to be annoyed with MIL telling me to send 'thank you' cards...

[CuddlyNemesis]

DD is nearly 2 and whenever anyone from MIL's side of the family gives her a small gift/money as a present, in spite of me thanking them in person for it at the time, she tells me later I must send them a 'thank you' card as well.

I'm 40 FFS! It wouldn't be so bad if she gently suggested it (although I think a verbal 'thank you' for a small gift should be enough?) but she tells me to send one like I'm a child, which is what is really pissing me off!

I know it'll happen again in the next couple of weeks... Obviously, 'thank you' cards were sent to everyone who gave us something before and after DD was born, but this is getting silly! I'm not being ungrateful - I do thank everyone at the time!

GRRRRR!

And in my experience only the aspirational middle classes describe others as such,everyone else is just getting on with their lives. I send cards to those I haven't seen as it is polite (in all books) to thank someone when they spend time or money on me. Just a quick notecard and my duty is done. But then I hate the phone,so maybe that's why I'd rather write. Those who ate do anti them,how do you day thank you or do you not bother?

If anyone felt the need to remind me to do it,especially on behalf of DH I'd be tempted not to bother just to piss them off.

YANBU to be peed of her with her for reminding you about them - on the other hand I bought my god-daughter thank you cards for her birthday this year.

In ten years I have never had any kind of thank you for any present I have bought her.

It was a kick up the arse to her parents as well - even a telephone call to say thanks would have been appreciated.

I must admit they did look shocked becuase she unwrapped them in front of her Mum and Dad and me. I told them straight why she was given them.

Luckily they are still talking to me but I felt like a bitch that day. It did work though.

It's funny, I don't care about receiving them but I do like to send them. Not William Morris or Nat Trust though.

If I don't see the person, I'll email, text or occasionally send a card, otherwise I just say Thank You. It annoys me that folk think my children should send cards, when they or I have already said thank you in person. Usually the ones who insist on them, had o send them as a child and are now getting their REVENGE

Suncottage - I stopped buying gifts for two of my cousins a while ago. I rarely see them but always sent them gifts or vouchers at Chrostmas and birthday. But I never got any form of acknowledgement, no letter, card, phone call, email, text or anything. If it wasn't for the fact that my grandparents mentioned it a couple of times after I asked her about them that I even knew they had arrived. But officially I hadn't a clue if they'd even got them, so I stopped sending.

I'd only send them to more distant people if you see what I mean...

My dad's family, grannies, parents' friends etc. Not to my parents, our friends etc. A text/email will do them!

This is what I love about MN,a good old bunfight about the weighty etiquette dilemma that is thank you cards!

hah at LeQ on here. My mil loves a good card.... Cards on cards on cards

We are quite firmly a no-card family.

haha

And yes LeQueen,bingo cards at the ready. (Though I should be feeling ruffled I guess as I do commit the additional sin of sending my elderly relatives cards!)

Additional sin?? Bloody phone. Cardinal sin. How did that become additional, eh eh?

Surely there is not one soul in the entire world who can't find one tiny iota of time to send a thank you text?

I'm not asking for a long letter in copperplate handwriting, but if I bother to get someone a gift, wrap it up, schlep to the post office... then just a small acknowledgement would be appreciated. I stopped bothering with dh's nieces when yet again no thanks was received. Fair enough if I'd sent three embroidered hankies, but last time I sent £25 which I think was worth moving one's fingers onto one's mobile for a quick text of thanks.

To think that a children's mother would say "we're too busy to bother with thank you notes" is, to my mind, setting an appalling example. My dcs write thank you letters. Nothing to do with being aspirational and everything to do with being a decent human being.

Yep, in duck egg blue. Monogrammed and everything.

exhaustednurse I hear you!

we recently had our pfb, and my mother has nagged and nagged and nagged about sending a Xmas card with photos to her distant cousins, especially one who has 'always been so interested in you and your career and life, dear'.

Um, no she bloody hasn't. That is all in my mother's head. I last saw said cousin when I was 16 (a very long time ago) and she sold us a horse she had drugged up on sedatives that ultimately turned out to be extremely dangerous. She does not give a flying fuck about me, or mine.

God no gramecry, I totally agree that thanks should be given.

But via text or email. NOT a pink card with Thank You Grandma in swirly writing.

Disappointingly few at the moment LeQ,new motherhood has robbed me of all bar the most domestic of pleasures for now.

And yes, she is only 4 months old but she WILL write thank you cards for her gifts dammit! I shall not raise a heathen.

I am with you on this OP. I will send thankyous in my own time where necessary but my mother is obsessed with sending thankyou cards.

She made me write some out the day after I had given birth (still bleeding, sleep deprived and zoned out) to friends of hers I had never met as they had given us some baby gros or something.

I am all for being polite but her obsession with it drives me mad. She too bought the cards herself and even addressed them for me - god forbid I might have done it myself, in my own time and way!

And she is the kind of person to send a thankyou card for the thankyou card. She even sent a card to the bloody car mechanic ffs.

I send them rarely, just an email or phone call if the gift arrived in the post but if hand delivered then I think a 'thank you' on the spot is just fine. I'd be very surprised to get one myself if there had already been a verbal thank you. I think a phone call or email are far preferable to a note that will go straight into the bin.

ExH makes the DCs sit down and write notes to the ILs as soon as gifts are unwrapped, and he posts them as soon as the Post Office opens. There's a lot of competition in his family to see who can suck up best to his mother. Some of the BILs and SILs play the game and some are very passive aggressive about it. Stuff like not sending a thank you note is discussed at the dinner table.

I drew the line at b-day cards for exH's family, choosing presents, etc. I did mine and exH did his. They talked about me anyway -- if exMIL liked what she got, exH got the effusive thank you and if she didn't I got the dirty looks . Come to think of it, I never once saw a thank you note from exMIL, even one addressed to exH.

While we were together it fell to me to make sure the notes to exILs were sent and I usually managed to put them in the post within the month. Still the case for the odd gift that I think requires a written note -- to people the DCs have never really spoken to in far off places, or people whose email addresses I don't have.

It's not that much time out of your day really, to acknowledge a gift, although I cringe a bit about making the DCs do it because of the sense I have that surely everyone who receives a thank you note from a child knows that the child was probably coerced into doing it.

I would be very po'd to be 'reminded' by anyone about thank you's though -- how ironic to be rude about politeness.