Ha, I caught that Simpson’s reference. It’s one of the scenes that make my brother and I chuckle every time!
Bart responds in envy, “That must be the happiest kid in the world!”
7-9 year old me would have been thrilled with even as “little” as $15, as long as it was all mine. If I could spend it or save it how I wanted, I wouldn’t mind a single jot.
For about $15, you could get a Barbie – I would’ve been in heaven as a kid. (They still have some that are $8, which is how much they were when I was little).
I dont really understand all the namecalling.
Basically its a disagreement about gift giving protocols, ie how much for the future, how much for now, and who is really getting the present.
In my view theres no single right answer, and none of the scenarios are truly ‘mean’ as such, just emphasising different things.
If they’re giving several hundred dollars, I dont see why the gift has to be correspondingly cheap as some kind of lesson if thats the intention, its going overboard in my view. I agree that presents arent always measured in money, so it would come down to what the gift actually was rather than the dollar amount alone - I might wonder whether giving money is being used as an excuse to not have to think much about the gift the child actually received. Kids may not care about the money amount, but they will be able to tell whether a present is essentially generic.
Ie the gift receiver always has a responsibility to be appreciative, but the gift giver has a responsibility as well. One persons several hundred is very generous, for another its a copout in my view.
Otara
I’m going to agree with “ungrateful little shit.” $15 is not at all an unreasonable price for a kid’s gift. And even if the grandparents ARE well-off, so what? They’re spending their money where it counts: namely, the kids’ futures. Toys are cheap. College is not.
Fuck, I would be grateful if my grandparents spent $15 on me NOW. As long as you put thought into the gift, and take your inspiration from my hobbies, personality, or interests, I don’t remotely give a shit how much it costs. In fact, I get embarrassed when people spend a lot of money on me, because…well, you really don’t have to!
I see what you’re saying, but don’t really agree with you. When I was growing up, it was my parents who gave me the practical/valuable college-fund type gifts, and my grandparents who gave me all the really cool nerf-gun/action figure/slot car racing set type stuff. To me that’s what a “grandparent gift” is: some flashy, fun and expensive piece of plastic that my parents would never buy me in a million years (or something they forbade me to have, like a Swiss Army knife). If I got a savings bond from them as a 7 year old, I would have thanked them profusely like I had been taught to do, but would have been disappointed deep down. I presume that’s similar to your idea of a “grandparent gift,” and that’s why you think your nieces/nephews are getting gipped.
But they will grow up expecting a token present to unwrap, and a more substantial but less tangible investment in their future. That’s a “grandparent gift” to them, and they don’t know anything else so they’ve come to expect it and are probably happy with the arrangement. Especially as it seems their grandparents are covering their bases: providing a fun piece of $15 plastic to unwrap/get excited about/break.
I don’t think a seven year old can appreciate getting the college money to save and that’s why you MIL gives the toy too. Seven year olds love any gift.
How does argument even start? “Gee, your mom is sure a cheapskate”
I have a problem with you even complaining about her being a cheapskate, if she is indeed one. It’s her money and she can spend it however she wants. Maybe her being cheap now will allow her to fund her own retirement so she doesn’t have to live with you. Older people are more frugal, they grew up in different times.
My in-laws did the same thing and my kids sure appreciate that they can have an emergency fund now that they’re out of high school. They also enjoyed whatever toy they played with for one day at the time of the gift. Once their grandma got them their own plastic drinking glasses with smiley faces on them; still used, at least ten years later.
It sounds very petty and ungrateful the way you put it. My grandma gave us 20 dollars for gifts forever. In my 40’s I still thought it was cool.
My parents were very strict about what they’d buy, and what they’d allow us to spend our money on. I remember getting a lecture about buying something out of a vending machine for a nickel or dime, not just once, but any time that I happened to do this. My parents were very bad at picking out stuff that we wanted, which is part of the reason that I am so happy when someone remembers what I like. When I look back at my gifts, I remember being quite disappointed most of the time, although of course I was expected to be grateful. I also remember being promised one thing and being given something else that was considered “more suitable”.
If the kids are getting toys that they’re happy with, that’s what is important, not the cost of the toys.
