Reply to Mom Buying Too Many Clothes For My Kid...Am I Overreacting?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My mom is a very involved grandmother to my 5 year old. She loves buying her clothes. She gets dozens and dozens of outfits each year. The problem is threefold:
- this goes against  my parenting philosophy - I want to teach my daughter to appreciate what she owns and not to be too materialistic. With so much new stuff she just looks at each outfit, wears it a couple times and moves on to the next new thing.
- we don’t have enough room in our home to store these things
- I don’t get to buy my child clothes, which is something I really love doing but it makes no sense when her grandma already gets more then she needs.

We tried telling my mom to get books or toys in prior years but then she got huge piles of those and we had the same problem. We have also tried to talk to her about this many times, but she strongly feels that it’s her right as a grandparent to spoil her grandchild, that it’s one of the greatest happinesses in her life, and that we’re overreacting. She points out that the gifts make my daughter very happy and that I’m going on a power trip and denying happiness to both her and my daughter.

I’ve also tried donating some stuff, but that still teaches my daughter that it’s normal to use things just a few times and then give them away and move on to new ones. Plus my mom remembers every item and notices if they are given away and gets extremely upset (says it’s disrespectful because she spent time searching for those things and they were given with love and my daughter still loves them and so on).[/quote]

My mom is like this. YOu are going against the current and cannot stop this w/o hurting her feelings.

As to parenting philosophy - this is not the hill to die on. And you cannot keep that gate closed. Your kids will be exposed to other philosophies. Best to just deal with it. This is how we feel about XX. Grandma shows her love by sending gifts. We appreciate those but we have more than we need. So, we keep some things and donate the rest to others who can use it more.

As for the items themselves, we keep some things. Some we re-gift (if the stuff is nice) and some we donate. We always keep some things on hand for when she visits and she can see th tiems.

Look at it that she's saving you money buying these things. If you want to be helpful - TELL HER some of the staples that you need for your DC. This worked wonders for us. If we needed leggings or socks or whatever. "Mom, it would be super helpful if you could get some shorts and leggings. Her fave color is blue." Now, granted, we'd get 800 pairs and still end up donating. But at least it is stuff you need.

YOu are not going to change her materialism or her "love language." You aren't. So, while I don't know about "over-reacting" per se, I do think this is a battle not worth fighting in the sense it isn't going to change. BUt, you can leverage a bit to your advantage. [/quote]

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