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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2012 10:07:18 GMT -5
My kids are wondering what happened to me. When they were little the answer to every "I want" was NO. I don't do that with the Grandkids. They don't get everything they want by any stretch of the imagination . . . but I did buy them all new bicycles and then went to the Disney store with them last week. I think I might be afraid to tell my DD what I bought them. Both of my DDs have mentioned this phenomenon to me. What do I tell them? Do I fess up that the GKids seem to love me more than they did
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2012 10:12:14 GMT -5
Are they truly jealous or just kind of saying that with a wink in their eye? If they are truly jealous, then they really just need to grow up. In that case, i would tell them that you have more disposable income now than you did then and also that as a parent, there are other issues in terms of overindulgence that you have to consider that you don't as a grandparent. If they are just ribbing you, then yeah, tell them you are the Disney Grandma and how lucky for their kids!
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Aug 26, 2012 10:15:33 GMT -5
Most grandparents have more disposable income. We don't pay for braces, daycare, well baby dr appts. I can go blow money on J CREW clothes for them if I want to. I didn't have the money to do that for my kids. Daycare isn't an issue for us, either. I also take good care of my kids. The grand kids are DFs. My own will probably be more spoiled.
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Tiny
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Post by Tiny on Aug 26, 2012 10:51:01 GMT -5
LOL! My mom joined the ranks of the Pod People after the first grandkid was born. I was like "who are you? and what did you do with my mom?" I don't have kids - but I admit I felt a tweak of something unpleasant whenever I saw her let the neices and nephews do stuff that would have gotten me yelled at or sent to my room OR that I was forbidden from doing. (I'm the youngest of my siblings) It was a freaky feeling that I got myself over. She was older, a grandmother, and the kids were only there for a few hours at a time. I'm sure my mom would have turned back into an 'Evil old Witch' if she had to keep the kids for days or weeks - she'd be tired of cleaning up after them and watching them and would have imposed some order. She didn't have alot of money to lavish on them so that wasn't an issue. ADDED: FWIW, my mom's long passed away - but the kids do have fond memories of the stuff they did with Grandma - she went to the school stuff, she let them make pudding (with an old hand powered mixer), she took them to the park, she listened to them, she did buy them trinkets at the dollar store... but not much as she didn't have the money. She played old fashion board games with them (MY games!!! and she let them play with MY childhood toys!!! <-- yes, that's an ugly feeling I'm over. ) - she taught them card games. She sang with them (she was in a choir/musical singing group in her youth). I think it's ok to spend money on the kids - but think about trying to create some other memory other than "we went to grandma's and got stuff).
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2012 11:01:11 GMT -5
I think the idea that grandparents have more disposable income is a good one... I do have a twist... not sure if its a hihack, if so we can drop it, but I have a stepsister that is the same age as my daughter... I've noted on occasion that while my sister doesn't seem to mind what my kids receive, it does bother her that little stepsister gets so much more than we did when we were young... but then, definately more disposable income available... etc. different relationship though (and heck maybe she does care what my kids get ... she's not likely to tell me about it....)
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2012 11:05:47 GMT -5
That is even true with kids because my sis and I are 11 years apart. And, our parents had a lot more money when i was growing up than when she was so i got more stuff! ;D
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Colleenz
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Post by Colleenz on Aug 26, 2012 12:04:36 GMT -5
Our running family joke is that the kids would need to hold up a liquor store before they would get a time out at Grandma's. Have fun spoiling them. ;D
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Post by mox on Aug 26, 2012 12:11:11 GMT -5
Do I fess up that the GKids seem to love me more than they did lol My son called from down south where he moved. He told us he went out and bought three pieces of expensive art for his new apt. yesterday and I said to him, "Are you going to be able to still pay your tuition?" He got loans for grad school, but I fear he is going to put it toward other things. Oh well, it's his money. We paid for his undergrad education, etc. DONE!
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Post by mox on Aug 26, 2012 12:12:03 GMT -5
I plan on spoiling my grandkids...my kids will allow it too.
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susanb
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Post by susanb on Aug 26, 2012 12:16:45 GMT -5
Weren't you the poster who was recently contemplating buying iPads for your daughters? It seems like maybe you are just in a different financial position now than you were when they were kids. It seems like your gifts to your daughters today are a lot more expensive than your gifts to your daughters when they were kids too. Nothing wrong with that, but maybe this isn't just a kids vs. grandkids thing.
