Reply to Feeling sad about Christmas

Forum Index » Parenting -- Special Concerns

Reply to "Feeling sad about Christmas"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Okay. I'm a divorced mom. Offspring are older now, so this is no longer an issue for me, but...

Was this a movie your stepkids wanted to see and asked to see? If so, you're right; they should have said thank you. I guess a PP's kids aged 4 & 7 got the idea that mommy took them to a movie they wanted to see and thanked her. That's nice.

But...if you and their dad decided seeing a particular movie would be a good family experience and took them, well...don't expect a thank you. They won't see it as a "gift" to them. They probably see it as "dad and stepmom have to come up with things to do while we're there that don't involve talking with us." I'm not sure I'm making this clear, but there's a difference between doing something with your stepkids because it's something THEY want to do and which you don't really enjoy and doing some activity with your stepkids that they had no real input into choosing and fits your vision of "happy families."

My kid's stepmom probably had similar complaints about my D. Stepmom came up with elaborate plans to do the sorts of things she would enjoy doing with a daughter. One example was getting her an American Girl doll and the book that came with it. My D was the right age--but she just didn't like dolls and, the books were well below her reading level. If stepmom had handed the equivalent amount of money to spend, an American Girl doll wouldn't have been considered at all. So, no, my D wasn't all that grateful for getting something she didn't want. An adult would have "regifted" a comparable gift.

So, while it may just be that your stepkids are entitled brats, it may also be that what you go them just isn't something they wanted and you took them to see a movie they had no particular interest in seeing.

[/quote]

Thank you for chiming in. I appreciate your insights.

Yes, they had expressed interest in seeing the movie. They didn't ask us specifically to take them - but they were excited it was coming out. So we decided it would be fun to go, since we had them the week it came out. So, maybe its a little of both? I don't know. I thought we were doing the right thing by surprising them.

That said, your points are well taken. And when it comes to gifts, we do our best to find out what they want. Personally, I would much rather choose from options of things someone really wants than try to gift something I *think* someone might want. Unless I know then really, really well - and that definitely does not describe the relationship between me and SC.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics