Anonymous wrote:I think it’s manipulative.

Yep.

I would be sending it straight back or throwing it away.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would a sibling who made the choice to be estranged from another sibling keep sending birthday and holiday cards to their nieces and nephew every year? I can’t make sense of what is going through their mind. If they hate their sibling so much and never want contact again, why keep mailing cards to nieces/nephew who they haven’t seen since they were a baby/toddler/preschooler? This is also an adult sibling who is in their 40s and his barely held a job as an adult so has very little money and lived with elderly dad. So the $100 sent to each kid is probably significant money to them. Just trying to make sense of this family situation.

He/she are estranged from you, not your kids. Nice of you to throw shade on him/her, though.

This is actually not my sibling. It’s a situation with my sister in law and her sibling.

I get her sibling isn’t estranged from her kids, but I don’t get sending gifts to nieces/nephew that don’t even know who you are since the estrangement happened when they were 4 and under.

This isn’t complicated. They can still care about the nieces/nephews and some people are generous- I love giving gifts, especially to children in my family.

It's creepy to shower people with gifts, especially those with whom you aren't close. You cannot buy love. Even when you are a close family, it's important to check in with parents. Nobody wants their kids becoming spoiled, entitled and focused on material things. Generosity should be about time and special moments, and again, within what works for the parents. Showering people with stuff is not generous. If a family is poor and you pay for groceries and bills for the month, that is generous. You paid for their needs.

We did this for my nieces and nephews. It's not their fault that my SIL needs psychiatric help she refuses to receive. Want them to know we still care about them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am estranged from my sister. A card with or without money to my child would be unwelcome and returned to sender. My teenager has unfortunately been witness to some outbursts from my former sibling and would be also weirded out by the attempt at contact.

It’s an attempt to keep the line (no matter how thin) of connection/communication open.

Agree. I have a sister who wrote to tell me she wanted nothing to do with me, but continued to send things to my kids. I realized from her letter that she was a bully and completely untrustworthy, so did not want her in a position to treat my kids the way she had treated me.

I wrote “Return to Sender” on everything she sent. She eventually got the idea and stopped sending things. I was not going to let her use money and gifts to manipulate my children, which I knew was her goal from talking to other relatives.

There is so much pain in this post as well as assumptions. We tend to make up stories in our head to help cope with the pain. And then there’s paranoia which begs the question, at what point does this behavior/thinking cross over to clinical mental illness? In our family it was our mother that controlled and created this dysfunction fed by her paranoia.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would a sibling who made the choice to be estranged from another sibling keep sending birthday and holiday cards to their nieces and nephew every year? I can’t make sense of what is going through their mind. If they hate their sibling so much and never want contact again, why keep mailing cards to nieces/nephew who they haven’t seen since they were a baby/toddler/preschooler? This is also an adult sibling who is in their 40s and his barely held a job as an adult so has very little money and lived with elderly dad. So the $100 sent to each kid is probably significant money to them. Just trying to make sense of this family situation.

Your sibling values family but thinks you’re a jerk. They don’t want your family dysfunction to be passed on to the next generation.
I just might be your sibling.

Extremely controlling. What you want is irrelevant. It's not your family. This is why these behaviors are manipulative right here. It's a clear decision to try to control a family that isn't there's and undermine the parents.

I still think taking the money and saying thank you is fine and not stirring up drama but it's very clear that this is a manipulative superiority tactic and there is no reason to spend time with family that play these games.

Anonymous wrote:Why would a sibling who made the choice to be estranged from another sibling keep sending birthday and holiday cards to their nieces and nephew every year? I can’t make sense of what is going through their mind. If they hate their sibling so much and never want contact again, why keep mailing cards to nieces/nephew who they haven’t seen since they were a baby/toddler/preschooler? This is also an adult sibling who is in their 40s and his barely held a job as an adult so has very little money and lived with elderly dad. So the $100 sent to each kid is probably significant money to them. Just trying to make sense of this family situation.

Your sibling values family but thinks you’re a jerk. They don’t want your family dysfunction to be passed on to the next generation.
I just might be your sibling.

DH is no contact with his parents and siblings--their choice after parent's nasty and destructive divorce. They don't send cards or gifts for our kids on their birthdays or Christmas or high school graduation. I always judged them for this, but OP's post has made me realize I am wrong, and that it's for the best. It is all very sad though.

Being estranged doesn't mean you hate the person. I dont speak to my parents, but don't hate them and want the best for them. But they don't treat me kindly (to put in mildly) because of mental illness and their own baggage. So I have separated myself from their drama.

They do send presents for my kids. When they do I have the kids video chat them to say hello. It's a limited relationship, but that's for the best.

Anonymous wrote:I wonder how the kids feel about it. It would feel weird to get cards from a stranger who disrespected your mother - and invasive

Yep. I was the kid in this situation (but my aunt wasn't a stranger) and this is how it felt.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s manipulative.

I agree. What is the goal of the estranged aunt? Does she somehow imagine that sending cards/money to these kids will someday make them want to have a relationship with her when they get older? Does she have visions of the kids visiting her, sitting around and maybe listening to her bash their own mother?

That is not normal thinking. Who wants to get in between a mother and her children? A manipulative person, that's who.

Agree. It’s manipulative, an attempt to undermine the mother. A blatant “you can’t control my path to your children.” To the kids, see what a nice person I am despite what your mother thinks? If a relationship with a mother sours, back off from the children. Let mom decide about any contact.

