I was always under the impression that when you buy someone a gift, you think 100% about them, and try and find something that you know they would want, regardless of whether or not you like it.
My mom has always had a tradition of buying gifts that she likes. She always tries to find something that the other person likes but that she also approves of.
For instance, prior to my 15th birthday, I had made it very clear (not directly) that the things I wanted most around the time were things such as Lord of the Rings DVD's, Magic Cards, Video Games, etc.
Then one day, my mom was looking on amazon and found this book "Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life", and I (being into classical music and all) said "Oh, that book looks cool", and what does she do? You guessed it. That was my birthday present. Just because she didn't want me to have all that other stuff, she buys me the thing I want the least.
Is this common when parents buy gifts for their kids?
For the sake of clarifying buying gifts from adult to adult, from buying gifts from parent to child, i'll give all the options in this poll.
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