Yesterday I walked into a conversation that my employees were having over lunch. They were talking about an upgraded expensive electronic that was coming out soon and one mother was wondering if she should purchase it for her daughter for Christmas or get the current one still on sale which would be less expensive.
One of the other mothers suggested she buy the new one for herself and since Mom owns the current model, she should give that one to her daughter for Christmas.
While most thought that was tacky, there were a few that thought this was totally reasonable. One comment was “Why should my child have something better than I have when I am the one that makes the money? He should be grateful he received one at all”.
What kind of gadget? Does the older model still work / is still supported? How old is the child? What are the child’s electronic needs? Can these needs be sufficiently answered with the current model?
(Caveat - I am not a innovationphile, I have been using the same laptop for six years, and just last fall got a phone with a data plan.)
I have no problems giving kids hand-me-downs of stuff they require so long as it works, but I feel a trifle uncomfortable giving hand-me-downs as gifts to anyone. Perhaps that’s just me, but I always thought a gift given on a special occasion like Christmas or a birthday ought to be something, well, more festive and less cooly practical.
I care not if my kids have better stuff than me in some category.
I have no problem with giving kids hand-me downs, especially when the item is expensive, fragile, or likely to be outgrown/discarded quickly. However, giving a hand-me-down as a gift seems tacky and insensitive. I wouldn’t do it. Giving a secondhand item as a gift isn’t the problem - I have no problem with the idea that someone would appreciate an item that simply isn’t available new (e.g. many collectibles) or that someone doesn’t mind getting a used item (e.g. something that is prohibitively expensive new). However, getting yourself a new item and then making a big deal out of passing on the old item to someone who knows that it’s your old, unwanted toy - that strikes me as poor taste.
I can imagine exceptions to this. If the hand-me-down is something that the recipient wants, but isn’t yet old enough to use, I can imagine making it a gift later, by way of saying, “You’re old enough for this now.”
The only hand me down my kids would get is my truck.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for NOT treating your kids like special little snowflakes, but a hand me down just seems tacky. My opinion on this would change if said parents are living hand to mouth. But I don’t infer that from the OP.
Also, would it be so f’n terrible if your kid had a newer Kindle than the parent. Jeesh!
I think I’m going to buck the trend. I got lots of hand-me-down things as a kid, and some of them were gifts, and I was quite happy to get them.
I got my dad’s old computer when he got a new one. There wasn’t a budget for me to get a new one, and he needed a new one for work. I got the old one and was pretty happy to have my own computer, as outdated as it was. I got my mom’s old car when she bought herself a new one. Pretty much the same story. It was time for a new car, and clearly my mom was going to get the new one and I the old. I know there are kids who get new cars for gifts, but, again, the budget wasn’t there.
It seems reasonable to me that, when it’s something the parent has and uses, the kid gets last year’s model when the parent upgrades. Obviously, this depends on budget. If there’s enough budget, I’d just eBay the old one and buy us both the new model.
I agree that hand-me-downs are awesome, but are not appropriate for gift giving situations- ESPECIALLY if you are getting yourself a better model!
If a family is going to distribute items unequally (as happens sometimes) I think the key factor is going to be who needs/appreciates/wants the item the most. The biggest gadget geek should get the coolest gadgets, and may have to make due with cheaper clothes, while the clothes horse might get brand name clothes but knock-off gadgets.
"I planned to spend x bucks on your Christmas gift. I’m getting a new Kindle. My old Kindle goes for Y money on Ebay. Kid, do you want x bucks or the Kindle plus x-y bucks to buy something else?
There’s nothing wrong with hand-me-downs. It’s obviously more practical with some things than others, like with clothes, certainly buy each kid some new clothes of their own, but there’s no reason to throw out serviceable shirts or pants just because an older sibling grew out of it. When it comes to technology, it makes even more sense because if it will serve the purpose, why not give it to them? Why buy a kid a new computer when your old one will do all their needs just fine? Similarly, with the mentioned Kindle, if the kid has none or a much older one, they don’t need a brand new one, but then again, neither does the parent.
