Presents for Adult Working Grandchildren

Before my wife died, it was always a present. Since she has gone, I have chickened out, and now, they each get an M & S voucher, at a level that I can afford. Seems to fit the bill, especially for my7 grand daughters.

I would never penalise the people I give gifts to for not saying 'Thank you'. To me it is about the giving and I know that gifts are appreciated without having to be thanked for them. I accept that there are many pressures on people that mean an intended phone-call / card of thanks can get missed and I don't want anyone wracked with guilt on my behalf.

I raised my children to be thankful and to acknowledge gifts and they do tend to, but as someone who grew up aware of the damage that 'conditional' love can do, I take a relaxed view. I have made a point of telling wedding couples /new parents especially NOT to worry about a thank you - they have enough going on!

To answer the OP directly, in our family we give presents up to age of 21. I make a bigger deal of 21 than 18. After that it is a card.

I have 5 grandchildren ranging in ages from 25 to 18 months, my husband and choose a suitable gift for the younger ones and a gift or money for the eldest. They all have the same amount spent on them. They all say thank you for their gifts.

I am an early retired teacher on an actuarially reduced pension which is very small. My husband keeps us with his job and, though we live in a nice house and seem well off we just keep our heads above water.

My DS has fed the myth to her children, my DNs, over the years that we are well off and they have often remarked, 'you're rich' to us in a very envious fashion.

I have, up to recently, sent them £30 for birthdays and Christmas and £50 for significant numbers like their 18th and 21st birthdays. Being in somewhat straightened circumstances I have dropped the sum to £20. They are not impressed and I receive no thank yous.

It is all a bit sad, really.

Parents, spouse, children & grandchildren will always have birthday & Christmas present or money, but siblings and their children it all stops at 18.

This is such an interested thread and we probably all wonder about this.
Only this Xmas gone did my son & his wife decide to stop exchanging Xmas presents. They have one daughter so he just bought a present from her to me worth around £ 150.00, which is exactly the budget I have for my DGD. LOL He cheated I thought but it was lovely.
I still give both my DS and DIL £ 100 for their birthdays and they give me albeit slightly more generous.

I stopped buying Xmas presents for just about everyone this year too, but still give DGD, god children and cousins' children birthday presents. My DGD gets £ 150 the others the others get £ 30 each. I wish I could stop every one but my DGD, but feel so mean if I do. I always send a card for birthdays and Xmas for every one I know

This is such an interested thread and we probably all wonder about this.
Only this Xmas gone did my son & his wife decide to stop exchanging Xmas presents. They have one daughter so he just bought a present from her to me worth around £ 150.00, which is exactly the budget I have for my DGD. LOL He cheated I thought but it was lovely.
I still give both my DS and DIL £ 100 for their birthdays and they give me albeit slightly more generous.

I stopped buying Xmas presents for just about everyone this year too, but still give DGD, god children and cousins' children birthday presents. My DGD gets £ 150 the others the others get £ 30 each. I wish I could stop every one but my DGD, but feel so mean if I do. I always send a card for birthdays and Xmas for every one I know

Only give card and voucher to the youngest. Older ones are working now so they just get a card

My grandchildren are still at school. But I remember my mum buying for nephews and nieces (and she had a good few as she and my dad came from large families) she would buy for the children up until they were 18 and then she stopped as they were all usually working by that point. Her brothers and sisters all thought it was a great idea and adopted her idea.

I only buy Christmas presents for the GC not the adults , we decided to do this a few years ago and what a relief it has been . I still buy birthday presents for my children and other family but it is usually some thing small and well thought out , for instance I have bought my Aunt a beautiful vintage china cup and saucer from a charity shop (£5) and a silver antique teaspoon to go with it . I had begun to dread Christmas prior to this as I seemed to spend several weeks wracking my brains to think of things to buy . Now I buy all year round when I see something that a particular GC would like , I don`t spend a fortune either !

Seeing as uve missed the 18,21 birthdays, I'd tell everyone that at 25 they will get a card ( maybe a token small gift of toiletries)!

Nieces and nephews get a card with £5 scratch cards or lottery tickets. Their children get a £10 to £20 gift or money. My own 2 children and one grandchild get about £150 each. This all seems to work well amongst the family as we all do roughly the same.

We have stopped sending Birthday & Christmas money & gifts to sons & grandchildren, as we never ever get thanked. Not even an email thank you. It really bugs me, as I always wrote thank you letters as a child . Today's children -appear to take everything for granted I feel. Even recent wedding cheques for a reasonable sum never got acknowledged. Grrrrrr.....

I haven't got grandchildren but I do give to my nieces and nephews until they start earning. Some of my older nephews have their own families now and I used to send presents to them but have stopped recently as we never see the children, so don't know them, nor were we getting any acknowledgement of receipt of said gifts. Also they never sent any cards\gifts to my children (similar age to theirs) so that used to rankle a bit with me. Don't feel guilty either, they are high earners and we certainly are not in that league by any stretch of the imagination.

