Giving a present to someone is usually quite a personal thing. After all, whatever you're gifting is often picked with a specific person in mind and is not intended to be passed on to anyone else.
But, as one Redditor shared, sometimes, even the idea of giving a birthday gift doesn't go according to plan. This person had tickets for a concert to a band that their daughter liked, and since they couldn't go, they decided to gift them to the girl's best friend. However, they soon learned that the girl wouldn't be going to see the band either, as her mom decided on a better use for the tickets. Scroll down to read the full story!
More info: Reddit
Giving a gift to a specific person can be really disappointing if we learn that they won't get to enjoy it at all
Image credits: Ivan Samkov (not the actual photo)
A person's daughter had a best friend from a multi-child family who would spend a lot of time with them since her own home was very chaotic
Image credits: Raychan (not the actual photo)
The person had two tickets to a concert, but since neither they nor their daughter could attend, they chose to give them to the girl's best friend as a birthday gift
Image credits: Alex Green (not the actual photo)
The next day, the person learned that the girl's mom decided to take her brother to the concert instead of her, as he had never been to one before
Image credits: safarijane22
The person got really upset since neither the mom nor the son liked the band, so they took back the gift and agreed to give the girl something else
The OP has a 13-year-old daughter who has a best friend of nearly the same age. For the sake of this story, the poster's child is called Jenny, and her friend is Morgan.
While Jenny is the only child in the family, Morgan has four siblings, so she spends a lot of time with her best friend and her family. The author would occasionally enter radio/online competitions and win tickets to various local events, which they would then take the girls to.
Recently, the OP won a pair of tickets to a concert for a band that Jenny and Morgan liked. They planned to take their daughter to it, but an unexpected work trip changed their plans.
Since Jenny would often accompany her parent on such trips, she suggested that they give the tickets to Morgan as her birthday was approaching so she could go with her mother or another friend.
However, the next time the girl visited after receiving said gift, she was sad. The author asked her what she was upset about, and the girl explained that her mother decided to take her brother to the concert instead, just because he had never been to one while all his other siblings already had.
The OP called to double-check with Morgan's mom, who confirmed what the girl said, adding that the boy barely knew anything about the band. Hearing that, they told the mother that they didn't feel right giving this gift anymore, so they would be taking it back and giving it to another girl while giving Morgan something else.
While Morgan's mother was really upset about this, saying that the person shouldn't teach her how to parent, the commenters stood with the OP. They all agreed that it made no sense for her or her son to go to a concert that neither of them liked and that stealing a birthday gift from her daughter made it all a lot worse.
Image credits: Wendy Wei (not the actual photo)
When it comes to gifts, situations like these can really ruin all the happiness that comes with them. However, if everything goes well, there's actually quite a bit of interesting science behind it.
As Molly Ledwith of Teak & Twine wrote, giving gifts to others actually improves one's own happiness. During this process and the anticipation leading up to it, the giver's brain releases serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin, making us feel good.
Moreover, gifts are great for improving relationships, as they're often a way to express one's appreciation of the other person. In addition to that, they also help us strengthen our ties with others by creating positive memories that are linked to those gifts.
Of course, not all gifts are equal, and the price has little to do with that. According to Kate Murphy of the New York Times, when it comes to this delicate process, context is everything. In other words, the most important part of giving a gift is being able to show that you listened, observed, and empathized with the person, letting them understand that you really know and care for them.
Thus, diamond earrings can fall flat completely if the person gifting them misses that the recipient doesn't have their ears pierced. On the other hand, something as simple as instant ramen could become a massively successful gift when it is a particularly rare flavor that the receiver really wanted to try but never got a chance to do so.
So, in the end, you don't need to spend a lot of money to show someone that you care, and you can feel better about yourself in the process, too. However, what is wrong is taking a gift from someone else who actually wanted it and giving it to another person who doesn't really care for it. So, for now, let's just hope that Morgan's mother will learn this lesson.
What did you think about this story? How would you have acted in the OP's place? Tell us all about it in the comments below!
The commenters agreed with the poster's decision, saying that approaching the situation how the girl's mother did was wrong in every way
