Gift-giving is supposed to come from the heart and have no strings attached, but some people learn at a very young age, through a controlling gift-giver in their family, that this isn't always the case.
Having a conditional gift-giver can be especially hard when they become a grandparent and start buying large quantities of gifts for their grandchildren out of "love," the members of the "Am I Overreacting?" (AIO) subreddit cringed.
Redditor BreadOverlord_ had an increasingly strained relationship with their mother-in-law, who constantly bought large-sized and expensive gifts for their two children, causing their home to overflow.
When their mother-in-law made another large purchase, the Original Poster (OP) decided it was time to speak up about the impracticality, only for the mother-in-law to lash out in a way they never saw coming.
They asked the sub:
"Am I overreacting for telling my mother-in-law that her massively expensive and space-hogging gifts are no longer welcome in our small apartment?"
The OP was tired of putting up with their mother-in-law's gift-giving style.
"I'm at my wits' end with my mother-in-law (MIL) and her 'generosity.'"
"We live in a modest two-bedroom apartment, and space is a premium. We've explained this to her repeatedly."
"Yet, for every birthday and Christmas, she buys our kids (5 Female and 3 Male) these ridiculously oversized, expensive gifts that have no place in our home."
"We're talking electric ride-on cars that they can't drive around and that we have nowhere to store, a drum set the size of a small table, and a giant dollhouse that takes up half the living room, among other gifts."
"We usually end up donating them or storing them at a friend's house, which feels incredibly wasteful and ungrateful, but we simply can't keep them!"
The mother-in-law's latest purchase put the OP over the edge.
"This past week, she announced she'd bought our son a 'surprise' for his upcoming birthday: a massive, multi-level train table."
"I tried to gently tell her, 'That sounds lovely, but we literally have no space for something like that. We really appreciate your generosity, but smaller, more practical gifts would be better.'"
"She got incredibly offended, said I was 'looking a gift horse in the mouth,' and implied I was ungrateful for her efforts."
"She then went on a tirade about how she just wants to 'spoil her grandchildren' and pointed out how I'm 'depriving them.'"
The OP was at a loss when their husband sided with his mother.
"My husband, as usual, told me to 'just accept the gift and deal with it later.'"
"He thinks I'm being ungrateful and creating unnecessary drama."
"But I feel like I'm constantly battling to maintain some semblance of order and sanity in our home, and it feels like a constant disrespect for our boundaries and living situation."
"Am I truly overreacting by refusing these well-intentioned but impractical gifts and standing firm on our space limitations?"
"AIO?"
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
- NOR: Not Overreacting
- YOR: You're Overreacting
Some advised that the OP let their MIL "gift" the items and then take them home.
"When your kid opens the gift, say, 'Oh wow! We can't fit it here, so it will have to stay at Grandma's!'"
"Then make sure she takes it home. Then she is not deprived of her gift-giving, and you don't have to deal with it. Win-win!" - aquagurl84
"OP needs to tell MIL to keep that train table at her place. If it can't fit there, either, then she shouldn't buy it."
"My mom wants to buy my nephews' stuff all of the time, too, but it's small things they can either eat or clothes they can wear or bedding they can use or small plushies once in a while that she thinks are adorable, even though they also have a million toys and plushies as it is, already."
"NOR." - morchard1493
"NOR. We suggested that the big gifts move away. Like, 'WOW, they will love using that when they are at your house.'"
"Grandparents can be great. They can also be overbearing and use guilt to get their way. It's not always easy to set boundaries and hold them."
"My snarky reply would be that when she buys you a nice big house there, I'll have more room for giant presents for the kids. Maybe she gives you a few hundred thousand dollar gift."
"But seriously, just be kind, firm, and consistent that large gifts stay at her house."
"Your husband needs to be in lockstep with you on how you handle things. He will need to grow a firmer spine to stand up to his Mom on things. Have a real talk about setting boundaries and prioritizing your immediate family over others." - Crafty-Isopod45
"To slow my mom down, I used to let her buy the big gifts and bring them to my house to open, and then force her to take them home."
"She'd buy my daughter giant gifts, and after a few years of gently suggesting she doesn't do it anymore, I finally said, 'Yay! She'll love this! She'll love playing with it at your house because that's where it's going!'"
"My kid is almost 11, and we don't have a single large gift in our tiny house now; her big house is packed with everything. Worked like a charm!" - Gladys_Balzitch
"This is exactly what I've done for years! Anytime my MIL wants to buy something big for my daughter, I just say, 'I love that, but it has to stay at your house, because we don't have the room!'":
"Over the years of doing this, she has respected that decision, bought fewer big items, and I don't have to find room. Also, because they keep those things at MIL's house, they get more bonding time. Win for everyone!" - oeigan
"NOR. My mother did this when I got divorced and moved into a smaller two-bedroom apartment with my two kids. She insisted on getting them these big pop-up tents."