Daisy what a lovely, kind person you are.

Stopped giving my grandchildren presents years ago.... oFten forgot/ got the date wrong. The solution is to hand out £20 each when I see them

I always send gifts to family for b/days and Christmas. and have done for some time. We have now reached the stage of what to do after ages 18/21 as three of the grandchildren and their partners are in their 20s while the two youngest are very young. The adult grandchildren/partners have very well paid jobs apart from one of them. What is making us re-think our gift giving is never a thank you. One grandson always sends a little message ..not so the others. Receive thank you from our adult children. My sister says thank you on behalf of all her family but that is not the point. I have started sending parcels to them via Tracking service so at least I know they have arrived. I am not a mean person by nature but my attitude to gift giving is changing. As a child we always sent thank you"s for all our gifts and brought our children up to do the same. We just have our pensions but enjoy buying for them all.....now our attitudes to this are in conflict with our previous generosity.

With 8 children and 20 grandchildren plus greatgrands I couldn't afford to be as generous as some. But it is £20 each Christmas and Birthdays until they are 16 and then £50 on their 18th and 21st birthdays. My children only get a card. My brother died last year so I now treat his two grandchildren like mine and put money in their bank accounts for birthdays and Christmas.

I was brought up to believe that a gift isn't yours until you've said thank me you for it. I've taught my ds 1and ds2 the same. They are adults and I still give to them. I would even if they didn't reciprocate. But not if they didn't say thank you.. My nieces,also adults, have never thanked us. They don't get gifts. My sister is not happy about it and has stopped giving to my kids because of it.

Personally, I think it's all about reciprocity, and I don't mean in terms of money spent. In my second marriage I took on the role of buying for hubby's nieces, and as time has gone on, I have done this for their children too. I do this as well as for those on my own side of the family, all of whom have been brought up to say thank you for a gift of any kind. However, all the effort I have put into sourcing appropriate presents isn't always acknowledged. For example, sending gifts to the house so they arrive on the day, knowing for certain that they have done so and then never actually receiving so much as a phone call in thanks. I have decided over the last year not to do this again. Those who have the common courtesy to pick up the phone and spend just five minutes of their time expressing their gratitude will continue to earn an hour of my time as I think about what they might like and do the ordering. Those who are too wrapped up in themselves to bother, can do without. Surely, there's a moral education in all of this. My hubby's cousin who is 76 has hit on the same policy. In our discussions we find it's always the same ones who never acknowledge the gifts so they're ungratefulness has become the deciding factor - not their age, or how much we can afford.

I'm thinking about stopping this year. I have 2 nieces who are 29 and 31. They rarely thank me for the gifts or vouchers I send them and although they have both left home I get a card at Christmas and Birthdays from my sister with their names tagged on, which I think is a little bit mean. The eldest niece is in Australia at the moment for a year and I put myself out to make sure she got a gift and a card there for Christmas and a card for her Birthday, but still didn't get a thank you.

Also can't really afford it now that OH has taken early retirement!

I spend about £30 on children and their spouses, and also on the grandchildren. My siblingsand DHs siblings and partners get £15 presents (and send the same amount often as vouchers) . Stopped sending to nephews and neices when they grew uo and had their own children. I now send around £15 to great nephews and neices but as they are showing no signs of marrying or having children I decided to stop for the oldest when they were 21. Still buy toys etc for little ones and usually vouchers for teenagers (amazon, music or book tokens or as requested eg claires accessories, wh smith, itunes.)
Some of them never acknowlwdge receipt, let alone send thanks! But our own GC do, or their parents do.
Im amazed some send £100- we have close family of over 30 to send to and feel we spend a fortune at Christmas as it is!

Yes, I stopped when my nieces started earning proper money in good careers, in their late twenties. I give the money to their children now.

i stopped giving to nephews and nieces a very long time ago. i used to look for ages to match the present to the child and my children just seemed to get rubbish in return.
i have a maximum of £25 each for christmas for everyone [daughter, son, daughter in law and four grandaughters]. daughter, son and daughter in law get £20 cash for their birthdays but generally grandaughters get a present - although the oldest one at 15 is difficult to buy for so, this year for the first time, she got cash. but it's around £20 even so.
i have never gone overboard on presents for children or grandchildren - my daughter does spend more than i do on her daughters though.

I'm in a quandary about this too. I only have three grandchildren, all adult now and I still give them £20 for their birthdays. I buy presents for my daughters and son. Quandary is this, my daughter who is the mother to the three grandchildren hasn't sent my son a small gift for the last two years, he's younger than her eldest child ( I know, complicated) and I still give something to her three. I know this is petty but I feel slightly miffed by it. My other daughter also stopped and also stopped giving to her nephews/nieces (same three) since they became adults. I'm perfectly happy about that, she's treated them all the same and doesn't have children of her own that I've been spending on.
I'd never mention it to my oldest daughter as we have a loving close relationship but still, it niggles.
My eldest daughter still gives a present to her sister but not her half brother (my son)
Am I being unreasonable in my feelings?