Towards the end of the Worst Christmas Gift of All Time thread, there’s a minor hijack about bad gifts from parents that were bad only in comparison to the cool gift received by a sibling.
So I’m curious, how many of you who have parents who habitually gave crappier gifts to your or one of your siblings? Was it a gender issue with your parents? Or a Perfect One/Bad Seed situation they punished you for at Christmastime? Or just a favorite child? Have you forgiven your parents for doing this? Have you forgiven your sibling for accepting it?
In my life, gifts for my brother and I were always unequal because he was born in December, and like a lot of Christmas time birthdays he got one gift whereas I got Christmas and Birthday gifts. I don’t recall my parents ever doing this, it was mostly the extended family.
Unfairnesses not limited to Christmas, of course. Stories of blatant prejudice in weddings, graduations, etc also welcome.
If we include weddings, my husband’s parents gave his sister $10,000, plus paid for her $60,000 wedding. They paid for our rehearsal dinner (about $800) and gave us $1,000. His grandparents bought her 12 place settings of real silver for first year anniversary gift (worth about $220 per place). We got $100. We were married about two years after they were and nothing much had changed for anyone financially. They seemed to think it would be a secret, but someone always leaked the truth.
Quick story from the opposite end of the spectrum: my brother and I are only 19 months apart, and our parents were always extremely careful to give us the same things. If he got $10 worth of Legos, I got $10 worth of Barbies. If I got a new alarm clock, he got the exact same clock – whether he needed a new one or not. Whenever possible, they got us exactly the same thing.
It sucked. :mad:
I know that they were trying to treat us as equals, and trying to avoid the “but his clock is better than mine!” stuff, but they wound up ignoring our individuality – and, eventually, it became insulting that they didn’t think one of us could get something without the other whining about it. So if you are a parent and figure you can solve the sibling gift rivalry issue by getting the kids similar/identical things, please be careful not to go overboard. 
Not me, but my cousin was in this situation. He usually got pretty bad gifts in comparison to his siblings (and once my uncle bought things for all the other kids and left him out completely). This was more of a bad seed/ disliked child situation than anything else, since my cousin was a very hyper as a kid and badly behaved, plus the fact that my uncle thought that the boy might not have been his.
My cousin has very little contact with his father now. I’ve never asked, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was partly because of this.
I was a stepchild, and my step-grandmother really, really didn’t like my mother a lot. So, yeah, I got the short end of the stick from “Grandma” when it came to gifts. It wasn’t so obvious at Christmas, but when it came to birthday gifts and my sister (my stepfather’s biokid) got My Little Ponies or whatever expensive collectible toys she was into at the time, and I got a cheap, tacky headscarf, well…
A woman I know --mother to three daughters-- was very fair about gifting at holidays, except for one exception: one child would receive what she called “the Power Gift”. This was a big present, like a dollhouse, a boombox, an easy-bake oven, etc., that she knew the girls would fight over and covet. She figured this was a good way to teach them to share. :eek:
Was it the same kid every year, or did it rotate?
My grandfather’s second wife was always bad about making a big difference between her bio grandkids and me and my brother. (Of course, she was always real bad about making a huge difference between Daddy and her daughters, too. Once when he was about four, he called her Mommy, and the bitch slapped him for it.) She was often the one who did the gift shopping, too, so sometimes at birthday parties Grandpa would have to haul out the wallet and give Mom and Dad cash for us. After she died, he did what misnomer’s parents did: he got me and my female cousin similar, if not identical, stuff.
My brother’s ex wife not only made sure her two kids got the exact same amount of money spent on them, she packed it so they had the exact same number of presents to open. I felt that was really going overboard.
Misnomer:
Did you really feel this way back then? Or it just feels that way in retrospect?
This happened just two nights ago: My three sons share a bedroom, and my oldest daughter (daughter # 2 sleeps in our room, since she still wakes up for night feedings) has her own room. In order to be able to read in bed without disturbing one another, we got the two oldest boys (the youngest can’t read) clip-on lamps, from which they could direct the light only at their books or themselves. Not as a present, merely as a practical semi-necessity. We didn’t get one for my daughter because she could keep the light on in her room if she wished and not disturb anyone.
Anyone want to guess her reaction? Hint: She did not thank us for not insulting her by going overboard on fairness.
The mother of my cousins TJ and SW was infamous for her favoritism. She much preferred her elder son, TJ, over her younger son and made no attempt to conceal it. Btw, they are both her biological offspring, same father, same everything.
After one Christmas she waited until they went to sleep on Dec. 26, then took SW’s gifts and returned them to the store for a refund. :eek: In another instance, SW asked her for 50 cents for a soda, and she claimed not to have the money. Five minutes later TJ walked in, asked for a soda, and she handed him the 50 cents. Stuff like this happened over and over again.
When I graduated from high school, my grandparents sent me a check. I can’t remember the precise amount now, but it was somewhere in the $100-$200 range and I considered it quite generous. I sent a thank-you note.
