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| ▲ | marky1991 18 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| I have no idea why someone would get mad about getting a vacuum cleaner as a gift. It's boring, sure, but if you keep complaining about your old one, it seems pretty thoughtful. |
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| ▲ | afavour 18 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Everyone’s situation is different. But typically the reason this offends is because for a stay at home mom a vacuum is a work tool. If the current vacuum is broken then you should just get a new one. It shouldn’t take the place of a Christmas present, which is the opportunity to get her something related to her personal interests rather than her job. | | |
| ▲ | tetromino_ 18 hours ago | parent [-] | | Interesting point of view. But it's common for a man to get a work tool as present (e.g. a drill or a set of wrenches), with the obvious implication that the man will usually be the one who will have to use that tool to fix things around the house - and I have never seen anyone find that offensive. So what makes the vacuum cleaner different? | | |
| ▲ | nithril 17 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | For anyone that like to do DIY, that's not a work tool, that's a play tool that is coincidentally a work tool to do work. | | |
| ▲ | Der_Einzige 16 hours ago | parent [-] | | Same thing back at you. The vacuum is a play tool to anyone who finds cleaning to be “fun”. There’s whole genres of cleanup games on steam which are extremely popular, profitable, and well reviewed. One of my favorite vectrex games is a Pac-Man clone where you play as a vacuum. | | |
| ▲ | Macha 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | Powerwash simulator is occasionally fun. There's shiny rewards, I don't have to deal with potential bad weather, and there's no random patches that take 20 times to get rid of. If I don't feel like powerwashing simulator, it will wait for me, forever, with no ill consequences or social judgement. If I never wash my actual driveway, the same is not true. Therefore I will need to wash it at times when it's unpleasant or I don't want to, and it will take longer than powerwashing a driveway in Powerwash simulator. |
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| ▲ | afavour 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | In this scenario (again, everyone’s situation is different) DIY is more often a hobby for the husband. Repairs are infrequent enough that you could just hire someone as needed, but the husband chooses to do it. Perhaps more importantly, it’s not his full time job. | |
| ▲ | 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | vidarh 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The implication is that it implies vacuuming is that persons responsibility to the point of giving them "their" tools instead of it being a shared purchase for the house. Not everyone will care, but this is a stereotypical type of present likely to trigger anger and resentment in the recipient for a reason. |
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| ▲ | ChrisMarshallNY 20 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Reminds me of this old commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkkW6dwG2KY |
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| ▲ | tetromino_ 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Without context, the reaction is bizarre. There must be some back story that you omitted; maybe something about the mother previously asking other people in the family to vacuum, and being ignored? My wife and I, by the way, are giving each other a joint New Year gift of a fancy robot vacuum cleaner: it's the best sort of gift, useful, elegant, and something that one would be reluctant to spend the money on otherwise. |
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| ▲ | vidarh 18 hours ago | parent [-] | | A joint gift is very different, and a joint gift of a household appliance that reduces the work doubly so. The reaction is a result of the gift implying that the work is the responsibility of the individual recipient. It's not a universal reaction, but common enough that it is a frequent trope in movies and TV. |
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| ▲ | dfxm12 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Your mother is a unique person. Only she can explain her actions, if she wants to. Chatgpt or any other person won't be able to. Your mother may be neurodivergent in ways that make it impossible for someone else else to answer for her, or ways that make it hard to answer for herself. You are worthy of being loved even if people close to you aren't able to express it to you. |
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| ▲ | catlikesshrimp 20 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| To be honest, that can happen to any kid depending on the background I grew up at a time when a home appliance was an acceptable gift for the woman in charge. I heard women complaining progressively more through time, and now it is not an acceptable gift. |
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| ▲ | aleph_minus_one 20 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > I grew up at a time when a home appliance was an acceptable gift for the woman in charge. This is also how I grew up (my parents were a little bit more on the conservative side). This together with the fact that I am not deeply knowledgable in the US-American common practices also made it hard for me to understand why the mother was angry about this gift, in particular considering that she did complain about the old one. | | |
| ▲ | fcatalan 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | I bought a expensive fancy pan for my wife's birthday a few years ago. We both cook, clean and do groceries and chores equally so it never occurred to me that it was inappropriate. We both like cooking. I'm more of a stewpot guy while she's better in general at "pan stuff" and had been complaining about the old pan. She chided me a bit for spending so much on a pan and there was that. But when I mentioned it over coffee at work most of my female colleagues were aghast. I defended myself saying something like "It's the 21st century, we are way past the point that I can't gift a pan to my wife" and they said "Well that might be at YOUR home!", and I learned a thing. |
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| ▲ | ryandv 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] |
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| ▲ | zoklet-enjoyer 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| I would like a vacuum as gift. The one I currently have isn't very good. Not sure what her problem was. |