I vote for your attitude smacks of teh stupid. You haven’t thought this through. Of course having children is the very epitome of not thinking things through.
Kids don’t need to be given large amounts of money, a few bucks is a nice thing. They need to earn larger amounts. Giving to a college fund is very generous and very wise. You need to pay attention to your elders more. And get your kids to do so to.
This is where you are mistaken. It IS a gift to the kid. The gift of a future education and knowledge gained. My father did not help me go to college. He did however put 3 of his step-daughters through university. One is a Dentist, another a lawyer and the other an Architect. He also put my brother through medical school. I chose to go much later in life, after I was already married. He didn’t help me out at all. Had I had a grandparent, or family member that did what yours is, things would have been much easier, and I would have appreciated **every single dime. **
But that’s just it. The giver doesn’t have a responsibility. They’re going out of their way to do something pretty nice. Nitpicking over the exact price when people are giving hundreds of dollars of a college education and a toy seems so petty when there are lots of people who would kill to have such generous parents/grandparents.
When I look back on my childhood there are only a few toys I remember fondly. One of those toys was an Optimus Prime transforming toy I got for Christmas in 1985 or 1986. It was pretty much the main thing I wanted that year and I didn’t find one under the tree. I must have been a little sulky because when my mother asked me what was wrong I told her I really wanted the transforming truck for Christmas. She thought it was under the tree and spent a few minutes fishing it out of the place she hid it so prying eyes wouldn’t have found it before the holiday. Another gift I remember fondly was my Nintendo Entertainment System which was the biggest birthday present I got as a child.
I remember these gifts fondly because they were things I really wanted and my parents made the effort to get them for me. One of my favorite adult gifts came from my nieces. They got me one of those quesadilla presses they saw advertised on television because they thought I’d like it. One of the least expensive gifts I’ve gotten as an adult and I love it because they saw it, knew I would love it and gave it to me.
Not, it’s not your point at all. You didn’t complain that the grandparents are giving lame or boring gifts - and even that, as others have pointed out, calls for graciousness at receiving a gift. Parents could consider whether they might want to take Grandparents aside at another time and explain to them that little Jimmy isn’t interested in a single tissue handkerchief (to use a Harry Potter example), and suggest something that might be more appropriate; but that depends competly on what people the Grandparents are.
Are they already old getting into the doddery stage? Then anything coming from them is a nice thought (Harry Potter has this heart-breaking scene in one of the later books where Neville visits his parents in the hospital - who have lost their minds from torture - and his Mom gives him candy wrappers as a gesture. Rowling said this was inspired from a real-life incident of a mother suffering Alzheimer, who remembered her son as “giver of sweets” because he brought her sweets).
Or are the Grandparents genuinly interested in the children, but have no clue what the kids want? Probably in that case they have already asked the parents for hints.
This is a teaching moment, as others have said, from the parents: they can teach the children (if they don’t know it already) that it’s the thought of giving somebody a gift that counts - and explain why giving only from social conventions, or escalating into a contest of “who can afford the most expensive gift” is contrary to the very idea, and an ego-move, not a generous move.
Or they could (hopefully not) follow your path of looking at the price tag.
But your whole complaint consistenly has not been about what the kids want or like. You didn’t even bring examples of the kind of gifts. No, you keep whining on how much of a spoiled brat you where as kid, not thankful for anything, and how you now judge gifts to children based on their price. Nothing else.
If you’d said “The kids received a box of tissues, a note book (paper kind) and a pencil and were disappointed because they’d hoped for a Barbie and a playstation”, then you might have a point.
And even then, a note book with a fancy cover to a first grader to show that he can write down his own stuff because he’s big now; a fancy-coloured pen (with glitter for girls, or with a ship that moves up and down) can be a big hit with children. It’s all about context. If Gramps sits the child down and says “I thought of you when I saw this in the shop, because you like to draw, and you can come and draw at my home without being interrupted by your siblings whenever you like” a box of wooden coloured pencils can be a wonderful gift.