"So I'll recommend doing what I did: Tell her to keep it at her house so when the kids come visit, they have something to play with!"
"She was hesitant at first, but I was really proud of her, because she actually ended up donating a bunch of stuff she didn't want or need, and she created a bedroom for my kids in her house. Extra clothes and toys she wanted to get them, bigger items, and those tents all went into that room and made a great space for them to stay weekends at Grandma's!" - StatisticianAny9624
"Spoil them at grandma's. Then they'll have a cool toy to play with there. If she says they have no room, just stare at her with one eyebrow raised expectantly and see if the penny drops."
"NOR and as usual, your husband should be dealing with his mother's pushy ways." - SnbooCheesecakes2723
"Letting them gift the toys at our house and then take them home with them was EXACTLY how our ILs got a giant 10-foot-plus long Hot Wheels racetrack ramp!"
"Did our kid love and appreciate it? H**l yes. Did the tiny apartment we lived in at the time have literally anywhere long enough to keep this thing without being a perpetual trip hazard? Nope!"
"This was way back when he was the only grandchild- he's about to turn 16, and there's a bunch more grandkids now... and it's still there, regularly used and loved by all the littles! It's actually great and saved us a lot of fights!" - UnrulyPoet
"This is PETTY, but if sending the items home with your MIL doesn't work, start setting the toys up on your husband's side of the bed. He'll have to remove them all from his side in order to sleep, and then good luck to him in the middle of the night when he needs to pee or the next morning when he's groggy and trying not to step on something." - HollyGL
Others also pointed out that this was just as much a husband problem as a MIL problem.
"I hate to say this, but this is a Husband problem as well as a MIL problem." - Disenchanted2
"Honestly, this is mainly a husband problem. If the husband respected his wife (and his home), then he would have no problem telling his mom they would no longer accept large gifts. Easy fix, have a husband that's on your side instead of his mommy's." - lokiandgoose
"Obviously, hubs is a momma's boy and will never tell her to stop."
"I have an ex that was a mama's boy like that. I gave him back to his mama… The kids might be able to go to grandma's house to enjoy the toys, their grandma, AND their dad in his basement apartment." - Silver_Queen_Bee
"Who the h**l gives a kid of any age, much less a five-year-old, a drum set when they live in an apartment? That is either very dumb or purposefully toxic."
"Who then gives a giant train table (I've seen these things; they can easily be as big as another bed, which most people don't have room for, no shade!) and FREAKS OUT when a parent very realistically says, 'It's lovely, but we truly just don't have SPACE for it'?!"
"And the winner winner chicken dinner question: Who's dealing with all of this, mentally speaking? Hearing about the gifts and having to discuss them, the stress of seeing them in person for the first time and realizing how big they are, managing the house, cleaning the house, managing the children, and now taking the brunt of the mother-in-law's outbursts?"
"Because I'd guess it's you when it should be your husband."
"Because this is your husband's mother, therefore HE should be dealing with it start to finish. He should be shutting her behavior down, not you, and he shouldn't be shutting you down." - Used_Clock_4627
"If this is not your mother, you have a marriage problem, not a MIL problem."
"If your partner doesn't see the issue, then speak with them about space allocation, and when you find an agreed-upon amount of space for her gifts, they can communicate it."
"If this is your parent, I trust you have fought similar battles over the years, and what you really need to work on is that YOU ARE THE PARENT. YOU and our partner get approval/rejection rights for all gifts."
"YOU and your partner get approval/rejection rights for all gifts. If they do not respect you, that is the core issue." - Schroeje
"I don't think the OP's husband is a total lost cause or trying to be a problem or cater to his mom, but the husband has some relearning to do."
"He almost certainly grew up learning the best way to deal with his mother was to do what she said without argument. It will be very difficult to break this defense mechanism."
"I would love to know what his method of 'dealing with it later' is. Probably not dealing with it at all." - BlacakeyedSusan19
The subreddit wasn't convinced that the mother-in-law's gifts were well-intentioned at all, but if they were, there had to be a better way to channel her love language of gift-giving, perhaps by putting the bigger gifts at her house and keeping only smaller, everyday gifts at the OP's.
If the mother-in-law insisted she didn't have space at home, that should be a wake-up call that these gifts were impractical for their family.
But if she was going to use these gifts as virtual signals to indicate ways in which the OP was "depriving" their children, maybe there wasn't a place for these gifts in their home anyway, since gifts with strings attached should not stick around.
