AITA for telling my MIL she shouldn’t have given my 3-year-old son an expensive violin?
My husband is one of six children and all of them were enrolled in music classes by my MIL from a very young age (all played string instruments, either violin or cello). Four of them are now professional musicians, my husband and one of his sisters being the exception, though they still play as a hobby.
Even before having a child, I told my husband I wasn’t against our kid taking music classes, as long as it was at a time we thought it was right and with none of the pressure that he had to deal with, and also considering whatever other activities that could be more relevant and we could afford. He agreed.
Now our son just turned 3 and my MIL – after dropping some hints that I’ve previously ignored for the sake of keeping peace such as ‘soon he’ll reach the age to start learning music’ and ‘I talked about him to the teacher that taught my kids when they were little’ – gave him a crazy expensive violin as a birthday gift. Not only that, she said to my son something like ‘soon you’ll be playing like your father and your uncles’ etc.
I didn’t say anything in front of anybody (this happened during the birthday party with friends and family), but at some point I found her alone and I was like ‘you should have talked to us before buying that violin’. And she acted like I had offended her personally. I said I didn’t want to create this expectation of getting music classes, and I wasn’t even sure we could afford it right now. And she said she’s more than willing to pay for those classes, like she does for some of her other grandchildren (that was the first I heard about this).
I didn’t want to push this further, but I feel her dream of having like this large family of musicians is now being passed down the new generation. My husband talked to me later, told me his mother talked to him about what I said to her and was taken aback by my reaction. But to me this was not just about the violin as a gift, but her overall meddling in how we raise our child. AITA here?
