Dear Prudence,
My wife and her brother’s fiancée (I’ll call her Jane) have had friction in the past that they’re working through. This week, for our daughter’s birthday, Jane gave our daughter a $50 gift card to a beauty products retailer. There are a few issues there. First, she has a child with my brother-in-law and a child from a previous relationship, and we love them both, but we’ve never given them large gifts on their birthdays. We really don’t want to set the precedent of giving presents to all of our nieces and nephews because there are a lot of them between my side and my wife’s side of the family, and our kids already have too much as it is. $50 is enough that we would feel compelled to do the same for their children.
Second, we have tried to limit the amount of “things” our daughters get, in general, for birthdays and Christmas. They have more books than they can read and more toys than they can play with. Finally, I feel confident that Jane knows we have a strong aversion to makeup for our 11-year-old daughter. We think she’s too young for it. She just got some at Christmas, and we didn’t like it then. I don’t really think Jane is giving that specifically to stick a thorn in our side, but … I guess I do or I wouldn’t be bringing it up. It is also possible that she saw how much our daughter got excited about her Christmas makeup present and took more of the “spoiling aunt” role and got it anyway. My wife already accepted it before she knew how much it was or what business it was for, but we really don’t want to start this precedent for the next 10-plus years. How in the world can we ask not to give gifts in the future without insulting Jane—and my brother-in-law—and damaging an already tenuous relationship?
—Anxious About Gifting