I only found out recently that my Great Aunt (universally known as Aunty, and as her inital was ‘A’ it took me years to discover that was not, actually, her name) gave me £50 every birthday and christmas for me and my brother- except she used to ask them how much of it we should actually see- so I would get £5 when tiny, up to the full amount in my teens, and the rest paid for new clothes and stuff, as my parents were starting their own business and pretty skint. She just gave me my bit in a card, and never once mentioned the rest. 
Nice one Aunty, always looked forward to my spendy money, but didn’t actually kill myself with chocolate, or resent ‘my’ money being spent on booooring new shoes. Didn’t save for University here by the way, it was free until I was 16.
And my grandparents didn’t get me presents. One unseasonally easter egg, a few £10 notes when I was about 18 from the rather wealthy one (though he was very generous in other ways, he did not do presents), and one mysterious box of weird from the one with mental illness for christmas- 2 10p plastic rulers, 3 pairs of black mens socks, 2 torches with no batteries (which cost a lot more than the torches did), a ladies top in a worrying shade of yellowy green, all mixed up loose and unwrapped in a box addressed to the whole family. Followed by a jar of honey for my brother’s 18th. I did get a road atlas off her on my birthday the year I learnt to drive though, which was applauded as the one present ever bought by her that actually made some kind of sense. She forgot we existed the following year though, so apart from a worrying sexual valentine’s day card I got several years later on my birthday, that was it from her.
I’m not exactly scarred by the lack. A decent sum for the future and a little toy now sounds perfect to me.
Hijack: A Lego set really should be assembled once, played with for a bit, and then promptly disassembled to contribute to the Giant Bin Of Lego. That’s when the fun really starts. Sure, I enjoyed the occasional Really Big Cool Castle/Spaceship/Airport set my parents gave me. But I had even more fun starting from scratch with my accumulated Bin and making a giant castle/spaceport/pirate ship of my own.
Of course it is a tragedy if your neice’s Bin is actually a Lego Graveyard…
This knocked loose a buried memory of cruddy gifts from my childhood.
My parents had some friends who would babysit me and my brother from time to time. Every Christmas, they would give my brother and me a present. My brother would get a cool toy like a Transformers action figure, or a remote controlled car, or something like that. I would get a package of underwear. Every single year for about ten years. On our birthdays, my brother would get a cool toy. I would get a package of underwear.
That is a cruddy gift.
And the thing is, I was too dumb to notice the established pattern, and every Christmas or birthday when they would hand me the wrapped gift and I would feel that it was soft, I’d think it was a stuffed animal or a new dress or something I would like. But no, underwear.
This.
To me it depends on where you’re looking from. Yes there are worse GP’s in the world, but theres a long way you can go down once you use that as your only yardstick.
If I receive that gift I would be grateful, because thats how one should receive gifts. If I was giving that gift, I’d wonder if I couldnt do better, based on what Ive heard so far. Its quite possible that what they’ve given involved thought, but also that it didnt.
Money in itself doesnt mean much either way to me, because one persons hundred can be blood and tears, while to another it can be chump change.
Otara
I think the point is that if they are just going to build it once, tear it apart the next day and dump all the pieces in the Lego bin, then it’s a better value to just get them one of the mid-sized City sets at Christmas, and maybe a bin of loosies, instead of the $75 Star Wars set that they’re begging for.
That aside, my brother got one of the Lego castles one year, and that thing stayed assembled in the basement for months – we played with it continually and added a few smaller sets.
I don’t know that you’re necessarily an ungrateful little shit, but I do think you’re looking at things through a skewed lens. You say money/gifts from your grandparents was important to you because you had to save up for big things you wanted because your parents didn’t have a lot of extra cash. But they paid for your college, which means they had money, it just mostly went into savings. Your grandparents putting a few hundred bucks into your college fund every year would be that much less your parents would need to save…which would translate to a few hundred bucks floating around that can be used to buy the things you would otherwise have to save your birthday money and buy for yourself.
And no, kids don’t typically know or care how much something costs. My niece’s gifts have almost never cost more than the cruddy token gifts your in-laws give, and she thinks I give the most awesome gifts ever. She saves my gifts to open last at her birthday parties so she can play with them immediately. One of her all-time favorites was a doll-sized diaper bag with diapers and bottles. Total cost: $10 and 2 hours of my time.