This has been the last 15 years of my sister. She ghosted me, but sent the kids gifts on holidays— sometimes. She was kind of flaky about it. It was always innocuous Amazon gift card type stuff. The gifts were appropriate, so I vented to DH and kept my opinions away from the kids. I just reminded them to text a thank you. And when she forgot holidays, I told the kids that she had her own stiff to deal with and it wasn’t personal. My kids aren’t materialistic and know better than to use gifts to keep core. They took it in stride.

When they asked why went never saw her, I was honest said I didn’t know— that was a choice their aunt had made but had not explained to me. But it was almost certainly because she had issues with me and not them. Once they hit HS, they had her text # and knew that if they wanted to contact/ see their aunt, they were free to do so. I don’t think either ever reached out. I know they never saw her.

Fast forward to now. Kids are 21 and 23. My opinion is that when they turn 18/ start college, they are adults and should be responsible for maintaining adult family relationships. I stop being a go between. If you want to know if the 22 year old who didn’t text a thank you got a gift, ask them directly Mom. They could theoretically go on to develop a close relationship with my sister and that’s fine (but, I doubt it will She’s very self centered and has an empathy chip missing. The kids don’t know her and haven’t expressed an interest in doing so).

For HS and college graduations, where the whole family is invited, I have included her in the group text with details (more to make my mother happy than anything). She’s never RSVP’d or acknowledged the invite. She’s rtainly never appeared.

I can’t explain it. At first I was angry. Then sad, especially for my kids, who lost an aunt. Now I just accept it. We grew up with divorce, both parents remarrying, stepsiblings, some abuse thrown in. She’s never given me a reason for ghosting me or said I’ve done something wrong. So, I assume she’s dealing with her own crap unless/ until she provide a different explanation.

But, my kids are their own people. My drama with my sister shouldn’t ruin their relationship with her. I mean it did— but that was my sister’s decision, not mine.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would a sibling who made the choice to be estranged from another sibling keep sending birthday and holiday cards to their nieces and nephew every year? I can’t make sense of what is going through their mind. If they hate their sibling so much and never want contact again, why keep mailing cards to nieces/nephew who they haven’t seen since they were a baby/toddler/preschooler? This is also an adult sibling who is in their 40s and his barely held a job as an adult so has very little money and lived with elderly dad. So the $100 sent to each kid is probably significant money to them. Just trying to make sense of this family situation.

He/she are estranged from you, not your kids. Nice of you to throw shade on him/her, though.

This is actually not my sibling. It’s a situation with my sister in law and her sibling.

I get her sibling isn’t estranged from her kids, but I don’t get sending gifts to nieces/nephew that don’t even know who you are since the estrangement happened when they were 4 and under.

This isn’t complicated. They can still care about the nieces/nephews and some people are generous- I love giving gifts, especially to children in my family.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am estranged from my sister. A card with or without money to my child would be unwelcome and returned to sender. My teenager has unfortunately been witness to some outbursts from my former sibling and would be also weirded out by the attempt at contact.

It’s an attempt to keep the line (no matter how thin) of connection/communication open.

Agree. I have a sister who wrote to tell me she wanted nothing to do with me, but continued to send things to my kids. I realized from her letter that she was a bully and completely untrustworthy, so did not want her in a position to treat my kids the way she had treated me.

I wrote “Return to Sender” on everything she sent. She eventually got the idea and stopped sending things. I was not going to let her use money and gifts to manipulate my children, which I knew was her goal from talking to other relatives.

So you prevented your kids from having a relationship because you don’t want one? That’s manipulative.

Not the poster you are responding to but I disagree. She is protecting her children.

Yes, I realized that my sister had a way of acting friendly to people and then turning on them. When she turns on someone, she can be unkind and manipulative. I did not want my kids to have to deal with that, especially when I realized how much she had bullied me over the years.

She’s become worse as she gets older. Other relatives have told me that she flies off the handle easily, screaming at her in-laws when she was helping them clean out the family home after her husband’s parents had both died. Plus, her husband’s siblings believe that she stole things from the house. I just don’t want her to be “friendly” with my kids and then start screaming at them out of the blue.

I see nothing manipulative about protecting my kids from someone like this.

To pretend to be the bigger person so they can prep for the day when your kids reach out and he can then play victim and pretend to be awesome and misunderstood.

Or because you are the problem but he wants to keep the door open for the day your kids may need him because you are so horrible.

I am not kidding, these are the options.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am estranged from my sister. A card with or without money to my child would be unwelcome and returned to sender. My teenager has unfortunately been witness to some outbursts from my former sibling and would be also weirded out by the attempt at contact.

It’s an attempt to keep the line (no matter how thin) of connection/communication open.

Agree. I have a sister who wrote to tell me she wanted nothing to do with me, but continued to send things to my kids. I realized from her letter that she was a bully and completely untrustworthy, so did not want her in a position to treat my kids the way she had treated me.

I wrote “Return to Sender” on everything she sent. She eventually got the idea and stopped sending things. I was not going to let her use money and gifts to manipulate my children, which I knew was her goal from talking to other relatives.

So you prevented your kids from having a relationship because you don’t want one? That’s manipulative.

Not the poster you are responding to but I disagree. She is protecting her children.