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Post by BeenThere...DoneThat... on Aug 26, 2012 12:17:23 GMT -5
...imo, simply tell your children that you are used to showering love and provision upon your offspring... that there is a new generation of offspring is not the pertinent point...
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northdakotanice
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Post by northdakotanice on Aug 26, 2012 13:19:36 GMT -5
My parents totally spoil my girls. I very rarely have to buy them anything like clothing, shoes,etc. I've had to censor myself with my mom because if I mention that they need something (recent example: pj's) she will show up with a bagful of stuff. Not like I was asking her to buy it, I just mention it in conversation. I've never felt jealousy over how she spoils my kids compared to how my sis and I were treated as kids. But I have often felt insulted, like she doesn't think I can take care of my own family. She isn't insinuating that, but I am sometimes overly sensitive about it.
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cronewitch
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Post by cronewitch on Aug 26, 2012 14:31:57 GMT -5
Mom and dad said you can spoil other people's children because you don't have to live with them. They spoiled grandkids as much as my brothers would allow. They nearly lost visitation with the oldest grandson because his mother didn't like what they let him eat. He was heavy and his doctor wanted him to lose 6lbs in second grade. His mom monitored and controlled his food they let him spend a weekend with my parents. They gave him whatever he wanted and he would come back gaining weight so she said one more time gaining at their house they couldn't keep him.
Mom taught the kids to put both butter and jam on a biscuit and to spray canned whip cream directly into the mouth. Dad gave ice cream on request to one grandson because he was named his name as a middle name. All the others wanted to have grandpa's name for a middle name like that boy.
Dad did take them to Disneyland and other places on vacations. They drove but mom flew to meet them their, she didn't enjoy children as much as dad did. He would play board games with them and keep 4 of them a week at a time while mom was working. He taught them a game called Maid, two cousins would be the maid for the day, they other two the next day. When you were maid you had to do all the chores like cooking dinner and bringing him coffee. He would want things like potato salad so the maids had to cook potatoes and eggs and chop things. He did the boiling water parts because they were too young but it took them hours to make a bowl of potato salad. Being the maid got them lots of extra attention so they liked it and once a year or so he would tip them $100 for half a cup of coffee. Each kid would sometimes get a check for $100 and he would take them to the bank to deposit it. The bank would cash it and let them hold the money before depositing the cash so it was exciting. He also had the bank statements send to his house so they had to be brought over to read them. Each kid ended up with over a thousand dollars before he took off the trustee so they could spend the money.
They all fondly remember him even after he has been gone 20 years and they are all over 39 now. Grandparents are supposed to spoil the grandkids, my little brother spoils his too but not as much as my parents did his kids.
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Formerly SK
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Post by Formerly SK on Aug 26, 2012 14:54:23 GMT -5
I like how Bill Cosby once put it: people are more generous as grandparents vs parents because they are now looking to get into heaven. ;D
I prefer my parents/ILs spoil the kids. As far as I'm concerned, if MIL wants to give the kids ice cream for breakfast more power to her. It's my job to teach them responsibility, etc. Grandparents are for fun.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Aug 26, 2012 15:37:55 GMT -5
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qofcc
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Post by qofcc on Aug 26, 2012 16:41:30 GMT -5
I thoroughly enjoy buying things for DG and I don't get him everything he wants of course, but I get him lots of things that make him happy. We went shopping last weekend and his mom was looking to replace a pair of work shoes that had fallen apart. He ran right to the kids section of JCP and started telling me how much he really really wanted new clothes. I checked with DD and she said he had outgrown most of his summer clothes so if I wanted to get a few in the next size up it was fine with her. So we picked out 4 pairs of shorts and a huge pile of shirts and he wanted to go in the fitting room and try everything on. So I told him he could pick 4 of the shirts, one to go with each pair of shorts and he tried different ones on, making a pile of the ones to keep and the ones that "didn't go" and finally he proudly walked out with 4 big boy character tees and 4 pairs of shorts with adjustable waistbands for about $4 each. Then he saw some $30 sneakers he wanted and I had to say no - I'm not paying $30 for sneakers for a 4 year old even if they are on clearance. He was so thrilled that I took him shopping and he called me up the next day to tell me what he was wearing. I don't remember letting my kids have fun trying on clothes when they were that little. It makes me feel good that I can go into a store and spend $40 on him and make him happy without worrying about it breaking the budget like I had to worry when my kids were that age. And DD had never been jealous that I spend money on stuff for her child that I didn't do for her. I didn't always say no to my kids, but money was much tighter back then. I would have LOVED to have the grandparents want to help with the extras. My sister's youngest kids are not much older than my grandchild and I think it does bother DD that grandma spoils her cousins and her son but didn't spoil her when she was little. It disappoints me too, but I think it's more of a function of them living close by.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2012 17:10:25 GMT -5
