My 30-year-old daughter has extremely high expectations for her birthday. No one in the family has ever given her a gift that she liked, so now we actually have to get the gift approved by her husband first!
She doesn’t like gift cards, and our budget is small. Although she barely acknowledges anyone else’s birthday, she still expects the “perfect” present for her own. We love her and want to celebrate with her, but the expectations and confrontations make her birthdays miserable for everyone — including her. How do we stop this?
— BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION
Dear Birthday,
… You stop it by not celebrating with her? Maybe?
JK, you clearly love her but now it’s at the point where it’s just inducing stress and misery.
You know, she’s acting like Dudley Dursley on his birthday. He wasn’t pleased that there weren’t more presents than the previous year which causes Vernon to say that they’ll get one at the zoo to make up for it. Needless to say, their bending to his whim and coddling of him didn’t turn Dudley into a proper human being.
Don’t be the Dursley’s.
Don’t give in to her demands of getting the “perfect present.” The very fact that you are getting her anything should be celebrated. Maybe the time has come to celebrate the day with a nice dinner out at a restaurant of her choosing and that would be it. That’s a wrap on the presents.
John Kidde Writes 