending the baby showers they had thrown. They chipped in and sent me some things from my registry (which I would never had done except for this shower) and bought her some baby stuff to keep at her home for when DS visits. I thought it was weird at first, but now I get it. |
Anonymous
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OP, you're obligated to say thanks to the people who sent the gifts, directly, not through your mother.
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Anonymous
my mother's co-workers threw her a baby shower too. (1st grandchild as well). i have to say i thought it was pretty weird, but hey, i'll take gifts from strangers. my mother came to my house with the gifts and thank you cards that all i had to do was sign and she mailed them out for me. nice deal...but i still think its weird. they even got her a cake. |
Anonymous
This is how my STEP-MIL is--she married FIL less than a year before DH and I married and she insisted that all of her extended family be invited to our wedding, saying that they wouldn't come, but needed to be invited, i.e. she was trolling for gifts. Uh, no. |
Anonymous
| Yep, my mom's friends sent gifts. So did some of my grandmother's friends! |