:eek::eek:
I’m kind of dying to know what the crime was…
This doesn’t quite fit the OP, but one of my classmates in grade school in about fifth grade or so, got only coal for Christmas. His brothers and sisters got all the regular stuff, but all he got was a lump of coal in his stocking. Where exactly you go to procure coal is something I’ve always wondered about.
In his parents’ defense, this guy was an asshole, and he more or less deserved it, at least from the perspective of fifth-grade me.
Jeez. I am totally will to concede that my son is 3 months old and really hasn’t had a chance to do anything very rotten other than spraying poo all over the wall and even that was OK 'cus his dad was changing him at the time, BUT…
what could a 10 year old do that would warrant this? I mean, I guess he could have ODD or something which would make him a real pain in the ass, but being purposefully mean doesn’t seem like a great way to get him to reform.
Children aren’t always planned.
Yes, well. There are still options other than ‘Be a complete asshole to my kids.’ available - adoption, for one. And actually, let me add ‘Raising your children and not being a shithead and punishing them for your mistakes.’ seems like a pretty good option too.
And in Anne-Xmas’s case, her parents had more than one child so unless they were too stupid to figure out what was causing it, there’s really no excuse. She’s also suggested that her mother was nice to the other children.
My parents were both born on December 17, and my mother always received a separate birthday and presents, while my father’s mother always grabbed a couple of presents from under the tree and told him that was his birthday presents. I don’t know if he got a separate cake.
I’m somewhat confused about the “breakfast will ruin your appetite for Xmas dinner” thing…surely you would have time to get hungry again?
My daughter was born on June 26. If you like, I give you permission to share her birthday, and have French toast and bacon all day long, followed by a chocolate cake with vanilla icing. Even though yellow cakes with chocolate icing are the very best.
There was a housekeeper in our neighborhood who had a kid a few years younger than me. She got addicted to drugs and started pawning her kid’s presents (both the few from her and from the families whose houses she cleaned) to feed her habit. When word of this got back to the (rather influencial) families whose houses she cleaned CPS was informed and she was fired from almost all the houses she was cleaning. It went very bad for her after that.
I’ll have to call my mom and ask her! I think it was around seventh grade, so really it could have been anything and I probably totally deserved it. I was a little shit in middle school. (Middle school was a little shit to me, too.)
I too have a December birthday and got combined presents. It sucked.
My wife’s birthday is December 25 and our son’s birthday is December 16. I always try to make the extra effort to ensure they both get Birthday and Christmas treats.
We had our bad times growing up, but Mom always made sure we got clothes, and something to play with.
One year, we were so poor, all I got was a pair of Levi’s with a hole in the pocket…
I never got nothing, but the year after my parents divorced, the present I got from my mother was clearly an afterthought; a cigarette logo t-shirt stuffed in a Pringles can, wrapped in aluminum foil. I then got to spent Christmas Eve on her boyfriend’s couch, and Christmas Day going around to his various family members exchanging gifts. I did get a gift from her boyfriend; I believe it was a device called a chest expander, which he explained would make me less of a wimp. Good times.
I had a somewhat more traditional post-Christmas dinner with my father and paternal grandmother, but as her husband had just died a few weeks prior, it was a fairly somber affair.
I can’t speak for the poster in question, but while I’m not a qualified psychiatric diagnostician, I’m certain that my mother met the pathological criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Forgetting a gift on Christmas was far from the most neglectful or self-serving thing she ever did. I suspect that there are plenty of people out there with similar stories, and a lot of parents who shouldn’t be or never really thought about what it actually takes in terms of sacrifice and devotion to be a good parent.
Stranger
This isn’t a situation where a charity would get involved, but post 19 in thisthread might be of interest.
Yah - it doesn’t really qualify - once you’re a teen you’re old enough to behave in an appropriate way. I know plenty of 14 and 15 year olds that might benefit from a bit of ‘meanness’.
The OP is more about very young children - 5, 6, 7. Old enough to know what’s going on and be expecting something and too young to understand ‘Mommy is a crack-head who spent all the $$ on drugs.’
Please note - being older with a crack-head mommy would suck just as much as being younger, but the child in question may at least have some sort of emotional tool to deal with such a thing where a very small child does not.
Nope. Even when we were dead broke we managed SOMETHING for the little ones. Kids, usually to preteens, are pretty happy with presents, it doesn’t necessarily have to be something fancy or expensive. And with little kids, lots of little presents are better than one big one. Later we made up coupon books or some other homemade thing if we really couldn’t afford anything.
Twice as a teenager I had nothing under the tree. It wasn’t due to hard financial circumstances nor extremely bad behavior on my part. My sibling had many. I don’t want to go into the entire saga, but suffice to say my mommy isn’t like the other mommies. She can be vicious for reasons known only to her.
Not Christmas, but my wife claims her parents would make a show of giving her and her sister an envelope of “lucky money” for Chinese New Year when company came over, and then they’d take it back afterwards “to hold onto it for you”. Uh huh…
I was estranged from my parents for about 5 years that I also didn’t really have a steady BF, and was pretty solitary so I didn’t do any sort of gift exchanges through work, or with friends. No birthday or christmas presents, cards. Not that big a deal to me.
Erm, I’m assuming you weren’t a child at the time, 'cus if you were estranged from you parents from age 3 - 8, that would be intense…
Hey, I said if they wanted to cut back, not me. They cut back, less work for me, more time for drinking! ('Cos that’s what Olentzero does.)