LOL! My mom joined the ranks of the Pod People after the first grandkid was born. I was like "who are you? and what did you do with my mom?" I don't have kids - but I admit I felt a tweak of something unpleasant whenever I saw her let the neices and nephews do stuff that would have gotten me yelled at or sent to my room OR that I was forbidden from doing. (I'm the youngest of my siblings) It was a freaky feeling that I got myself over. She was older, a grandmother, and the kids were only there for a few hours at a time. I'm sure my mom would have turned back into an 'Evil old Witch' if she had to keep the kids for days or weeks - she'd be tired of cleaning up after them and watching them and would have imposed some order. She didn't have alot of money to lavish on them so that wasn't an issue. I think it's ok to spend money on the kids - but think about trying to create some other memory other than "we went to grandma's and got stuff). No worries. I take them to the zoo, library & assorted play grounds to play and be silly too. The last couple of weekends were spendy, so I got tongue-in-cheek jealousy comments from both my kids wondering what happened to the mother THEY had! Our best recent weekend find was spying a playground through the woods as we drove past. We had to drive around for about 15 minutes to figure out where we could enter the park. There wasn't an actual parking lot or anything. You street parked & walked through a wildlife preserve (with a boardwalk) ended up at a wall of blackberry bushes (yummm) and then another 50 yards and there was this super cool playground. I think you are right & I am a Grand-Pod
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2012 17:12:42 GMT -5
Our running family joke is that the kids would need to hold up a liquor store before they would get a time out at Grandma's. Have fun spoiling them. ;D If they brought me the Vodka spoils I'd probably forgive even that ;D
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cronewitch
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Post by cronewitch on Aug 27, 2012 0:34:50 GMT -5
Mom would take each grand child for a day of back to school shopping. She would buy them one complete outfit, including shoes and coat. Socks and underwear were packs of more than one so it was a big start on back to school shopping. One boy wore orthopedic shoes that were expensive so that saved his parents a major expense. Mom got a full day with each grandchild out of the deal. My brothers were poor so having the kids already have mostly outfitted they just needed just another couple of shirts and pants or skirts and blouses.
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giramomma
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Post by giramomma on Aug 27, 2012 6:30:47 GMT -5
I prefer my parents/ILs spoil the kids. As far as I'm concerned, if MIL wants to give the kids ice cream for breakfast more power to her. It's my job to teach them responsibility, etc. Grandparents are for fun. Well, I think this depends. The grandparents are very involved in my kids' life. They live close and see the kids quite often and watch them quite often. I'm sorry, but I can't have my kids eating ice cream a bunch a week for sometimes weeks on end, or having my kids stay up WAY past their bed time routinely (my kids do lovely things like hit, spit and scream when they are sleep deprived. And this lasts for several days.) Sometimes they pick the kids up from school. They can't be all like "Since your with me and I'm the FUN ones, you don't have to do any homework." They also understand that they can't really do these things every time they see them, either. So I'm not being a Debbie downer. If the grands only saw the kids once or twice a year, I'd be much more lenient. Thankfully, the grands check in with us before they act. The grands are still rather careful with their money. One set it looking at a 40-some year retirement-maybe even 50 years. So, for them, yes, there's spoiling, in terms of paying for a large chunk of college and spending lots of time with the kids, but there aren't trips to TRU, either, just because.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Aug 27, 2012 7:06:47 GMT -5
We will probably pay a chunk as well, especially for the ones whose parents are train wrecks. Funny enough, we reward the kid of the parents who aren't jerks and tend to almost ignore the ones whose parents are. Sad enough, the kids act like jerks too because they reflect their upbringing so no one wants to be around them. Thankfully, they aren't my problem or issue! It's certainly easier to like the sweet well-behaved grandchild than the ones who baby talk at age 6 or the ones that hurt other kids and pets at age 8.
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Miss Tequila
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Post by Miss Tequila on Aug 27, 2012 7:08:07 GMT -5
It is a grandparent's role to spoil their grandchildren...
