Grandma, Please Stop Spoiling Our Children

Grandparents are great aren’t they?

I don’t know about you, but I have very fond memories of my grandparents.  There’s the trips to the zoo, baseball games, & museums.  I remember having lots of sleepovers with great food and a never ending supply of cookies.  But above all I remember lots and lots of treats and toys.

I see that same pattern repeating itself for my children and their grandparents.  And that is wonderful, but…

Our house is full of the crap that the grandparents give their “precious little angles”.

For example, at the end of January my son turned two.  The previous Christmas, Santa Claus brought him 4 toy dinosaurs.  He loved them!  The grandparents must have caught wind of this so for his birthday he must have got every dinosaur the store had.

dinos-toys

What’s the problem DD, that isn’t so bad?”

You’re right, there is nothing wrong with that.  But that wasn’t the only gifts he got from them.  He also got a train set, remote control cars, a sit & spin, some action figures, and a bunch of other stuff.

Putting aside the problem that most of his presents were not age appropriate (his older sister has decided that they are her toys), our main issue with our parent’s generosity is that it’s starting to feel like our dinning room has turned into a toy storage room.

I remember a couple of years ago my mother-in-law joking with me, telling me that she could help me fill up my basement and garage.  I’m starting to think she wasn’t joking (See the cackle throws you off. You think its a laugh, but in reality the cackle is mother-in-law for “sucka”).

Before I totally bemoan the act of grandparents spoiling their grandchildren rotten, let me say that I love the bags of clothes we get from their rummage sales exploits, and the occasional free babysitting. I’m just wondering if any Happy Rock readers out there has dealt with this before?

Is there a tactful way of looking a gifthorse in the mouth and ask it to lighten up ?

Dropping hints doesn’t seem to work.  Neither does saying, “Please don’t buy that.”

We’ve resigned to just smile and bear it.

We’ve tried holding a rummage sale before, but our parents ended up coming to it.  It was quite obvious that they didn’t like seeing all the stuff they’ve given to us over the years for sale.  Of course in true parent form, they don’t say anything, they just laid on the guilt later on.

So what happens is that we try not to open the things that we don’t think the kids will play with, then we regift.  That’s right I admit to regifting.  It is a wonderful way to get rid of unused or unwanted gifts! Heck, I think we still have a few wedding presents that we looking to unload.

Just last night we discovered that our daughter has 5 sets of “Go Fish” card games, all given to her by grandparents.  Luckily two of them haven’t been opened yet.  So look out parents of little girls…if you invite us to a B-Day celebration you know what you’ll be getting.

Do you have any 5’s…Go Fish

Until next time,

-DD

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