‘Grandma goals’: Woman’s viral clip about not giving her grandkids

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An Ohio grandmother’s controversial decision about gift-giving has sparked a heated debate in response to her now-viral video.

Tammie Kelton ignited a firestorm with her revelation in a TikTok video that she does not buy gifts for her four grandchildren, ages 9, 6, 3, and 8 months. Instead, the 50-year-old explained, she puts aside money for each child as an investment in the future.

“I am very involved with my grandchildren,” Tammie Kelton told Today.com, “I just don’t want to buy them little plastic toys that will get thrown away.”

Her two-minute video on her gift-giving philosophy generated thousands of views and comments online.

“I do not buy my grandkids gifts — they get a ton of gifts from everybody else,” she said in the video.

“I swear, there’s like, 50 gifts on Christmas morning. They do not miss mine. It’s OK … the gift from me will come when they’re an adult and they can pay for college, put a down payment on a house or start their own retirement plan with my initial investment,” Kelton added.

@tammie_time_ I don’t spend money on things that they will throw away. I would rather spend money on experiences and their future.#grandchildren #fypシ゚viral #fypage #fy #fyppppppppppppppppppppppp #fyp #teamworktrend ♬ original sound – tammie_time_

“I just remember when my children were younger, all the Legos (and) all the little Barbie shoes … that just got thrown away and I would just rather give them something that … can last a lifetime or have a life-long effect on them,” the grandmother continued.

Despite the fact that Kelton consistently deposits funds into accounts for each of the grandchildren and values spending time with them rather than adding to a stockpile of meaningless ‘stuff,’ she was excoriated on social media where she was called out as a “Scrooge” and a “troll.”

“So you hate your grandkids. Cool,” one TikTok user commented.

“At age 7, all you see is, ‘Nana didn’t love me enough to buy me a present while everyone else did. Guess my birthday is meaningless to her, thus I am meaningless,” another lamented.

“You show up on Christmas and accept gifts but you refuse to give. Damn, that’s next-level narcissistic,” another user wrote.

But many others applauded Kelton’s plan, with one writing simply, “Grandma goals.”

“As a mom of five who deals with mass amounts of junk gifts from grandparents at Christmas and birthdays, this is a dream!!! What an incredible gift,” one TikTok user commented.

“[W]hat a wonderful gift for their future. I totally agree with your thinking,” another wrote.

“My grandparents did that, they did 500 for every birthday and Xmas. They invested it and I had over 100k when I graduated from highschool. Best gift ever!!” another said.

Kelton responded to the outrage with another video.

“Whether I spend $500 on them for Christmas or put $500 into their … accounts means nothing to them,” she said.

@tammie_time_ Someone called me scrooge #grandchildren #fypシ゚viral #fypage #fy #fyppppppppppppppppppppppp #fyp ♬ original sound – tammie_time_

According to Today.com, Kelton is a nurse practitioner who grew up in poverty. She dropped out of high school when she got pregnant. But at 27, she decided to go to college and earned a master’s degree at 44.

“When I went from living off welfare to getting my masters degree, I thought, ‘I don’t want my grandchildren to experience this,’” she told Today. “At 50, I’m still paying off my student loans … It’s too late to do this for my children … but by golly, I can do it for my grandchildren.”

“I taught my kids from my mistakes,” Kelton said. “My son loves that I can do something for his kids that I couldn’t do for him.”

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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida. Powers also contributes to BizPac Review.