Nothing really to do with the book, I swear. I’m just curious.
Here’s a question for the parental Dopers, particularly those of more than one child.
Let’s say that your children begin receiving, in the mail, expensive gifts from an unknown party. The gifts are all sent care of you, the parent, so you always know what they are. There’s no lingerie, no porn, no drugs or offensive video games–nothing in any way inappropriate, suggestive, or dangerous. The gifts are always something the children love–things you might have chosen for them, in fact, had you the money and inspiration at the same time. They only come at the usual gift-giving times–birthdays, graduations, Christmas if you celebrate that holiday, etc. There is no return address on the envelope. You have no idea who is giving these gifts, or why; your children and SO say they have no idea either, and you believe them.
Do you pass the gifts on? Why or why not? Does the age and gender of the child matter?
Irrespective of it being your niece rather than your own child, I can’t help but notice that, rather than answer my question, you answered a completely different one. Are you sure you’re not Ari Fleischer?
Significant gifts are almost always received from people who feel a sense of either significant obligation, attraction, or emotional connection. The fact that someone is linked to my kids in this manner, but chooses to remain anonymous would tend to make me shield the kids from this attention unless there was some plausible explanation offered (ie bio parents or bio grandparents of adoped kid etc.) In the absense of such information I would not give them the presents.
Certainly not. That is way beyond skeevy. Any rational adult will know that anonymous gifts for children are not appropriate.
When they’re 18, they can get anonymous gifts, but before that, no way. Even for a teenager in high school, an expensive anon gift would almost certainly be a ‘secret admirerer’ with no sense of proportion (a single rose? a petit-four? OK. Jewelry? bad.) and definite potential for stalkerism.
I woudn’t pass along the gifts. I’d get very busy tracking down the sender, though. Sending expensive, anonymous gifts to *anyone * is inappropriate. I’d be worried if I were receiving them myself. I’d be frantic if it were my daughter.
Hmmm…For the sake of participation, I’ll assume that I have children. I’ll take a somewhat different tack here. If I examined the gifts, and determined them to be not harmful, age appropriate, and not reeking of bad mojo, I’d pass them on to the children. The mysterious sender was careful to address the gifts to the children, in care of me. That tells me that he/she/it is at least sensitive to parental concerns, which I take as a positive sign. If the sender knows anything at all about me, he surely knows that attempting to harm any of those identified as mine is an open challenge to battle to the death, and he’d better pack a lunch for it. Thus, it would appear to me that while I may not understand the motivation, there is no malevolent intent. I would be honest with the children regarding the source of the gifts. There are some things Daddy does not understand, but if he has any reason to believe it would harm you, Daddy will kill it.
No, I would not pass the “gifts” on. I can not think of any reason a person would send expensive gifts to a child anonymously that wouldn’t make me nervous. If these gifts were appropriate, the sender would identify themself. The fact that they aren’t willing to identify themself would make me think if I knew who the sender was I wouldn’t pass the gifts on. Either I, or my SO, or the kids would not accept them if we knew who the sender was, so going on that information, I wouldn’t pass them on.
I can’t see any benefit to giving your children the gifts that someone sent anonymously, age or gender wouldn’t matter.
Especially if the children are young, they shouldn’t think accepting gifts from unknown people is a good idea. That could set them up in the future for accepting things and not knowing if there are strings attached. Expensive gifts are generally given by people you know, for a known reason. The situation you describe is so unusual, I would be vary wary.
Since there doesn’t seem to be a good explanation for why someone would send expensive gifts to children, I would save the boxes as evidence in case some other strange things began to happen. I would be very concerned the attempt to give my children gifts would escalate to the attempt to spend time with my children. And I would not want my children spending time with someone who was either unknown to me, or someone I know but have a reason to not want them to have contact my children.
In theory, these gifts would have a postmark, and you might have a better sense of who sent them.
Just because family and SOs deny it doesn’t mean that one of them isn’t sending the gifts. For more than 5 years, I received a subscription to a magazine. Not a holiday gift. Nobody would acknowledge it. Finally, I received a notice from the magazine that let me know who was sending it, not as the intention of the notice, but because of what I could deduce from some of the ancillary data in the notice. But that person has still never copped to sending the subscription (which I still receive).
I have been on the receiving end of anonymous gifts that gradually turned horrifying. No, I would not pass the gifts on. I would donate them to a shelter or charity that could use them, or I would start refusing them at the post office.
When I think of reasons someone would do that, nothing is very nice. It could be a way of trying to identify the child (like if it is an article of clothing or jewelry). It could be a way of ingratiating him or herself to the child ("I’m the one who gave you that X-Box!). It could be a way of testing the parent (Look, daddy doesn’t mind if I play games with the girl). And I’ve read too many thrillers, so I end up thinking things about the gifts being stolen, or bugged, or contaminated.
Ditto- as a parent of two children there is no way I would accept those gifts. I would tell the letter carrier that I refuse acceptance of this unsolicited mail and please return to sender. That would alert the person that the gifts were no longer being received.
If you keep them and donate to a shelter, for example, the sender will have no idea that the gifts were not wanted and will think the children were getting them If the sender is truly a sicko, thinking the kids were getting the presents might cause the situation to escalate.
After all, the sender has your address!
Is this a hypothetical question or is this really happening?
