Is this the new CF normal?

Totally with you. My three children have all married in the last ten years and did "proper" wedding present lists with things from £5 on. All the other weddings we have been to seem to ask for money and I hate it. Nephew just had a 25th birthday party and sent out invitations with bank account details asking for donations for his travelling fund!
Babies - just buy clothing; babies need it. My children have been grateful for everything they received. We bought ours prams/car seats (they selected) but they were grateful for clothing and toys from other people.

Yes!

Even if they have no genuine gratitude, affection or empathy for the gift givers, don’t these people who fail to thank them, or who send a lazy, generic thank you realise how cheap and tacky they seem?

Or perhaps once they’ve got the dosh, they don’t care?

Nice.

Crikey, that's just awful. I feel sad and sorry @Thehappygardener

I agree OP it’s cheesy and in poor taste.

Nobody found it easy to buy in previous generations either unless they were wealthy. Has nobody heard of inflation. 30k may sound like nothing now but noone I knew had that kind of money lying around in the 70’s/80’s plus not many places you could buy anything for 30k in the 80’s.

Brilliant 🙌🤣

Under these circumstances, I would just send a baby congratulations card.
It sounds as though the parents will get plenty anyway.
It might even make them think.

I am very careful, whenever I knit or crochet something for someone's new baby or child that I use washable yarn - it is madness to give a new parent something that needs handwashing/delicates wash, as soon as the baby inevitably throws up on it!

On a philosophical note, this thread has set me thinking. The more we have, the less grateful we become, it seems. Being older and having a long experience of these things, I think we are in danger of becoming horribly entitled.

I remember being told bossily on another thread that you shouldn’t feel grateful - we are entitled to things, and being grateful is demeaning and suggests we don’t deserve them. OK.

When my children were young and we were caught up in the nightmare that is birthday parties, I found that it was almost impossible to “treat” children nowadays. Whatever trouble and expense the hosts had gone to, you’d hear spoilt cries of “Oh that’s BORING! I’ve done that x times before”. I remember the sheer excitement of my childhood when a cinema visit, an entertainer(wow) or just going to someone’s hour for games and tea was amazing…there’d be jelly and ice cream!

Any present someone buys for you is a privilege and deserves gratitude and personal thanks. Giving is a 2-way street and not just a matter of getting someone to pay for your wants - and not even caring who.

But my friends keep these values even today, so I guess it depends what company you keep. Anyone with zero manners and entitlement the size of a country would not get invited again!

I crochet cardis for my Dgc and they are worn

You might be a few decades out! There may be some baby boomers on this thread. I’m the same age as OP and I come from the time when people thanked people and houses were unreachably expensive!!

No it's total bollocks and ignorant.

I imagine you have been quoted so often because people are putting you right - having lived through it.

Is the "Registar" sorry Register the same as the old wedding list that was the custom when I married?
I would also say that a personally written thankyou card was the norm, regardless of the size of cheque or present given.
I hasten to add that I am as old as the hills; however, good manners and expectations have hopefully not changed, but sadly, it would appear that they have in some instances.

The pp who described people’s gifts which were not specifically as requested as ‘tat’ comes over to me as extremely spoiled, entitled, grabby and materialistic.

They see things in a completely transactional way. “Just shut up, buy the stuff you’ve been told to buy and don’t expect anyone to waste their valuable time thanking you!’

I’m quite bowled over by their sensitivity and charm, their subtle, nuanced understanding of personal relationships and their warmth and courtesy.🤣

Have posted on this thread already, but looking at some more replies, I think people have forgotten the meaning of the word “tat”.

“Tat” to me means something low value, low quality, of very little worth.

It doesn’t mean anything you wouldn’t have chosen youself, or weren’t going to buy anyway. It doesn’t cover thoughtfully chosen keepsakes for a baby - christening presents were traditionally something that the baby might come back to and find more value in age 18. They weren’t considered useless if not of immediate use and value to the parents of said child - eg cash given to them, baby clothes etc

Much as I’ve said up thread that people do have to think about whether their gift is something a person would want to receive, or whether it’s instead just something that’s enjoyable to buy (avoiding the latter), I do think dismissing traditional gifts as “tat” - such as the pp’s thoughtful chosen and engraved silver cup - is very rude and ignorant.

Haha 🤣 found one of the 5% minority who voted YABU!

Wow 😮 what a rude and entitled response!
Long gone are the days of buying a house for peanuts, and what makes this poster think that OP or most people in their 40s and 50s have been given everything on a plate!
oh woe is me, I’m so hard done by! 🙄🙄🙄

I'm 42, so same generation as you and I am a late mother, had mine at 38, he is 3.5. We did get money as a gift, clothes and toys, but I never asked anyone to bring or gift anything, everything was given by their own choice and I am so grateful for everything and everyone who thought of my little one, to bring something. It's absolutely outrages how some newlyweds and new parents are these days.

Its not a case of someone fawning over you. A little thank you would suffice. To me it is about respect.

I was given lots of knitted matinee jackets and bonnets when I had dc and to be honest they were used to dress dolls and teddies as a full time working mum I didn't have the time to do a special woollens wash on top of the other loads.

I did appreciate the knitted blankets which are still used many years later

Added thought: I was trying to think when the last time I saw a baby in knitted clothes was and I can't remember. Older children in jumpers, hats and scarves but not toddlers and babies.

People (adults and kids) don’t seem to thank people for things anymore.
After Christmas and birthdays, I used to have to sit down and write thank you letters to everyone who got me a gift. It was definitely done more in the 80s and early 90s.

I agree. We did without cars and foreign holidays. Eating out was a real treat. We had second hand furniture for years and did our own decorating. Far fewer clothes.
This generation want all of these things NOW and expect to buy a house. People discard perfectly good stuff 'because we have changed our colour scheme' It's a throwaway society. There are very different expectations these days.

I've said this before - I'm lucky in that I was able to buy my own home in a cheaper area and to pay for it over 27 years. I bought this place in 1986.

The living room, stairs, upper hallway and bedrooms still have the original floor coverings - the one in the living room is a delightful swirly orange 1970s carpet and my furniture is largely second hand.

I'm not dong a Yorkshire men parody sketch, but I was struck by your comment about shoes. When I was a child, I had one pair of shoes which lasted until I outgrew them and needed the next pair. I did get boots for the winter.

Also one pair of plimsoles for gym. I do have more these days... (Easy B wider fitting for orthotics, I'm afraid.)

I recall taking Mum's funeral shoes to be re-heeled one time and the cobbler quipping that they'd gone out with the ark. Mum wasn't best pleased when I told her that.