Our children’s grandmother, Maria, loves her granddaughters and often takes them to her house or comes to visit us. She used to always bring presents for the children, such as dolls, coloring books, paints for aqua makeup, various goodies, rubber bands, pins and hair bows. She never spared money on gifts for her granddaughters.
The daughters were so used to grandma’s gifts that as soon as she came over, they would take theirs and go play in their room, forgetting about grandma. I think she does not like this attitude, because once again she came to visit her granddaughters without presents, not even taking sweets for tea.
The girls made no secret of their frustration at not getting what they expected. I explained to them, quite strictly, that grandma must be loved, no matter whether she came with or without gifts. The girls frowned and went back to their rooms.
And my mother-in-law and I went into the kitchen for tea, and she explained to me the change in her behavior. It turned out that she had read an interesting article on the Internet that said that grandchildren shouldn’t buy presents all the time because they get used to it and then they start to wait not for Grandma herself, but for the presents from her. Naturally, Maria wants the girls to rejoice at her arrival. When she had finished her story, she gave me money to buy my daughters what I thought was necessary.
My mother-in-law is a very impressionable person, and sometimes she takes what she hears or sees to heart. She read somewhere that for “good weather” in the house, you need to wash from the door to the windows, and after cleaning, pour the water into the toilet, saying certain words. This is the only way she cleans now. She does not impose her opinion on me, so I take her quirks quite calmly.
I refused to take money from her. It goes against my better judgment. My husband and I earn good money, and take the last of the money from an elderly man to buy his daughters gifts from me, I think it’s abnormal. But Maria still insisted on his own. So I called my husband to help her change her mind.
The husband, just like me, could not persuade his mother to take the money. In the end she even said she would stop communicating with us if we didn’t take her money for her granddaughters. We tried every method, but in vain.
Since then, several times a month my mother-in-law sends money for her beloved granddaughters to my husband’s card. It is always different amounts. But my husband and I have found the best solution. We buy everything our daughters need by ourselves, and we put the money in the mother-in-law’s account at the bank. We decided that we would add more money and give the entire amount to mom for her birthday.
By the way, Maria’s plan for her granddaughters worked 100%. Now they sincerely rejoice whenever she comes and take her to their room to play together.
