Adult children - birthday present questions

[Bambam]

When my kids were little, I tried to have the same number of wrapped presents (because someone would count!) for birthdays and Christmas. As they got older, we shifted away from that but my DH wanted to keep roughly the amount of money per child the same. 

But now both my kids are adults, and we don't see them that often. They are changing and growing in ways that we really aren't as aware of because of the distance, so selecting good gifts is a lot harder than when they lived here. Add in one makes a lot of money and the other barely scrapes by financially (completely happy like that too!).

So, my questions for with adult children:
1. Do you find it harder to select appropriate gifts (by appropriate, I mean things they will like, will be useful, fit their tastes, etc)? How do you compensate for that (ask them for a wish list? ask a friend? Just wing it and hope for the best?)?
2. Do you still spend the same amount of money per child (assuming multiple children) for their birthday and Christmas)? Or do you gift more based on need? 

[saraha]

We have moved to the cards with money stage for our adult kids. They are still young though and need all the money they can get. We spend the same on each child. At Christmas they get a card and I fill their stocking. When they get married, they will have to share the stocking. 

[HomeAgain]

We try to get ds something useful, whether that's for his hobby or necessary items for life.  This year he has actually made a request, so we'll be doing that for him.

I can say we have never counted the cost of each gift to compare. We count the intent.  Like, this year we gave ds14 a new game for his b-day and a box of sugary cereal as a gag gift.  He liked the game, but I got a serious thank you for the cereal.  He doesn't even like it with milk, but he was appreciative of a whole box he could eat as a single serving snack.  Weirdo.

DS25's favorite gift for a while was a large blanket I found on clearance.  Not the expensive computer or phone or anything else.  A darn blanket.  So I just try to remember it's the little things sometimes. Kids, even adult kids, just want to know you are thinking about them and really trying to tune in to them.

 

Every family has their own evolution and it can always be one of those things that changes year by year.

[Kassia]

1.  They like money or they will give me a wish list for birthdays and Christmas.  For Christmas, I try to wing it a little by finding things I  think they will like, but that's very hit or miss.  I also fill their stockings and that's all on me.  Sometimes someone will get a lot of gifts at Christmas because they wanted a lot of smaller items, but the amount spent is close.  We do the same for my ds' long time girlfriends.  

2.  We spend approximately the same amount on each kid.  We don't count it down to the dollar, but it's close enough.  

[Kassia]

1 minute ago, HomeAgain said:

He liked the game, but I got a serious thank you for the cereal.  He doesn't even like it with milk, but he was appreciative of a whole box he could eat as a single serving snack.  Weirdo.

DS25's favorite gift for a while was a large blanket I found on clearance.  Not the expensive computer or phone or anything else.  A darn blanket.  So I just try to remember it's the little things sometimes. Kids, even adult kids, just want to know you are thinking about them and really trying to tune in to them.

 

 

I love it when they are delighted by something like that!  

[Beth S]

There was a WTM thread on this:

We have the same budget for each of our 5 adult children. 
If they're married, we divide the child's budget between the two of them.

We do cash for the married kids' birthdays, gifts for the singles (which is what they prefer).

Everyone has either an Amazon Wish List, or they participate in Elfster.com, an app which handles our Cousins Draw (extended family).
I highly recommend that---it's just not worth the stress (& wasted $$) to GUESS!
Or just make the gift easily returnable.

I've joked (not really) that I'm no longer trying to make Christmas "magical" for them.
We just enjoy sharing the time together.

Another popular option is to do an Experience Gift, but from what I've heard, they are all SUPER expensive alternatives!

Edited February 20 by Beth S

[QueenCat]

For birthdays and holidays, we spend roughly the same. They both have Amazon wish lists that we can refer to if we like. One has a partner. His stocking is similar in expense to our own kids, but less on actual gifts. His parents do about the same for our child. For the one with much greater financial needs, we help throughout the year. He lives with us, so that helps him a lot.

[Annie G]

Our kids know I struggle to shop for awesome gifts and have adapted to us sending checks instead of gifts. They’re thoughtful about it, and we really enjoy hearing how they spent the money.  Our youngest Dd and her husband recently spent their Christmas money during a trip to San Francisco, where they FaceTimed us from Alcatraz.  They’d finished their tour and had time to walk around before the boat left and they shared w us what they saw…how fun to share the enthusiasm in the moment!  So yeah, even though they have good jobs, everyone enjoys a little splurge money.
If a kid wants a particular gift, we’ll buy that instead. I don’t mind buying gifts, I’m just not really good at thinking of things. 
I don’t think any of our kids talks to siblings about how much we financially help them, so we don’t worry about keeping that even. Sometimes a kid needs a hand, ya know? But they don’t talk to each other about it. 

