Granny State

Is my granddaughter being spoilt?

‘She’s perfectly happy with a saucepan and wooden spoon’

Icycle round to Rose’s excitedly. It’s been a whole week since I’ve seen her – not to mention her parents, who have been visiting the other four grandparents.

Whoops! I fall right over a giant, lurid red and green plastic tunnel which is snaking its way across the sitting room. “Careful, Mum! Rose is inside.”

Have I entered a toy shop by mistake? Blocking the entrance to the kitchen is a play tent. There’s a sit-on bus where a chair used to be and, on the sofa, there is a baby propped up against the cushions. For a minute, I actually think it is real. It’s not just its size (big!) but its spookily-realistic features.

“Step-great-grandad gave it to you, didn’t he?” says my daughter, addressing the moving shape inside the tunnel. “He thought it would help you to share!”

I look around for somewhere to sit. There isn’t anywhere. “Don’t you think,” I say tentatively, “that you’ve maybe got too many toys?”

Instantly I realise I should have kept my mouth shut. “Not really,” snaps my daughter. “Her friends have far more.”

Really? For a minute, I am transported back 30 years to almost exactly the same conversation with my mother when she accused us of spoiling the children. I was as offended then as my daughter is now. The only difference is that Rose has three times more than our lot did.

Finally, my granddaughter emerges from the other end of the tunnel and runs towards me, arms outstretched. She’s missed me, too! But at the last minute, she does a detour and dives for an all-singing, dancing gonk which proceeds to pirouette around us. This, apparently, was a present from the third grandad.

Instantly, I feel guilty. To be honest, I don’t buy Rose that many toys. That’s partly because of budget and partly because I thought she had enough. Now I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve fallen behind the other grands. “It’s all right, Mum,” says my daughter. “It’s not a competition, you know.”

But there’s something else that’s also niggling. There are a handful of people in Rose’s rather extraordinary extended family who haven’t bought her anything.

When I raise this with a friend she is astonished. “Gosh, what, not even a babygrow when she was born?”

Nope. Nothing at all. And I can’t help feeling hurt on behalf of Rose because it’s not about the present itself. It’s the thought.

“I think you’re making far too much out of this,” sniffs Newish Husband when I return back to ours with Rose. “She’s perfectly happy with a saucepan and wooden spoon.”

It’s true. She bangs away merrily until discovering an empty Chanel bag left over from a present to me from NH. “Look at me,” she seems to crow, strutting round the kitchen.

The following day, I come back with a package from our local toyshop. “She’s already got one of those singing gonks,” says NH, glancing up from his paper. “Drives me mad.”

“Good,” I retort. “It’s for you. I’m going to play it every time you read out bad news when I’m trying to be positive.”

He spreads out his hands in a “touché” expression.

Then the phone rings. It’s a great aunt whom the children visited on their rounds. “I’m afraid we rather spoiled your darling granddaughter with presents,” she says. “But it’s only because we can’t be as hands-on as you. You know, dear, the best gift of all is time.”

Instantly, I feel better. Hang on. Where did that second Chanel bag go? The one that did have something in it?

Next time: Granny has to watch her language