My in-laws are pretty awesome people. They are kind and supportive and I love them very much, but their generosity is killing me.
My husband and I are pack rats. We don’t like to clean and we have some difficulty getting rid of stuff but we force ourselves to do so a couple times a month. While hoarding isn’t an issue now because we do our best to stay on top of the mess I can’t say that keeping clean and organized isn’t a challenge. His family knows this and has come and helped us get organized a couple of different times but they will NOT stop giving us random crap to take home every time we see them. I love that they are thinking about us and want to give us gifts but it is really causing problems for us keeping things clean.
Last week my mother in law bought us an end table. Well, I assume it is some sort of end table but we haven’t taken it out of the box yet because we really have no place to put a new table, no matter how small. She found it on sale and bought one for herself, for us, and for her daughter because it was so cheap despite the fact that not one of us has a need for a new table. Now we have to figure out if we want to get rid of another table to keep this one or if we need to give this one to goodwill and tell her it broke and had to be thrown out or something. Yesterday we went shopping at babies’r’us because they were having a 75% off baby clothes sale and we are having a baby in November. I was very clear before the three of us walked into the store that we don’t know the gender yet and we were only looking for a few gender neutral onsies and sleepers from the 0-6 month age/size range, nothing else. Three separate times we had to pull bright pink girly outfits out of her hands and put them back on the rack and the third time she started saying, “I’ll return it if it is a boy! I promise, I won’t keep it if it is a little boy!” We reminded her that you can’t return stuff you got on super clearance and she eventually relented, but it was an ordeal. When she moved and was selling some of her stuff she had 3 collections of things that she wanted to give us (about 25 various eagle statues, 40 pieces of art centered around the statue of liberty, and 16 Barnum and Bailey decanters) and we were able to eventually talk her down into saving us the nicest one of the eagles since they had belonged to my husband’s father before he died and to please sell everything else.
His aunt isn’t much better. She doesn’t buy us things but she sets aside everything that ever reminded her of us for any reason and sends it home with us. Every time we come home after visiting her we throw away half a dozen crossword puzzles that she has clipped out of various magazines and newspapers. I don’t think either my husband or I have done a crossword puzzle in 5 years but she knows we like to play Scrabble so she saves us word related games. Every time she organizes a bookshelf she sets aside really weird books that she wants to give us. Last time she gave us a copy of 1001 Random Trivia Facts and Being an African American Manager (that last one was really weird as my husband is Jewish and I’m Irish so I don’t know why she felt like we needed a book on being Black in corporate America) and the time before that we got a 20 year old Consumer Reports about various baby furniture and toys even though she knows we bought the 2010 edition when we found out I’m pregnant. The worst part is the food though. Every single time we see her she loads up a bag of leftovers from whatever she made for dinner for us while we were there and sends us home with it. I don’t think we have ever eaten anything that got sent back with us and it always ends up going in the trash, not because it isn’t tasty but because we have plenty of food in our home and several grocery stores in walking distance so we don’t really want or need leftover turkey or whatever.
It is lovely to know that they want to be so generous but every time we get something from them it turns into an internal battle of wanting to throw it out vs insulting his family by not keeping their gifts. I would much rather they give us a gift card or hire a maid service or something if they want to buy or give us things but that takes the fun out of finding the “perfect” gift out of the gift giving process for them. They are also collectors so for them giving you a physical thing instead of money or a service of some kind is really important.
I’m trying to determine the nicest, gentlest way to tell them to please stop giving us stuff but I keep coming up blank. I don’t want to offend them or make them think that we don’t appreciate their generosity because we absolutely do but I want to be clear that the physical mass of stuff is a hindrance instead of a help, especially since the baby is coming and I just know we are going to be loaded down with 50,000 random toys that have been purchased at thrift stores or dug out of attics or whatever that we simply will not have any space for at all. Is there a way to convey that message without being rude?
I’m guilty of this too. My daughter doesn’t visit often but when she does, she never leaves empty-handed. It’s not me being generous though, it’s me dumping stuff I don’t want. She’s too nice to say no. I really should stop.
I have no idea what to say to make your MIL stop, especially since she’s buying new stuff for you.
Maybe you could make a big deal out of your efforts to de-clutter. “Mom, I cleared out two closets this week! It feels so good, and Salvation Army loves me!” Let her see how happy you are to get rid of stuff, she won’t be so eager to give you more.
Can’t you return/exchange gifts? My fiancee does this when she gets well-intentioned but unneeded gifts. There are still many stores out there with pretty generous exchange policies. That’s what my fiancee does with well-meaning relatives.
I have the same problem, and just recently both my mother and my SO’s father have decided to move and get rid of most of their stuff, so it’s been bad lately. My solution is honesty (seriously!). Say to them, “This is a very nice (whatever), but we really have a problem with clutter. We are trying to get better, so we decided to not bring anything new into the house for awhile. I’m sorry. Would you like to keep it, or should I bring it by Goodwill on the way home?” If they are persistent, or get pouty, just deflect it onto you. “i know. I am so sorry; I love it, but I just know if I keep it, it would be a step in the wrong direction. I’ve got to get this under control, especially with the new baby coming!” (that is a GREAT excuse by the way!) “You know how much new stuff a baby needs; I just cannot have anything else coming in right now!”
I’m not going to say it’s easy, but eventually they will let up. If they manage to force it on you, just get rid of it. When/if they ask about it later, be honest and say, “I tried to find a place for it, and couldn’t, so I had to let it go.” That will also help them realize that it’s pointless to push these things on you. It may take a few rounds, but it’s worth it! If they are as kind as you say, they will see the light soon enough.