I think the situation in the OP is particularly tacky though because hand-me-downs aren’t something you would generally give as a gift on a special occassion, it’s just something you give. Similarly, unless the parent has a particularly compelling reason to need the new one and the kid doesn’t, it also seems tacky to just always take the latest technology. What if the kid has good use for a feature the new on has but the parent doesn’t?
But the comment that the kid should be grateful he gets anything at all… wow. That’s a parent’s job to take care of their kids. Sure, they should be grateful if they’re given excessive things, but something like a Kindle doesn’t strike me as something so much that a kid should just be grateful to get. Don’t parents generally want to encourage their kids to read and all that?
This. And I feel like generally it’s going to be the parent who will appreciate the more advanced technological gizmo equally or more (unless it’s like a video game console or something) and/or will do productive things with it.
But that’s probably due to my daughter being 2 and the fact that I’ve been using my tablet all week to read papers for work because I hate using the computer to read papers.
(I will add to the chorus of people saying that hand-me-downs are awesome, but not as a Christmas present! Ew!)
Would I give my imaginary kid a hand-me-down electronic as their only Christmas gift? No. And ideally it wouldn’t be the big “finale” gift either. But if they are already getting a big-price item from the top of their Santa’s wish list plus an assortment of other nice treats, I’m not going to feel the least bit guilty giving them a hand-me-down electronic item–one that I know still works, that I still have under warranty, and I’m not going to freak out if it gets lost. I will clean it up real good and wrap it up real nice and they will LIKE it, dammit :). Maybe I have valid reasons for saving it till Christmas time. Maybe they were bad-asses the rest of the year. Or maybe it wasn’t until Christmastime when I felt they were responsible enough.
As far as parents not wanting kids to have something better than what they have, I can kinda understand the mentality, though I don’t know how far I would go in implementing it. You want your kids to appreciate the value of things and to respect their position on the family totem pole. Call me weird, but if I’m driving a POS–I don’t care how much I love my kid–I’m not going to buy him/her a Mercedes. My priorities would be questionable.
But that’s a much more extreme example than what is in the OP.
Even with those reasons for saving it until Christmas time, I still wouldn’t wrap it up and put it under the tree. In my mind (and I was a kid who got lots of hand-me-downs even though I was the oldest) there’s a huge difference between someone’s hand-me-down wrapped up as a Christmas present (even one of many) and getting that same hand-me-down for no particular reason just a few days earlier or later.
Hand-me-down socks and underwear, I understand how they aren’t special enough to be a Christmas item.
But if I have, say, a $400 camera that’s in excellent shape and Junior always has his eyes on it, and I always have to tell him that it’s very expensive and I’d rather him keep using disposable cameras until he learns how to keep up with stuff? Christmas time comes, I’m going to put the camera in a special box and with a note attached saying that I’m proud of him and think he’s ready for something fancier than what he’s used to. So he can take pictures of all the places he rides to on his brand new bike, in his brand new sneakers. With any luck, twenty years from now he will still have the camera. And all that other Christmas cheer will be at the bottom of an ocean somewhere.
I didn’t get gifts very often outside of Christmas time, growing up. And perhaps paradoxically, Christmas gifts weren’t drummed up to be something that had to be all that special. So I guess I’m not understanding all this “not for Christmas!” stuff. You can make a hand-me-down item “especially special” and 100% Christmas-worthy if there’s a good reason behind it (which I’m not saying the woman in the OP has).
Speaking only for myself, I didn’t get gifts outside of Christmas or my birthday (and most of what I got for Christmas was new socks, underwear and nightclothes), but I got hand-me-downs whenever the original owner didn’t want it /outgrew it/got a new one. If my cousin cleaned her room in June and decided to get rid of her Barbie collection, that’s when I got it. Neither her mother nor mine was going to store it unused for six months. When my kids outgrew their bikes , my sister’s kids got them in the spring. Again, no one was going to store them unused for months.The camera the kid has always wanted and a note might work for me as a Christmas gift if it were an heirloom - but not if I didn’t need it because I bought myself a new one in June.