When I graduated from college, they sent me a congratulatory card. I thought this was perfectly nice. Sure, it would have been even nicer to get some moolah, but I wasn’t complaining. My sister graduated from high school a month later, and also received a congratulatory card. Then about a week later I got a call from the grandparents to confirm our address, as their gift to my sister (mailed seperately from the card) had come back to them in the mail.
There was no mention of any gift for me at all, which bothered me a little but not a whole lot. After all, I’d received a gift for my high school graduation, so it was fair that my sister get one too.
A few days later a check arrived for my sister in the amount of $754. I remember that precise amount because it was such a weird number.
They never did send me anything. This was several years ago now and I’m still kind of ticked about it. Especially since I had a major and risky operation the last semester of my senior year of college, missed six weeks of school, and had to work very hard to make up the work and graduate with my class, so I considered my graduation to be kind of a bigger deal than it would otherwise have been.
I feel like I have to post and give credit where credit is due. I have many issues with my parents, but this is not one of them. My mom especially worked hard to keep everything equal, but not to the point of sacrificing individuality. Me and my sister may not have received everything we ever wanted, but she made a pretty good effort.
My parents would do the same thing. It didn’t really cause problems when I was growing up. But they still do it and it causes problems now.
A few years ago they paid for a trip for the entire family. After booking the rooms, my parents realized they were spending more on me and my single brother than on my married brother and his wife because single rooms cost more on a per person basis than doubles. At first they decided to book my single brother and I in the same room (like that would work) only to have my single brother back out at the last minute (that’s a long sordid story in and of itself). This left parents in a panic because now they were again spending more on me than on my married brother and sister in law on a per person basis. They couldn’t have that! So they decided that they’d cancel my room reservations for the last 2 nights, and I could stay on a rollaway cot in their room. A woman in her 30’s staying in a room with her parents (who go to bed at 8:00 pm and snore) and sleeping on a tot cot is not conducive to a fun vacation! I offered to pay for my own room for the last two nights but this offended my parents greatly. So I stayed in my parents’ room. I tried to be gracious about it (they were paying for my trip and all), but we did end up bickering some because it’s just difficult sharing a room with your parents at my age (my suitcase was always in the way, why couldn’t I be ready for bed when they were and not wake them up when I came in at 8:30, why wasn’t I out of bed bright eyed and bushy tailed at 5:00 am when they were, etc.). And they’re still offended that I offered to pay for my own room for the last two nights (it still comes up in family discussions).
This past Christmas they were still trying to spend the same amount to the penny on every grandkid. I appreciate the sentiment, but it works out worse than just getting each kid a nice gift. They end up getting two gifts for one child, three for another and one big one for yet another–but it all adds up to the same dollar amount. The problem is the kids don’t have any idea how much things cost. They just know that someone else got more stuff to open than they did. Yeah, the kids’s parents tell them to appreciate every gift and try to point out that the child with one gift still has one really nice gift. But the oldest kid is 10 and they just don’t get it yet.
Reading over my post, it sounds really gripey and I don’t mean it to. I do appreciate that my parents try not to show favorites. I guess I just want to say that trying to make everything perfectly equal can get silly when taken to extremes.
At Christmas we spend the same amount of money per child still living at home. Adult children are a bit different because of our blended family. One is married and celebrates Christmas’ with her husband, her bio mom & sibs, us, and her in-laws. We don’t spend as much on her as we do the single ones. Actually, until I wrote this, it seemed okay, but it doesn’t seem fair in print somehow. I’ll be rethinking this one …
During the rest of the year, fairness is thrown out of the window. Daughter needs new shoes, but son doesn’t? Daughter get them. Son needs new jeans but daughter doesn’t? Son gets them. We just don’t have enough disposable cash to try to even things out on a weekly, or even monthly, basis. Throughout the year I’m pretty sure it evens out though.
Food for thought on the adult kids though … hmmm
Well, I’ll do this from my POV of this Christmas: our oldest daughter kind of got ripped off, but we couldn’t figure out any way not to rip her off, without punishing the younger kids for oldest daughter’s shortcomings.
See, oldest is an alcoholic, drug addict, high school drop out, refuses to look for a job even though she dropped out of school and is 17 and 1/2. The other two kids are 13 (and she’s a gem; well behaved, school work almost always done on time, chores done without complaint, etc.) and 4 (well, she was 4 on Christmas day, now she’s 5). In years past, we’ve gotten the oldest expensive shoes that she specifically requested (Vans, in case anyone’s wondering) and twice, she’s traded them with friends for pieces of crap that sell for less than half as much; so shoes were out of the question (this year she wanted Timberlands). She’s pawned all the jewelry of any value we’ve ever given her so she could buy cigarettes. She throws all of her stuff on the floor of her bedroom, so we weren’t comfortable getting her any cool collectible type stuff. However, she was scheduled to enter a two-month drug and alcohol rehab on the 29th, so we basically bought her stuff she needed for the rehab. We thought about getting her new bedding, but she’s talking about moving in with her boyfriend when she gets out of rehab; we couldn’t buy bedding for her bed, because what if she moves in with boyfriend, and we couldn’t buy bedding for his bed, because what if they break up while she’s in rehab? and we couldn’t buy her bedding at a nearby store where it could be exchanged, because she would take it back to the store and get cigarette money. We did buy her several new outfits (she’s gained quite a bit of weight in the past year and her old stuff doesn’t fit her any more), new underwear, slippers, stationary so she can write to people while she’s there, socks, a body pillow, stuff like that. But all in all, we probably spent $50.00 less on her than we did on either of the other two. We also explained to her all of our reasoning, and she had to agree that we had a point. We will be going to visit her just about every weekend, and will give her spending money for while she’s there, so maybe that kind of makes up for it. All in all, we felt bad about the whole thing, but didn’t know what else to do.
