My husband (36M) and I (32F) have a 4mo baby and we are lucky enough to have extremely supportive grandparents on both sides. My husband’s family is relatively wealthy and very generous.I’ll be the first to admit that I have a lot of maybe annoying principles about shopping: I try not to shop from amazon, I try to avoid fast fashion and try to buy either made in USA or secondhand clothing, and in general if I need something new I really try and buy from the many great independent bookstores, children stores, etc in our city. For our daughter, I spend a lot of time scouring thrift stores and online consignment stores for cute used clothes for her.
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The first world problem: Every time my kid could conceivably need something, my MIL rushes out and buys a ton of that item from amazon or target or walmart. Onesies getting a little tight? MIL is there next week with 10 onesies from amazon, even after I told her I already have a bunch of outfits in the next size on their way. Holiday coming up? 5 onesies with puns about gourds on them from walmart coming our way! I send our moms a picture of us reading her a book we checked out from the library? Giant stack of books from amazon arrives. We live in a small house!!! MIL uses our shared amazon account (and amazon apparently throws away most apparel returns, which from an environmental/ethical standpoint kind of defeats the purpose of returning the clothes), so I feel like I’m stuck with this stuff.
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I end up feeling resentful when the clothes and books and toys I spend tons of time searching for and that align with my values (and aesthetic- I’m annoying! I know!) get buried under a pile of stuff from fucking amazon, and I’m tired of endlessly organizing stuff that I didn’t even want to try and get it to fit in our house or otherwise endlessly listing crap on buy nothing/making trips to goodwill. I don’t bring up my thoughts on amazon/fast fashion/ethical shopping because I don’t want to seem preachy or judgmental, but I’m frustrated that no matter how many times I thank her for her generosity but tell her we really don’t need X, somehow 10 shitty Xs are perpetually arriving at my house and crowding out the shit I spend a lot of time carefully picking out. My husband has talked to her about the fact that we are living with space constraints, that we buy used by choice, that we love the library, and that I am picky and annoying and am trying to reduce our contributions to the giant piles of discarded clothing littering the deserts of the global south, yet the gifts continue. Our closets are full. Our house is full. My kid doesn’t even wear all the clothes she has because she has so many.
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I love my MIL very much and don’t want to alienate her, but we are only 4 months into this and this feels completely unsustainable in every sense of the word. Do I just need to suck it up and stop being a brat? Is there any way to channel my MIL’s generosity and love for my daughter in a direction that generates less frustration for me?
TL;DR: generous MIL buys my daughter (4moF) a lot of gifts that she does not need, that do not fit in our house, and that are from companies I try not to support. Is there any way to make this stop without hurting her feelings?