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The Captain
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Post by The Captain on Aug 27, 2012 7:13:29 GMT -5
Being a grandparent gives you a second chance at enjoying the things you could not allow as a parent. Plus you get to spoil the and send them home afterwards. THAT is the natural order of things IMHO!
(Not a grandparent yet - hopefully for a long time - but looking forward to it!)
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Phoenix84
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Post by Phoenix84 on Aug 27, 2012 9:13:40 GMT -5
Despite a lot of the hoo hah over senior poverty, seniors are actually the wealthiest segment of the population. So it's natural they would spend money on their grand kids. Can't say I've experienced that myself though, since my grand parents were mostly dead when I was young.
I also think a psychological transformation happens as you get older. You get less stingy. I've seen it with my dad. I remember him getting mad at me for taking too much sour cream on my baked potatoes because it cost too much. He doesn't do that now.
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8 Bit WWBG
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Post by 8 Bit WWBG on Aug 27, 2012 9:59:06 GMT -5
...:::"It seems like your gifts to your daughters today are a lot more expensive than your gifts to your daughters when they were kids too.":::...
My father likes to point out that as a kid, he played with plastic toy soldiers, and maybe a little air pistol. There were no iPads or game consoles.
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bean29
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Post by bean29 on Aug 27, 2012 10:15:04 GMT -5
When my kids were small my MIL was our babysitter. We paid the going rate. FIL was transportation home afterschool for many years even before he retired. My oldest stats college this week, and My IL's are now babysitting for the children of their youngest. According to my MIL these kids are complete brats and very naughty. I know they are worse than my kids, but I often wonder if they are as bad as she makes them out to be. My IL's are much older now, and I am not sure how much my BIL is paying MIL. I think he pays but do not know for sure.
My IL's are doing ok, but they by no means have money. My kids (and my Dog) love grandma's cooking. They value that more than any monetary thing. I am sure it is our influence...the explanation of what they should value, that influences to a certain extent. I think my IL's favorite "grandchild" is my dog. If you would have asked my husband 10 years ago if his parents would ever have a dog, he would have said no. Now they "invite" my dog to spend the nite.
My Mom gets into "spoiling" her grandchildren too. She admits she does not have to deal with the consequences of things like too much sugar or too many toys. I get the impression that my oldest nephew pretty much makes her curb her desire to spoil his kids though.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2012 10:32:56 GMT -5
I wish my parent and my in-laws lived closer so that they COULD spoil the DD. They moved away when they retired, my parents are 12 hours away and the In laws are 10. My DD is 10 and she sees them only 1x a year, 2x if we're lucky. I wish they were both closer so that she could get to know them better (and vice-versa) than just a phone call every week.
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NomoreDramaQ1015
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Post by NomoreDramaQ1015 on Aug 27, 2012 10:38:59 GMT -5
I tease my parents all the time about how different they are with Gwen. It is amazing the patience my dad has with her compared to my brother and I growing up. He let Gwen play with his socket wrench set! That would have gotten me killed as a kid, we were under orders not to mess with dad's tools.
They are also a lot more indulgent with her, but they have more disposable income than they did when I was a little.
I'm fine with it, doesn't bother me any. I realized shortly after her birthday that Dh and I have rarely bought her any toys since the day she was born. Instead of trying to stop them we let our parents indulge as much as they want and we limit what we purchase.
Like for Christmas we let them go nuts and we stick to one big ticket item and some stocking stuffers.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Aug 27, 2012 10:55:52 GMT -5
Foodie, that's just an excuse and a poor one. I'd be making that twelve hour trip at least once a month and probably every other weekend.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Aug 27, 2012 11:17:43 GMT -5
This thread has totally cracked me up. My mother spent some time with my kids this summer. After a couple of days (days only) she said "Maybe I'm not the best Grandma - I spent all week just yelling at the kids." I laughed so hard - my kids are so easy. As it turns out, she was just yelling at my son. He promptly ignored her. LOL. My poor Mom. She loves her grandkids - no question about it, but she just likes things her own way. Even worse she has Zero-point-zero-zero skills for relating to young boys. She raised all girls, and her three grandsons are complete mysteries to her. And not the kind of mysteries that you want to figure out. More like the kind you just know you will never figure out, so you just learn enough to get the jokes that Jay Leno or the Simpsons will make about it.
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