My daughter’s birthfather and his parents have been sending/giving a lot of presents to our daughter since she was born. Her birthmother very rarely sends anything to her. Now that she is 3…she is very perceptive and aware of who gives her what and how many gifts are given to her by different people in her family. Because of this…we sent a request to the birthfather and his parents to please limit their gift-giving. We explained that there was a huge difference between what they give and what the birthmother sends/gives and that we just do not want her to jump to the wrong conclusion that one family loves her more than the other. They replied with a very negative e-mail. This past weekend…we had our annual visit. The visit went fine..as far as that we all got along and there was no tension. However…they showed up with a huge totebag filled to the top with gifts…12 in all. (Birthmother came to the visit with 1 small gift.) Before we could stop them, they were dishing out those gits to my little girl saying, “Look at all the neat things we got you!” It just seems to me they are using these gifts to win her love. I had explained to them that we wanted the visits to be about their presence and not their presents…my words have made no impact. Any suggestions?
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This is tough. I had a similar situation with my mom – every week, she’d come to visit and usually bring something for Jack with her.
First, the birth father’s family probably wants to look better than the birth mother’s family. They likely want your DD to associate them with the gifts. I know this was the case with my mom, to a certain extent. The rest of it was that she didn’t know how to express how much she loved Jack without buying stuff. It’s how we were raised (my sister and me) and it’s a hard habit to break.
I’m not sure you can stop them from giving gifts. You can probably stop them from giving her 12 gifts at once. It’s like candy – tell the family that you want to dole out the gifts one at a time to avoid overwhelming your DD.
You might also tell your DD that for every gift (or two or three) that she gets, she needs to give one to a child who doesn’t have as much. Tell the birth father’s family that as well. Perhaps, when they see that DD has to get rid of stuff if they buy her more stuff, they’ll stop giving her so much stuff. It’s hard to do that with a 3yo though. I know my son doesn’t get it. Or rather, he gets it, he just doesn’t want to do it. The empathy isn’t there yet.
Good luck!
I’m still mulling this over, but my immediate thought was that growing up, my paternal grandparents had HUGE Christmases for us–tons of gifts, piles under the tree–whereas my maternal grandparents generally stuck to one or two smallish gifts for us. And it never occurred to my sister and me and one set of grandparents loved us better than the other set–we just chalked it up to familial cultural differences. (Not that we would have used the term “familial cultural differences” at ages 10 and 6, but that’s the idea we had.)
I know there are different dynamics in OA, and if there’s a level of trying to “outdo” the other side of the biological family then that’s different–so I’m not saying leaving the situation is necessarily the way to go… just thinking aloud that a difference in number of gifts doesn’t have to INHERENTLY be a bad thing.
I’m sorry you’re facing this conflict. Working out the differences in how families express affection is never easy, even without the added adoption layer!
It seems like there are two different things going on here: the sheer number of gifts from her birthfather’s family and the contrast with her birthmom’s family.
Would the number of gifts bother you if her birthmom’s family were giving just as many? Would it bother you if it were your parents doing it? If so, then you can try telling them why the gifts go against your values/make you uncomfortable, or try controlling when/how the gifts are presented. But as with any conflict about parenting values, you kind of have to decide how far you’re willing to press it and what the ultimate goal is. I mean, you can lay out an ultimatum, but is it worth maybe losing the relationship over?
If the primary issue is the comparison with her birthmom’s family, I think you should let that drop. It’s not really fair to let one family’s actions dictate what the other one gets to do. Even with young kids, you can mitigate some of the gifts=love stuff just with how you talk about the presents when you debrief the visits with your daughter. Flat out say to her that some people think you have to give lots of presents to show someone you love them, but isn’t that silly. Or try Robyn’s suggestion about the after-the-fact charity donations. And you can be deliberate about talking with her about non-gift ways her birthmom shows affection (identifying a phone call from her as a sign that she loves her and is thinking about her, for example). Sure, the grandparents will probably still get a little bump of short-term affection while she’s young. But eventually your lessons will sink in.
Thanks for the suggestions. These birthgrandparents have been a source of heartache for me from the beginning. They are the type of people that know no boundaries, are extremely pushy, and are manipulative. We’ve “hung in there” and have put up with threats, stalking, and guilt-trips. We have been working deligently with the birthfather about his parents behavior all along…and I’m proud to say that we’ve come a LONG way in mending fences and establishing a relationship. The gift-giving, I know from my past experience with them…is a way of manipulating our daughter…as they have tried to do with my husband and myself. The way that they doled out the gifts this time…I got the distinct impression that it was to spite me. They started handing our daughter all those gifts before we could say anything or react…and then the grandmother looked at me with this knowing smile…like she got her way. AND…my daughter did take notice of the difference in gifts and shoved her birthmother’s gift aside once we were back home. My husband and I feel very strongly that we need to again address this with these birthgrandparents because of their actions in the past…and out of respect for the birthmother. I feel very close and protective of her…just as I want to protect my daughter.