[teachermom2834]

I’m always the one to post on these threads that we’ve been unable to keep everything even and it’s been okay as far as I can tell. We try to keep things even with intent but everyone is just in such different places it just doesn’t make sense for our family. For example, for Christmas one of my adults sons asked for a pair of nice shoes for work. So I thought hey that is a good idea and asked second son if he could use new shoes for his new job. They both picked out exactly what they wanted and there was a price discrepancy- because the one with a better job needed nicer shoes. But they both got exactly what they wanted/needed. Then I took 3rd boy out, also for dress shoes and he found a nice pair but on cheap clearance. So again a different price point but exactly what he needed. So I didn’t write checks to even it up. 
 

We help kids as we go along as needs arise and we are able. Someone moves into a new place we might gift them something. New job, etc. But as far as we know they aren’t comparing receipts. We don’t have a big bucket of cash to go evening things out for everyone all the time so if we did get called out every time we did something for someone chances are it would stop for everyone. 
 

So we do our best with intent and type of gift and not exact values. And sometimes we do just help someone out .

[Bootsie]

Our adult chidren have very different interests, needs, and wants.  One lives nearby and another lives on another continent.  So, our interactions with the two are much different.  One has a birthday very close to Christmas, the other has a summer birthday.  We try to even spending out over the long run, but do not for each specific birthday or Christmas.   For example, it doesn't make sense for us to buy one child a piece of furniture for a birthday present for a new apartment and then spend the exact same on the other child when the second child will probaly want/need a piece of furntiure for a birthday present next year.  

[Ellie]

We try to spend around the same amount of money, but TBH, they don't really care.

Mr. Ellie's older brother was obsessed with keeping things "fair" when they were growing up, and Mr. Ellie's parents really played into that. Even as adults, MIL was careful about gifts; she bought the brother & his wife a clothes dryer, so she bought Mr. Ellie, who was single at the time, a bedroom suite. Same $$$. 🙂 So we really emphasized the fact that we buy/acquire things for family members based on need (and heart's desire), so one dc might get a pair of shoes and the other would get nothing. Although we probably had the same # of presents under the Christmas tree, we never commented on it, and neither did the dc. So I guess there was at least one thing we did well as parents, lol.

[Faith-manor]

We give a cash gift, and have been known to do something like "gift of service". Mark often does our youngest ds's car oil change as part of his birthday present. It saves DS money and time, and he isn't allowed to change his oil in the apartment parking lot. 

[kathyl]

We don't really do gifts much with our (grown) kids anymore.  2 are living here, 3 are on the East coast, and 1 is overseas, so they're spread out all over and we're not even sure when we'll see some of them next.

We do other things like letting them live with us when they need it, help with education costs for anything they want to do there, fix car problems sometimes, sell them our used cars very cheap, etc.  I also order things for them on amazon sometimes.  And sometimes I ask them if they need anything so I can order it.  Lots of stuff like that.

I don't keep track of how much is spent on each one now that they're grown.  When they were little, I did because we were having major problems with relatives playing favorites.  But once they left home and began college we rarely even did presents anyway, so keeping track of things became a thing of the past.

I guess you could say it's mostly by need now.  That works out well for all of us because I was never good at gift-giving anyway once they got out of the childhood years.  It was fun picking out toys and such - not so much fun trying to choose a gift for an adult. 

Edited February 21 by kathyl

[Harriet Vane]

We budget of a set amount of money for each kid for birthdays and Christmas. Our family exchanges lists, so I'm usually buying from that. Sometimes I deviate from the list suggestions.

[Arcadia]

Both my kids get birthday money all along. The difference is that they can get themselves to stores or do online shopping using their own credit cards, whereas we used to have to bring them to the stores for them to buy what they want.
As for needs, we just pay what we could like DS18 gets more money for lunch at community college while DS19 has a meal plan at college and so doesn’t get any lunch money. I think it would be hard and impractical to “balance the books” between children. We spent money on what DS19 needs for his dorm. We would spend a similar amount when it is DS18’s turn but we aren’t going to keep a running tally to make sure it is about the same amount. What is annoying is my in-laws and some relatives who outright favor a child and not because that child is undergoing a rough financial and/or medical patch. 
Sometimes feelings do get a little ruffled when the more successful child gets less help. However, help doesn’t have to be financial. Like my brother needed more cash help while I needed more time help like my parents would accompany my kids at activities when I was sick. 

[Bambam]

I appreciate everyone's reply - it has given me much to think on. The older linked present thread also had good thoughts as well. 

I was hoping for an easy answer, but I guess there really isn't one!