Thread spin-off: 12 year old niece.. Christmas gifts

[ogreenlee]

I have one niece, she actually is my DH's niece. She's 12 and a bit of handful. She looks no younger than 16 and gets a lot of boy attention. Her father (my BIL) and mother divorced 3-4 years ago. She lives in a not-so-great apartment with her mother and stays with her father some, too, who doesn't live that far away. Mom isn't ideal, and neither is Dad. Mom has very little money, and Dad is a cheapskate. He does buy her necessities, though, and always pays his support. Her grandmother (my MIL) indulges her with the expensive toys that her mother would never be able to afford. She buys her clothes, too, but nothing that she wants to wear unless it's an Aeropostale tshirt. So she's spoiled, but lives very poorly.

I'm also "the cool aunt". I spend a good bit of money on her every Christmas. Last year I loaded her up with several outfits from Abercrombie and American Eagle (I am sick of all of these stores, but especially Aeropostale). I got her a handbag, a digital camera and some other stuff.

Twice this year she has made mention to my MIL that our family is rich. The odd thing is that she has built up this resentment to us in the last year or two, as well. She already does a lot of eye-rolling and typical 12 year old behavior, but hers is worse. My MIL thinks her comments come from her mother. I am a SAHM and we aren't hurting for money. We're lucky, and my husband has been working for the same company for a long time and worked his way to it. We are far from "rich", but I guess to a 12 year old who has only lived in a very small ranch house, then trailer, and now a cheap apartment... we do look rich. My husband drives a BMW, but it's an older model. To people who don't have money that live in small towns.. these things appear to make folks look rich.

Do I just ignore it? Do I not make her feel worse by spoiling her at Christmas? Do I just do what I normally do? I don't want to appear flashy like we're trying to out-do her mom, but really... she wouldn't get much of anything if left to her mom.

I don't know what to do.

[mousebymarriage]

I would do things just like you normally do. 12 year old girls can be very materialistic and also very jealous. I am not saying that all 12 year olds are but, I have a 13 year old DD and I see that behavior in many of her friends (and yes, her too sometimes).
Someday she will understand and appreciate that you were just trying to make the holidays special for her.

[ogreenlee]

Thanks..


She's been to Disney once with my MIL and FIL. She was there a week and stayed at the Grand Floridian. She's scared of her own shadow and my FIL could hardly get her to ride anything. She was 9 years old then, I believe. When I say "anything", I mean... she was too scared to go on POTC, and they had to promise her that a Pooh ride wouldn't be scary.

It's why I would NEVER offer to bring her along on one of our trips. Even when we go to Myrtle Beach each year, she won't go down waterslides and wants to play in the toddler area. She's really strange about how she looks 16, is boy-crazy, acts very eye-rolly with tween angst, but reverts to toddlerisms in many aspects of her life. But.. her mom and dad suck. It all goes back to them. Still, it drives me nuts to go places with her. She sulks and is just miserable.

My little girl told her we were going to Disney, and she looked at my DD and said.. "I hate Mickey Mouse."