My mom has always done this and continues to do it with the grandchildren. There is one problem with this system, particularly for younger children, which is if the kids aren’t aware of this and really understand the value of money, then it inevitably leads to one kid getting more gifts than another. Let’s say, for instance, that grandkid A gets a new pair of rollerblades, a book and a sweater, which totals at $100. Grandkid B gets a My Little Pony, a Groovy Girl, a sweater, a coloring book, some crayons, a some hair baubles, a bath toy, a board game and a Dora the Explorer bag. This is also probably $100. But the the first kid got three presents and the second kid got to open nine packages. Most kids are going to notice the discrepancy in quantity and not understand the quality involved. Especially when kid B is still opening presents for 20 minutes after the first kid has opened everything. Then feelings get hurt.
After time I used to hope to not get a better gift than my brother. He usually got better stuff at Christmas because he would start in Setember with what he wanted and it would be all he talked about to the parents till Christmas day. If I got something way cool, well, he would accidentally break it. Why he didn’t join the mafia I’ll never know. Then only thing he didn’t accidentally break was my Monday Night Football game. Not one of those vibrating games but a thing with two sliders. Anyway that thing was tough. It stood up to a ten year old jumping off the top bunk.
Christmas is an ideal occasion to teach children about disappointment and how to appropriately handle that disappointment. No matter how precisely a parent or grandparent tries to be fair, it’s inevitable that someone will get his/her feelings hurt. Before each birthday or Christmas party, I give my daughters the same lecture about how it’s okay to feel disappointment over a gift. It’s okay to feel jealousy over someone else’s gift. It’s NOT okay to manifest that disappointment or jealousy as it makes the giver feel bad. You should always make the giver feel good because they were kind enough to bring you a gift.
**
My mother gets each of her grandchildren clothes and one toy for Christmas. This year my youngest daughter (aged 10) asked for one thing: a Fairietopia doll set.
At my family’s celebration, she was the first person selected to open her gifts from Grandma. She opened up two gifts, both of which were clothes. She thanked Grandma. Not realizing that a present was missing, we moved on to the next grandchild. She opened up her gifts and the last gift was a Fairietopia doll set. (Grandma had gotten both of her younger granddaughters the same gift.)
Mom and I both realized then what happened. We watched my daughter, who was sitting right next to her cousin, react. You could see how desperately she tried to control her jealousy and disappointment. At first, she had a shocked “No fair!” expression on her face. Then tears sprang to her eyes. But she didn’t cry. Finally she swallowed hard and managed a wobbly smile for her cousin’s good fortune.
At this point, Grandma couldn’t stand it anymore and rushed to find the MIA present. But let me tell you that as a parent, it was a great moment for me. I was never more proud of my daughter than I was watching her deal with her disappointment.
My father always taught us that when we received things that we needed to be more concerned about being thankful than being concerned about whether you got your fair share. When we were young (4 siblings), if we ever uttered the phrase “Hey, that’s not fair!” my dad would remind us that it’s a good lesson to learn because often life is unfair, and the quicker you learn to overcome jealousy, anger, self pity, the happier you will be.
So, now as adults, when my father borrows $10,000 to my brother to buy a truck and then tells him he doesn’t need to repay him, it doesn’t phase me. I never ask “where’s my $10,000?”
When I needed money to pay for in-vitro for myself and my wife, my dad gave us an early x-mas present of $3000. The other siblings and their spouses each got $500 per couple. No one batted an eye.
We were raised to be thankful for what we got, never to be concerned about fairness, and we’re all happier for it.
Well, a little bit of a hijack, I’m afraid, but: when my two oldest ones were little, I read a magazine article that suggested teaching kids that “fair” means everyone gets what they need, when they need it, everyone gets what the want some of the time, and no one gets what they want all of the time. The article said that even if you do your level best to treat two children absolutely the same, they will always find “unfairnesses”. Say, you give two kids each an apple. You pick through the fruit bowl to find two that are the same size. One kid says “no fair; my apple has a bruise and his doesn’t” or “no fair; my apple doesn’t have a stem and his does”. You just can’t be that kind of fair, and you can drive yourself nuts trying! I took that article to heart, and it’s been a huge help! Now, if I see a shirt at a great bargain for one of my kids, I don’t have to kill myself trying to find the equivalent for the other kids. I just go with the flow, and remind them that fair means getting what you need. I also sometimes have to remind them that their definition of “need” and my definition of “need” might be two entirely separate things, and my definition wins every time! 