Daughter in law rejects our gifts?
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Ugh. NEWSFLASH!! It’s so NOT a generational thing.
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As one of my many parttime gigs, I stage houses for a real estate agency here in LA. My biggest problem? Almost ALL of the SELLERS (most of whom are 30 or 40 something) are all just swimming in a vast sea of useless stuff. 90 percent of which is utter crap. For fucks sake — I have yet to arrive at a property in LA where people can even park in their garages. EVERYBODY is drowning in useless, worthless, tasteless and just plain tacky crap!It’s so funny to me because my stepmom (she’s the one who buys gifts, not my dad) won’t give me anything if she thinks it requires some sort of visual preference. I asked for socks once, and she was so worried that she’d give me socks I didn’t like that she just gave me money instead. I can’t imagine what she’d do if I asked for art. Probably just give me the terrible painting her friend made for her of her dog.
Hey, I’m environmentally friendly and conscious, but the real issue is none of these hoarders gift things when people actually need them. They wait until the go into an old folks home, or die, and then their families already have everything they need and the amount of crap is so overwhelming they throw it ALL out.
As a photographer your response to your DIL reactions makes me sad. I LOVE gifting my pictures but I try to be VERY VERY careful about size (8×10 usually) and I always try and make is something they have mentioned liking, or a trip we did together. I also limit the number, one or two pictures with the understanding they can always request more.
Please be respectful of people’s taste and space. You sound incredibly proud of your husband’s work, so maybe look into a community show to display his work. or someone has the idea of turning them into postcards. I have various large trips turned into coffee table art books.
There are ways to share your passion without being pushy.
I gotta cosign on the baby boomer hoarder thing. My dad has so much crap in his house AND he has a storage unit. A couple weeks ago he was actually grumbling that his storage unit is full, and when I was like well get rid of some stuff then, he tried to blame it on me and my brothers by telling us that we need to come get our childhood things. I had no idea what he was talking about bc when he moved 10 years ago we went through all of our things and trashed what we didn’t want and boxed up the rest for donations that were supposed to go to the Good Will. Well instead of dropping off the donate boxes that we loaded up, he decided he should keep it all “in case you changed your mind when you got older.” Yes, dad, now that I’m 31, I think I’ll take those 40* stuffed animals and put them on the bed in my tiny NYC apartment. Oy!
*I exaggerate, but I did have an embarrassing number of stuffies haha
Seriously this is happening to me! My husbands sister does those paint and drink wine parties and keeps sending us the art. My daughter made me take the one that “matched” her room out as it had scary eyes. Give your daughter in law a gift card or wine, keep the art for yourself!
@Taramonster, my ex-boyfriend’s parents kept his sister’s room exactly like she left it when she moved to L.A., and there were about 1,000 animals and dolls in there. I slept in there a couple times and it was creepy. And then! We went to L.A. and his sister was off somewhere for a few months so we stayed at her apartment. She had about 500 more animals in there, AND the place was super dirty, and she had a whole linen closet full of douche. There, I said it.
His dad also had literally 10,000 VHS tapes, all catalogued, and the rest of the basement was all Rubbermaid bins of like happy meal toys.
I’m going to trust that the husband is a talented artist (although who knows I could be wrong – but I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt).
But I can’t think of any artist that I would want 20 plus pieces of art from. I’m not entirely sure if I even have 20 pieces, total, of artwork in my house. Maybe, but if its more its not much more.
@Kate That is extremely creepy! And also gross! A. Douches are bad for you and B. An entire closet of douches is REALLY bad for you.
My HS ex’s mother collected Snow globes and the house was packed to the gills with them. She would redecorate about 6x a year for holidays and seasons and swap them all out. The house was wall-to-wall mauve carpet and the walls were covered in mounted cabinets that contained all sorts of collectibles (swords, tiny metal figurines, porcelain animals, etc). And her bed? Covered in stuffed animals. I always wondered how his dad could deal with getting in and out of that Toys R’Us heap on a daily basis. There was a serious Professor Umbridge vibe in that house. Super creepy.
