Life relationships

People were absolutely seething at the ingratitude of this nightmare of a mother-in-law

Poke Staff. Updated November 28th, 2024

This letter to agony column ‘Dear Prudence’ is an object lesson in being an ungrateful (insert word of your choice).

It’s from a mother-in-law who wasn’t happy about what her son’s wife did with the present she gave her, and no matter where you think it’s going to go, it goes further …

Dear Prudence, My daughter-in-law enjoys knitting and crocheting. For her birthday, my husband and I gave her a generous gift card to a local yarn store, for which she thanked us and seemed very pleased. Imagine my dismay, however, when six months later for our anniversary she gifted us with a lovely bedspread, which she told me she made with yarn purchased from the gift card! I told my son that we'd in effect paid for our own present and that he needs to communicate to his wife how improper and stingy this move was. He refuses, saying that her labor and time were also part of the gift.

The incident appears to have soured relationships within the family.

We haven't spoken much since except to discuss our grandchildren, and our DIL has been outright cold. I'm considering writing her a letter directly explaining why this was an improper gift and expressing my sadness that her own parents didn't teach her gift etiquette. My husband wants me to drop the whole thing and pretend like it never happened. Prudie, I don't like the idea of moving on as if nothing happened. -The Gift We Gave Ourselves

The letter was spotted by writer Nicole Cliffe, who said –

“This bitch. NEXT LEVEL.”

We can’t argue with that, and neither could these people.

There was another crucial point.

What a knit. Anyway, here’s the response from ‘Prudence’.

“But nothing did happen. You received a thoughtful gift that cost more time than money. That’s it!

If someone gives you a present you don’t like, you smile and say, “Thanks, how thoughtful,” and then stash it in the back of your closet. You don’t ask your kid to complain to the gift-giver via backchannel.

It’s fine if you like to give expensive presents—and can afford to do so—but that’s not the only way to show someone that you care. Even if you don’t like knitwear, your daughter-in-law spent countless hours over the course of a half-year working on something very detailed for you, and you say yourself it was a lovely bedspread.

Whether she got the yarn with the gift card you gave her or spent her own money is beside the point; you’re acting as if she re-gifted something when that clearly wasn’t the case. Your daughter-in-law’s gift was thoughtful and intricate; yours was financially generous and relatively generic.

There would be no reason to compare the two if you hadn’t insisted on doing so in the first place.”

We somehow suspect it won’t have made any difference.

READ MORE

This pregnant woman had a hilariously NSFW response to her pushy mother-in-law’s demand to be at the birth

Source Nicole Cliffe Image Pixabay