They started handing our daughter all those gifts before we could say anything or react…and then the grandmother looked at me with this knowing smile…like she got her way. AND…my daughter did take notice of the difference in gifts and shoved her birthmother’s gift aside once we were back home. My husband and I feel very strongly that we need to again address this with these birthgrandparents because of their actions in the past…and out of respect for the birthmother. I feel very close and protective of her…just as I want to protect my daughter.
I know this won’t be popular, but since bgrandma has a problem with boundaries I would suggest next time allow her to give your daughter the gifts and later on tell grandma ” thank you, we will donate these to charity”. If she objects “remind” her that you had this conversation before, and the discussion is closed. I think she’ll get the ” message”. Don’t feel badly about it, because you did ask her not to bring so many gifts. If she writes you a nasty email again, explain to her, as your child’s parent, you don’t appreciate your parental boundaries being crossed.
Again, don’t worry about hurting her feelings; in time she’ll realizes that you are the parent and you are looking out for your child’s best interest.
Remember, we TEACH people how to treat us!
Best of luck!
ETA: This is the original reply
I know this won’t be popular, but since bgrandma has a problem with boundaries I would suggest next time allow her to give your daughter the gifts and later on tell grandma ” thank you, we will donate these to charity”. If she objects “remind” her that you had this conversation before, and the discussion is closed. I think she’ll get the ” message”. Don’t feel badly about it, because you did ask her not to bring so many gifts. If she writes you a nasty email again, explain to her, as your child’s parent, you don’t appreciate your parental boundaries being crossed.
Again, don’t worry about hurting her feelings; in time she’ll realizes that you are the parent and you are looking out for your child’s best interest.
Remember, we TEACH people how to treat us!
Best of luck!
Oh, artistmom, that doesn’t sound fun. It sounds like it’s a lot deeper than just a conflict about presents.
We all have the goal of healthy, sustainable relationships of with our kids’ first families. And constant manipulation doesn’t really fit that goal very goal. Sometimes setting limits is part of keeping things healthy. The tricky part (at least for me!) is figuring out when that’s true.
Thank you Heather and Atimmons…I appreciate your advice. My big mental hang-up is I hate playing the role of the “bad-guy”. I’ve tried so hard all this time to be very delicate in my words when I have to tell them “No”. I have tried so hard to be understanding of them, even when they were hurting us. And…you’re right, I can’t waste time worrying about them being angry with me because, once again, I had to tell them “no more”.
I just wanted to say, as a birthmom, I have been guilty of sending too many presents.
Although, I send most of them through the mail, not at visits.
The times that I have brought presents with me to visits I have wanted them to be unopened till I left. It was the adoptive parents that said ‘Hey, why not just open them now?’ While I hesitated because I wanted the visits to be about my prescence, not my presents.
I DID have hurt feelings when, at my son’s dedication (he was just eight months old, he is three and a half years old now) I asked if they liked what I sent(via mail once a month or so) and the adoptive dad said what I sent was ‘unneccessary’ and if I could just ‘give presents only for christmas and birthdays only’
Anyways, what confuses me more in this situation is the birth-grandmothers attitude.
The adoption must not have been her choice or she would not be acting like this.
I think you are right in this case to tell it to her(birth-grandma) straight, no holds barred, so she will finally ‘get it’ you ARE the parent and you do have a right to say ‘no’
Perhaps we should look at the Grandparents . . they are hurting and trying to ease their pain with gifts. Sorta like a divorced parent who buys stuff to make up for not being there.
Turn the situation into a positive. Truly less is best when it comes to toys and candy. I would ask that they contribute to a college fund, purchase savings bonds, donate to a charity in the child’s name etc. You could also invite them to puchase as many books as they like. Books should always be welcome. You could also suggest that Granparents purchase music, dance, swim or art lessons.
I would suggest that they send cards and letters w/pictures. Perhaps the letters telling stories about their own lives. This is the greatest give to give -a family history.
The main goal is to put the child first. Parental boudaries need to be respected.
Our birthmother started immediately sending us boxes of “junk”- honestly, most of it was broken trinkets and clothing that was either way too small or way too big for our son. She also sent gifts to my husband and myself that we appreciate the gesture but the items…hmmm…I kept politely thanking her for her generosity but gently saying that we hoped that she was able to pay her own bills and also letting her know his appropriate size. The birthfather’s family had told us that she spent her money on the wrong things. The last box had clothing for 4 and 5 yr. olds and our son is just now 13 months. She insisted that we send her pictures of him wearing the clothing. Again, I thanked her but told her that he wasn’t able to wear the clothing at this time but I would take pictures when he does wear them (honestly, they are not my taste at all). She has stopped communicating directly with me since that last email, which has me concerned, since she tried to kill herself on Christmas Day from grief over the adoption.
She also has made our son the beneficiary of her life insurance and opened a savings account where she puts money for him. We allow this, as we don’t want her to feel cut off from him and I’m sure he will be able to use the money in the future.
Anyways, we struggle, as you can tell, with setting boundaries with our birthmother and gift-giving…