What do you buy for family who gives your gifts away?
Carolyn Hax is away. The following appeared May 4 and 6, 2007.
DEAR CAROLYN: My brother and his wife have a 5-year-old son and are expecting again; this time twins. My nephew is the first grandchild on both sides and spoiled beyond rotten. He recently told me, “We gave the toys you gave me for Christmas to Bobby and his brother.” Bobby and his brother are some kids in his aftercare whom I don’t even know! Being 5, he doesn’t know that he probably shouldn’t be telling me this — but now I see that he is given so much that my brother and sister-in-law stockpile select gifts as their own personal toy store for other children’s birthdays, etc. With two more babies coming, I only see this situation getting worse.
I understand they have no control over the number of presents their children receive, but I am angered that the gifts I spent money on are being given to kids I don’t even know. Am I the mean aunt if I just give savings bonds? Is there any right way to tell them I think they have way too much in toys, children’s designer clothing, etc.? I am disgusted by the overindulgence.
— A.B.
DEAR READER: I can’t blame you. But I can (and will!) blame you for blaming your brother and his wife, especially when you start the blame paragraph with, “I understand they have no control over the number of presents their children receive.”
So which is it, their bad values, or others’ misguided generosity?
Take away the punitive rant and I understand what you’re saying — that excess is regrettable, that you don’t enjoy spending money on Bobby and his brother, that it will get worse with the twins.
So try approaching this problem not as a disgusted spectator but as a helpful ally.
For example: What’s the difference between a $50 savings bond and buying their $50 gift for the Bobbies? Money is money.
Or: Maybe you feel the thought should count for more. In that case, direct your thoughts to being less wasteful: deposits to a college fund; theater/ballgame/aquarium tickets for experiences you and your nephew can share; paper, chalk, balloons, gallons of bubbles or anything else kids burn through.
Or: Talk to your brother.
Say you’ve realized more and more and more stuff might be exactly what they don’t want you to give their kids, and would he prefer you handled gifts differently? Either he’ll be grateful you understand, or you’ll be grateful you could deliver your excess-is-bad lecture in a much more politic way.
DEAR CAROLYN: I recently left a comfortable marriage after 27 years because I didn’t love my husband. We lived a passionless, flatlined life and I could go on but it’s not the point (or is it?). We were separated for 14 months and are now divorced. I started dating someone and now I live with him. I have not brought him to family events because I was being sensitive to everyone’s feelings, but now I feel it’s about time I move on with my life.
My family cannot accept this. They do not invite my boyfriend to anything but still invite my ex-husband. We have two grown children and they take their father’s side to the point I am left out. If I want to attend dinners at my children’s houses I need to leave my boyfriend home. So here I sit wanting to know what went wrong and where do I go from here.
— R. in Chicago DEAR READER: What happened is that you did something that not everyone thinks was right, or fair, or kind.
I don’t necessarily agree with them; anyway, it doesn’t matter whether I do. But you need only reverse the sexes — man cites lack of passion, leaves wife of 27 years, moves in with new love — to get the village shaking its collective head at what pigs men are.
I will give my opinion of village-wide head-shakings: They’re repellent. Villages don’t know who says what to whom over breakfast, and even children don’t know what parents say to each other when bedroom doors are closed.
That is why you have to be unflinchingly honest with yourself about what happened, why and which direction(s), if any, the apologies need to flow. Then you need to take that version of events and find a way to live with it.
Then you need to accept that you can’t make anyone else live with it who doesn’t want to. Yes, it was your marriage — but it incorporated other lives. The decision to divorce was yours, but the choice to treat your ex as family is theirs. The urge to move on is yours; the prerogative not to is theirs.
The more graciously you handle it, the better your shot at acceptance, sure, but there are no guarantees. So you live as you choose, knowing others can do the same.
Chat online with Carolyn at 11 a.m. each Friday at washingtonpost.com. Write to Tell Me About It in care of The Washington Post, Style Plus, 1150 15th St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20071; or email