I have this problem too! Overly generous in laws. Think of all the other problems that people have with their in-laws and count yourself lucky.
Now brace yourself, because everything you fear about the babystuff storm will come to pass.
I have three kids who, no exaggerating, get AT LEAST 20 presents each from just these grandparents every Christmas. That’s at least 60 items to cart home every Christmas (not counting the stuff they give me and my husband).
pass it on, pay it forward, regift it, just send anything you don’t want back out into the neverending flow of stuff.
My in laws have never enquired into the afterlife of any of their presents, but if they did they would get a vague look from me, “I don’t know, I’m sure it’s around…somewhere.”
With exchangable stuff we try to take it back to the store, but they live in CT and we are in NYC so many of the stores they have there don’t have branches here which makes it difficult. Also, while my mother in law loves to buy us new stuff she tends to buy stuff on clearance so it often can’t be returned.
I do my best to say this kind of thing but I find it very hard. Whenever they ask if we need something I mention how we have way too much stuff and if they wanted to get us something they could contribute to the cost of a high chair or something similar but often they do this and then pile on a bunch of other junk on top of it. I don’t want to squash their desire to be helpful, but now that I know some parents like AuntiePam do it just to get rid of their own junk I may not feel so bad about it in the future!
We live about a block from a goodwill so a lot of it is ending up there. I’m sure their children’s section of stuff will love us once the baby arrives with all the stuff we are going to get!
Ugh. I told my husband (and he agrees) that sounds just like his in-laws! Especially my mom. She is always buying stuff for us, especially the grandbaby, and/or bringing things from their place when they visit (last visit she brought us these HIDEOUS Christmas music-playing decorations that I rejected immediately). I don’t know if your MIL does this, but my mom cannot understand how anyone could think even slightly differently than her, so the fact that we might not want a hideous Christmas music-playing decoration doesn’t really impinge on her. When we rejected it she was all, “Are you sure? This is so awesome! I can’t believe you don’t want this!”
One suggestion I have: can your husband talk to them about it instead of you? (maybe you are doing this already but your posts make it sound like you are doing the brunt of this.) I say this for two reasons: a) because they are his parents, he will know how to tell them in a way they understand, and b) it is always better coming from their child. I made the mistake once of telling my mom that it was my husband who didn’t want something-or-another (I forget what it was now, but it was true about that particular thing) and she still makes little jabs about “Oh, well, mister hunter probably has a problem with that,” and I would much rather she had the hard feelings about me than him.
But yeah, it’s tough. When the baby comes perhaps at least you can get her to focus on clothes rather than toys – we had a large surfeit of 0-1yr clothes and were giving them away to friends, but now that she’s grown out of baby-shower clothes, it’s actually kind of nice that my mom keeps buying clothes and socks and stuff for her. The only problem is that I have had to tell her to stop buying dresses – the Little One only wears dresses to church, and she has enough that there are plenty of dresses she’s grown out of before having a chance to wear.
Oh, another thing we use to discourage toy-buying is to show my parents how many toys the Little One has already (by video chat, since they don’t live nearby). But it sounds that might not be quite as effective for your situation.
My mom is really terrible about this, too. I know it is her way of showing her love toward me and helps her feel like I’m still her little girl that she takes care of. She seriously brings me a new rug every time I see her, along with blankets/quilts and tons of clothes. I’ve learned to just thank her and then immediately take them to the thrift store so they don’t clutter up my apartment. I’ve asked her to stop buying things, but that just isn’t going to happen. She never seems to notice that I get rid of them.
My mother is so guilty of this! She wants to de-clutter, and she’s an inveterate bargain shopper, and I literally never leave her house, nor does she visit mine, without me trucking home piles of stuff - from leftovers to furniture to clothes. I try to just say no, thank you, but it’s easier to just give in.
(If there’s a silver lining, though, I haven’t shopped for my own clothes other than stuff like bras for at least a decade. And I don’t recall the last time I bought clothes for any of the kids…)
My husband is kind of hilarious about this kind of thing. He LOVES to get presents of any kind for any reason, so any time his relatives give us something he gets really excited and then we get home and it sits on the table for a day and he walks by and says, “Wow, you’re right, we don’t need this at all. I’ll take it to goodwill.” We’ve talked about telling his family not to give us stuff and then every time they give us something he gets super excited and can’t think through that we don’t need any more stuff. He’s working on trying to calm down about the presents though so hopefully we’ll get to a point where he can tell them no sometime soon.
Yeah, I understand. I used to be like this too (especially bargains! Because, what a bargain!), and I still have things I can’t bear to throw out “because we MIGHT need them someday!” But take heart, it can be overcome at least to a certain extent. I’m never going to be my husband’s brother-in-law (no clutter in sight in their place, and they have two kids!) but cleaning out the closet a couple of times, and being very pleased with the result when I could actually find things! has made a lot better about getting rid of stuff.
Perhaps he can talk to them not at a time when he’s actually being confronted by New Shiny Stuff?
I think this one is an cultural/generational thing. My wife’s family (Slovak) will not let any one leave a holiday meal without taking food (and the now (mostly dead) oldest generation actually asked for it if they thought you were a bit slow).
Possibly a Depression/poor immigrant thing. It’s usually pushed with a “we’ll just have to throw it out” (there is a mighty load of food at all the holidays) and a good heart, so it’s generally just easier to throw it out at our house instead of hurting someone’s feelings.
