My background is one of being careful with money and valuing skills, health, education, the environment -fairly lefty all round. My son is married to someone who sees how things look as very important.
We've bought some duplo for our two-year-old granddaughter because she has few toys that are encouraging her fine motor skills and she enjoys playing with what she already has. We have been asked also to buy some wellies for her and the ones requested are Hunter, which will also need the coordinating socks. Not much change from £40 if we are lucky. I have never been interested in brands for their own sake and think this is completely ridiculous - the child doesn't care what she wears. I don't think she has ever been fitted for properly supportive shoes and wears what her mum and other grandmother think are pretty -often they buy them without fitting.
As an unfortunate contrast, our daughter, of necessity, lives very frugally.
I know I must work it out for myself, but has anyone else been caught in this quandary? I must resolve it without upsetting a person who has joined our family but whose values and what she cares about are so different to mine.