Am I being selfish?

Happeewife

Well, I went with my mom to Buy Buy Baby yesterday to help her with finding a changing table to keep at her house and I noticed a few things I was interested in purchasing myself. One was a wall decoration for the room and the other were Thank You cards to send out after the shower. My mother says ohhh well I bought this for you to hang up in the room, but what maybe I should've gotten that .. well I don't have the receipt anymore to return it .... do you like that one better?  I said nevermind I will buy the other and hang both on the wall. I felt like I would be insulting her. Then when I noticed the thank you cards I was considering purhasing she implied that she already bought thank you cards for me to send out.  I was kind of insulted ... did she think I was NOT going to send those out? I mean, I always keep thank you cards on hand in case someone goes out of their way to do or buy something for me.

 

I later vented to my husband who thought she was being overbearing. How do I tell her we could try and exchange the wall decoration she bought? I'm also annoyed because it is my son's nursery and I want to decorate it myself.  She did this to me when I went away from college and when I transferred back home to live she redecorated my room with what she wanted instead of getting my input.  It is so frustrating because she buys all this stuff and then makes me feel gulity.

violetblue72

No, I don't think your being selfish at all.  I also don't think your mom is really thinking about how this might bother you.  She's probably just so excited to have a grandchild that she's getting all these cute things she sees when she goes shopping.  Annoying but probably not intentionally hurtful. 

Hmm, if this was my mom I'd let her know that, although I appreciated how involved and supportive she was being with my pregnancy and how excited she was to have a grandchild, I'd been looking forward to decorating my child's nursery/picking out thank you notes/etc. and want to pick things out myself.  I'd tell her that I love when we go shopping together to pick things out but that it took some of the fun out of it when she went ahead and made choices without me.

As far as what she already bought, I'd have her use the wall decoration for the room she's going to have the changing table in at her house.  Better yet, I'd have her decorate that room however she like... let her go crazy!   I'd probably either just use the thank you notes to give out after birthdays or when SHE would get some for my son.

Happeewife

Tha thank you cards are baby shower thank you's not generic ones that can you be used for any occasion. The wall hanging - well the room will also be used by my sister's child and we are not sure what it will be. The wall hanging says "The Prince Sleeps Here."

Julia-Henry

violetblue72:

No, I don't think your being selfish at all.  I also don't think your mom is really thinking about how this might bother you.  She's probably just so excited to have a grandchild that she's getting all these cute things she sees when she goes shopping.  Annoying but probably not intentionally hurtful. 

I agree. Overly enthusiastic grandmas can be a real pain!

Buy what you want, and then use her stuff for backup. Or regift/donate it.

BrideBuddies

Your mom sounds like mine... a compulsive shopper.  Doesn't give much thought to shopping... just does it without thinking.   I wouldn't overthink it too much.  She's just excited.

And as for redecorating your "room" once you went to college... Ok, you're a bit out of line there.  It's her house and she can do what she wants with it.  Once you left, you don't really have a claim to a "room" anymore, even if you did come back eventually.  But my family's weird like that.. my mom sold my bed at a garage sale the second I was out of the house.

pleasantsarg

I empathize. My mom occasionally will buy us things we just don't have space for. I appreciate that she does this sometimes, but a lot of the time I feel like I  am working really hard to get to a place where I can buy things that I like to decorate our house, and she beats me to the punch.

I think it isn't mean so much as just, she has a lot of these things already in her house so she buys them for me. It is nice, but it can be frustrating- especially when you live in a not-so big space. A lot of time I just tell her I don't have very much room.

(I keep joking that I will inherit my mom's dish collection when she passes, then I'll have to clean them all). 

CaptainD

To me it sounds like she is just really excited.  If you don't want to hang her wall decor, don't.  Or put it someplace else in the room.  I don't know how big it is but maybe you can make it a door knob hanger or something.  I don't know.

What I do know is that, when you are thrown a shower, usually the hostess will provide the thank you cards for you and will have everyone fill their addresses out on the envelopes while they are there.  I don't really think she meant to be overbearing on that one.  I bought them for my SIL when I threw her a shower. 

 

BrideBuddies

What I do know is that, when you are thrown a shower, usually the hostess will provide the thank you cards for you and will have everyone fill their addresses out on the envelopes while they are there. 

Seriously?  That is the tackiest thing I've ever heard!  People do this???  Why can't the honored person fill out their own darn envelopes when he/she sits down to write a proper thank you?

Sorry Captain D... I've never, ever heard of this and would be mortified if my shower hostess broke out the Thank You envelopes to essentially make the guests prep their own thank you card.