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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think if I give someone a £100

46 replies

GollyMissMolly · 14/10/2010 18:22

gift voucher then the decent thing to do is thank me?

A family I have known for a very long time, one of their daughters have had a baby and as I tend not to buy birthday or Christmas presents I get them something large or a large voucher. I do it with everyone although I don't know that many people so I hardly ever do it.

So four weeks later I was hoping for at least a thank you text. AIBU?

OP posts:

DiscoSquishedBrains · 14/10/2010 18:27

Not at all, how bloody rude of them, if someone gave me £100 I'd be gibbering and blubbering my thanks :(

Danthe4th · 14/10/2010 18:29

Took me ages to say a thank you to people after having my babies, most people told me not to send a thank you note as I had better things to do.
But a £100 voucher, wow, they may be slightly embarassed by your generousity.
They may want to spend it and tell you what they have bought.
Are you local, perhaps they are waiting for a visit, why not ask their mum if you could visit.
Perhaps mum was told to say thank you to you. Any number of reasons, perhaps she feels dreadful and not getting any sleep.
I'm not sure if uabu.

Original poster

GollyMissMolly · 14/10/2010 18:29

You have just made me laugh so much reading your username! Fabulous!

Now back to my woe.....

OP posts:

lisad123isgoingcrazy · 14/10/2010 18:29

OMG thats terrible, wish you were my friend. I think maybe they might have forgotten with new baby, but still very rude. even a quick thanks text would be better. Unless she is like my friend who handmake thank you cards which we all got 2 months later

Imisssleeping · 14/10/2010 18:31

How will she know it's a £100 though if she hasn't got round to spending?

MrsLucasNorth · 14/10/2010 18:33

If you don't normally give them birthday or Christmas gifts they may be little flummoxed tbh. Although they could always drop you a note - there's not much excuse and if I were in your shoes i'd be pretty pissed off too. Yanbu.

Original poster

GollyMissMolly · 14/10/2010 18:34

Dan, we live 500 miles apart and the baby is 5 months old now. Her grandmother came to visit and I was waiting until she came down to find out what she needed before buying her something. It's a shame how one person can make you feel like not doing it again. I didn't give for a thanks but I did expect a teeny weeny one!

I put the receipt in with voucher incase she lost the voucher and had proof with her receipt.

OP posts:

Original poster

GollyMissMolly · 14/10/2010 18:35

I do tell people when I give them a baby pressie that I don't buy at other times so I give them a big pressie. I specifically told her gran to tell her that in case they thought it weird.

OP posts:

DanceOnTheDarkSide · 14/10/2010 18:35

YABU if you did it for the thanks rather than the joy of giving

But It's polite to thank people for a gift regardless of how much it cost.

Could it be that she has piled everything up and not got round to opening it?

IneedacleanerIamalazyslattern · 14/10/2010 18:36

Yanbu but it did take me ages to get out thank you notes after ds2 was born. Also on the flip side i can also see the AIBU thread saying i got a text message as a thank you for my generous gift. It is so easy for time to fly past with a newborn without even realising it so they possibly feel a text is not thanks enough and are just getting to grips with a new baby.

DeadPoncy · 14/10/2010 18:38

Sorry, I have to say you might not be being reasonable. Do, please keep in mind that I may be projecting, but may I just put an alternative point of view?

I wouldn't give some random daughter of a family £100! It drives me mad with embarassment when my mother's friends do this sort of thing.

Worse, in the early days of DS's life, I was WOKEN one day for a DHL package, with a present I hadn't asked for, meaning yet another thank you letter I had to write. When I shut the door on the delivery man, I just cried with frustration at having been woken up and at having more obligation. I felt I couldn't keep up with what I had to do, let alone huge, unasked for obligations like this. I did write the thank-you letter, but only did it once I was sure I would write it nicely!

It might have been kinder to give less, and to give her a bit more time than 4 weeks to send her thank-you.

I am sorry to champion ungratefulness, as you clearly didn't think you were doing anything wrong, and - before you get a bit upset - there was no reason you should have thought it!

