Good God. That woman sounds stark raving mad. Good riddance to her.
I vote for putting the kid up for godadoption.
Um, your sister and your parents are much better off out of this relationship. I pity their child. What a rude text, to compound the rudeness of the original request. Run far and fast from these people. Maybe even all the way out of Portugal! 
I bought my godchild a book of children’s bible stories. And I split the cost with my wife (the godmother). Total cost: about $30. If I were your sister, I would buy something I felt was appropriate (and that I could afford) and leave your parents out of it. They are, of course, free to get the child a gift themselves and only spend what they are comfortable with.
Maybe your sister should tell the Godfather that he has made an offer she can refuse.
I roughly translated it as saying, " …l the Og-parents I believe in ain’t short of cash, mister!" 
Does your sister know we’re discussing this matter here? - If not, it might be best not to burden her with the knowledge, but if she *does *know we’re discussing it, please could you let her know that we all agree the demands made of her are somewhere between unreasonable and insane?
As far as godparents and gifts–in my mother’s (rather large) family, no gifts were given out beyond immediate family except for godparents to their godchildren.
As for the situation at hand…I’d suggest your parents spend the $2200 on your sister as a gift for the joyous occasion of getting those money-grubbers out of her life.
She does, I even printed out the first page but she isn’t interested in reading it. I let her know how you feel, unanimously, and also her boyfriend has read it. The message got through, a bit at least.
“If Jesus wants him to to have a bedrooms suite, Jesus will make him one. He’s a fucking carpenter. Tell you what, I’m in for the straw mattress.”
I think the mother is saying that if she wants to spoil the kid in early December, then she’ll spoil the kid in early December. Or early March. Or early July. Whenever they feel like having a big celebration. My guess is that Sister made a off-hand comment about giving the kid such an elaborate gift now when Christmas is just around the corner…
Of course, that is a lot of work for an explanation. Maybe she’s just crazy?
I think this pretty much sums it up. They’re jerks or scam artists or both.
I think, presented with this… “request”… my reflexive response would have been: “are you incredibly stupid, or just high?”
Wait, what? They were actually GOING to give the woman the money? If your sister is reading this, please tell her- Learn now while you’re young not to let people manipulate you like that. Her request was complete madness. There aren’t even words to describe how off the wall it was. What would she have gained by giving this woman the equivalent of 3 or 4 MONTHS of her pay? There comes a time when you have to do hard things like telling people no. This would be one of them.
:eek:
We only have scant access to the facts, but the scam artist angle does make a lot of sense - they asked the girl to be a godparent after only knowing her a very short while, then they make a hugely unreasonable request, but frame it as if it’s completely normal.
What BoBettie said is good too - sometimes it’s hard just to say no. I was scammed by an Algerian fast change artist in the street on a business trip to the south of France - my boss was with me - he just stood by and let it happen.
Afterwards, he said to me; “Look, I let you lose that money so you’d learn a lesson (it wasn’t a huge sum anyway, just enough to hurt a bit), but the thing is, until you realise you’re too polite to just tell people like that to fuck off, that sort of thing is going to keep on happening to you.”
Your sister should write them a letter explaining that, because she is an adult, she can no longer rely on her parents to pay for things she can’t afford on her own.
Therefore, she isn’t financially able to give the child a gift exceeding $10 (or whatever).
If they can’t understand that, then, tell them to hold out their hands, S**T in one, and wish in the other. See which gets filled up.
What??? I mena, really, just, what???
My sister is the appointed guardian named in my will. If our church had Godparents she’d be one. She dotes on my son and spoils himWe’ve been sisters a lot longer than 2 years and it wouldn’t occur to me in a hundred million years to TELL, much less ask her to spring for $2200 gift.
The uncle who would be his Godfather socks away $25 savings bonds for him gives reasonable gifts at gift giving occasions. (a book, or model kit). Same thing. He is considerably more financially solvent than either of the boy’s parents and still, I’d never make any sort of request that indicated I thought he should level the playing field.
People just baffle me. I’m glad your sister is out from under this cloud. Sheesh!
They sound like fucking lunatics, or scam artistes.
In other news, I WANT A PONY!!!
jimm - I have a pony for you. Unfortunately he lives in Tennessee. Since you’re in GB, you’ll fulfill your pony owner obligation by sending me checks for board, hay, grain and farrier visits. You can just paypal me $200/mo. Is that good for you or would you like to look at a more expensive model?
StG
I’m appalled that your sister (and parents) gave in to the parent’s demand. Just because someone has the audacity to ask for something doesn’t mean that the request has merit. The request should have been met with a thin smile at the time it was made and the issue dropped immediately. It should have never reached the ears of your parents.
Agreed. And why would these people ever believe that “this one time” means** this one time**? If they had any brains, they’d probably figure that people who could pressured/duped/whatever into something like this the first time would be easy targets the next.
And by “working for what my kid has”, the mom means…what? Working hard at getting other people to provide it?