Reply to If anyone gives my kids toys for Christmas, I might scream.

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, I sympathize. It is totally reasonable to be frustrated. There are of course worse problems in life, but six big new lego sets over the holiday season?  Makes my skin crawl. Of course you can deal with disposing or donating what you don't need, but it makes it a task for you. And if it's for every holiday, birthday, etc., it just wastes everyone's time and money and has a cumulative effect (having to either keep making space in your house or keep making excuses why gifts are not around/being used, etc.). I'm not sure why people don't seem to be able to conceptualize this?[/quote]

Oh, I can conceptualize it. But it doesn't matter if you are frustrated/indisposed by someone giving your child a gift. It's still not polite to dictate what they can give you and/or to complain about the effect on you.

Here on DCUM, venting, okay.

Anything else sounds entitled. [/quote]

I find it odd that it’s entitled to want fewer things. Most frustrated posters on here simply sound like overwhelmed parents who are asking their parents to please respect their limits.

I also find it odd that all the etiquette of gift giving seems to go out the window when it comes to grandparents giving things to grandchildren. I guarantee if your neighbor kept bringing you a bunch of unwanted, excessive items multiple times per year that required continual purging and donating, you’d be pretty darn annoyed. Especially if you explained your limitations on accepting the items. But because it’s a grandparent they are automatically entitled to gift whenever and whatever they’d like so long as it makes them feel good, and if you feel anything less than absolute gratitude you’re an awful parent. Got it.[/quote]

You are not responsible for maintaining gift giving etiquette for your parents, or anyone else. If someone gives you a present, you are only responsible for your gift GETTING etiquette, which sounds lacking in many of these posts.

If your parents wrote in to DCUM and talked about the gifts they like to give etc, we would tell them to pay attention to (hopefully subtle) clues from their grandchildren and their parents - we would help them develop good gift giving etiquette, in other words.

But OP wrote in and clearly is violating gift GETTING etiquette - and that's what we/I am responding to. You are only responsible for yourself - especially in terms of gifts. Again, repeat after me: No one owes you or your child a present. If you get one, be grateful, and donate it if don't want it. [/quote]

Two things can be true. Gifting people things they don’t want, can’t use, or don’t have room for when you *know* this is frankly rude. It’s manipulative when you’re doing it to curry favor with a small child and it’s absolutely against gift giving etiquette. The only people who would say otherwise are grannies trying to control the family with their pocketbook.

It can also be true that the adult children have to stifle some feeling about it and teach gratitude to their children. And I think it’s a leap to infer that someone venting about this crap on an anonymous message board doesn’t understand GETTING etiquette. It’s not like we all go around saying stuff to our family members that we say on DCUM.
[/quote]

I’m the PP who you’re responding to and you’re right- if it’s just venting on DCUM and that’s all it is, that’s fine. As long as you’re being gracious recipients IRL and modeling that for your kids.

I am not a granny and I have young kids and my MIL buys weird stuff for them that they use for all of a day and I have to get rid of it. It does reveal something about her that she makes such weird gift choices but complaining about it would sound entitled. So I don’t. And I don’t think the OP should either. And it’s only manipulative if you let it. I stand by my comment that you can only control yourself - if grandparents go OTT then that’s on them. As parents we are the ones responsible for our kids ultimately, not them. [/quote]

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