Original poster

GollyMissMolly · 14/10/2010 18:42

Ok, I have known this family since I was born. I used to babysit this girl and her mother used to babysit me. Her gran spent a week with me on holiday.

I gave the gift when she was 5 months old and she sleeps through the night now. She lives with two other adults and a teenage brother in the house so she has plenty of help and at the very least I thought maybe her mum might have reminded her to send a thank you.

OP posts:

DeadPoncy · 14/10/2010 18:56

Ah, I posted before seeing the baby was 5 months. I had thought 4 weeks was a tight deadline in the early days.

I probably would have written it now, if I were her, but would still have been embarrassed by the size of the gift.

Tippychoocks · 14/10/2010 19:06

I have never received a thank-you card and I send them for my birthday presents, DD's gifts and similar. Never, not one .

Original poster

GollyMissMolly · 14/10/2010 19:11

NEVER!!!

OP posts:

LouMacca · 14/10/2010 19:33

YANBU.

My neice didn't send a thank you card or even a text to my parents (her grandparents) when they gave her a £2500 cheque for her 18th. I think its disgusting. I had a word with my neice about it and she said 'I don't do cards!'

echt · 14/10/2010 19:36

at LouMacca's ingrate of a niece.

Original poster

GollyMissMolly · 14/10/2010 19:46

So it's clearly the spoilt Me, Me, Me generation who are used to getting everything without doing anything in return. I feel slightly better now and may be a meany from now on.

LouMacca, I'm not being rude but aren't you shocked at your brother or sister for not insisting she thanked them?

OP posts:

pippop1 · 14/10/2010 19:47

Just to confirm, did you hand over the voucher (not sure about the 500 miles apart thing) or post it?

If it was posted it might have been "lost" and they haven't received it.

If this is the case you might have to bite the bullet and phone them to check whether or not it was received. This happened to me (someone phoned to check) and indeed we had not received the voucher.

LouMacca · 14/10/2010 19:57

Golly - absolutely! They obviously have no manners either

onceamai · 14/10/2010 20:04

YANBU. New babies or not and how ever big or small the gift a thank you note is in order. Certainly not a text and for 100 I would say a very nice letter in your best writing with a fountain pen. I stopped sending one lot of god children xmas gifts after five years of never receiving a thank you for them. It's bad manners - end of. Please don't send them anything again.

mamatomany · 14/10/2010 20:10

Well we got given feck all when our children were born, by anyone. I would have loved to have been woken by DHL delivering anything.
We got more cards from the mums at school than we did our family :(
Oh to have the obligation of having to sign a thank you card.

Original poster

GollyMissMolly · 14/10/2010 21:06

I handed it to the Gran and I have asked my mum to check if it's been handed over but she won't.

OP posts:

LouMacca · 14/10/2010 22:10

Oooh hope Gran hasn't gone on a spending spree or its still in her pocket!

zipzap · 15/10/2010 00:10

I never really got round to sending out thank you cards for ds1 or ds2 - meant to but first time round dh was very ill and then I was ill and just never caught up with myself.

Second time round I was very ill and ds2 was quite ill, he also wasn't a sleeper and for the first couple of months tended to sleep for an hour then feed for an hour which apart from leaving very little time for doing anything else, left me severely sleep deprived and incapable of actually being able to do much else. He then got better - and only woke up 4 times a night but it was for almost 2 years - and it's taken me several months to get back to feeling vaguely awake enough to do much else than sort the kids out and collapse again.

I really did mean to do the thank you cards - but real life and sleep deprivation really threw a spanner in the works and then it got to the point where it was too embarrasing and late to send them out.

On a related note - some of the people that complained to my mum that they hadn't been thanked are people that I would give a present to at christmas but are older than me - by a generation or two. At christmas I would always thank them for their present with a note, it was incredibly rare that they would ever send a thank you note back for their gift. Which seems to be a big double standard - particularly as after christmas it is not like they were having major medical problems and struggling with new baby and sleep deprivation and toddler but yet expect a thank you back!

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