to ignore the 'sticker club' letter

[Moominlandmidwinter]

DD3 is five. Today, she came home from school with a white envelope in her book bag, addressed to MoominDD, class 1X. Inside was a letter stating the following:-

*Dear MooninDD

Welcome to the Sticker Club! Please send one packet of stickers to the person marked in spot (1) listed below. Move my name to the first spot and put your name in the second spot. Then send this letter to six of your friends,

If you can't do this within 6 days, please let my mum know as it would be unfair to the children who have participated so far. Within 2 weeks you should receive 36 packets of stickers! Its lots of fun and exciting to see where your stickers come from and it's always nice to get letters in the post!

Good luck and thank you for participating in the sticker club!

Your friend x

P.S. To the parents: Please take a little time for this cute project. It is worth it to see the smile on your child's face when they open their mail. To make it easier, we have included a blank letter for you to photocopy. Make 12 copies of the enclosed letter before you write on it, then mail it to 6 of your child's friends. Make sure to include one blank one with each letter for them to send on to their friends. Have fun!*

I hate, hate, hate chain mail, texts and e-mails etc! I don't want DD to have 36 packets of stickers, as she has a tendency to want to use them all at once and sticks them all over the house. I'm a bit about the school aiding and abetting in this by putting the letters in the book bags. Plus, my printer is out of ink and buying a new cartridge to print the bloody letters is an expense I can do without. DD isn't bothered.

WIBU to just bin the letter? Or do I need to hunt down the mother (who, last year, didn't bother to tell us if her DS was coming to DDs party, so we had to pay nearly £10 for him just in case). Or am I being a miserable old trout, who should participate in this blackmailing scheme?

I did a similar thing as a kid, and was devastated when all my promised postcards from around the world or whatever it was didn't arrive. I wish my parents had advised me to ignore it!

Golden.

Bin. There is no way she'd receive 36 packets of stickers.

Just bin it - they will never know you did. I think I once worked out that doing this quickly uses up the entire population of the world!!

Aw, thanks sparkling . Am over it now! It does mean I never take part in things like this (though would quite like a Herman cake!)

zipzap, thanks for the good party advice! I've learned the hard way. Luckily, the other parents had the decency to reply, half an hour in we were still wondering if he might turn up late. This year, we're just having a little tea-party at home for siblings, cousins etc, as she wants an expensive present, and I'm skint being on mat leave!

Golden, that is sad. Children get so excited about these things.

sparkling, at the newsletter! I'll be the most hated parent on the playground. Stuff them and their silly cliques .

You sure Golden. I could send you a postcard?

Bin and sprag to teachers!

I still vividly remember my mum binning a chain letter and assuring me all our pets weren't going to drop dead or whatever the hell it threatened.

I've felt confident ever since to delete those "send to x people or your leg will drop off and you are happy cancer exists"bbollocks that repeatedly get sent out.

Although I always send the "I wuv you and may this cross eyed puppy bring you joy" types to my friend because she hates them

bin it, still remember the chain mail phase of the late 80's awful.

I've binned two such letters. DD1 isn't quite 4 yet but it's even going round nursery class. YANBU!

My 22month old DD was sent one WTF??? It was ignored YANBU

YANBU - bin. Though for an older child it could be an interesting educational exercise to work out how many letters it would take before the whole world ran out of people to participate

wheresmrmonkey- 22 months!!!!

Think we should all send golden a postcard, to make up for lost time. Am not sure that yeast mixture for a German friendship cake would travel so well! Have to say though that I did bake a friendship cake from the starter that someone at work gave me. The cake was delicious, but I forgot to cultivate another starter, so accidentally broke the chain .

Christ, what an overreaction. Yes, some chain letters are vile. This one seems harmless FFA

Herman is a bit of a dirty word on MN. People hate them apparently.

I got a book about writing letters when I was a kid and it had a warning about chain letters in it, explaining how they worked and that they could be fun but that sometimes they say horrible things too and just told you to put them in the bin and tell an adult if this happened. I showed it to my mum because I thought it sounded great (the fun ones, anyway) and she laughed and said that her SIL sent her one once where you had to send people a pair of knickers (New ones, I hope!)

at bertie.

at the knickers! That's reminded me Bertie - I remember reading agony aunt pages in comics like Bunty and they would always say that if you got a chain letter and it scared you, you could send it to the agony aunt and they would bin it for you. Thought that was a great way to deal with it.

Chain letter for three year olds!!

I work with young children. I'd politely tell a parent to fuck the fuck off if I was asked to send this out in school bags.

Ancient article but explanation of pants chain letter here.

I had one once as a child with postcards. I sent off my postcards. Never got one from anyone else!! Bin it.

Oh my god. I did the knickers one and thank fuck got nothing in response.

I feel that I should reassuringly add that the letter did specify that the pants had to be brand new with tags. Nowt dodgy.

Somewhere out there some Bernie Madoff of lingerie is sitting in a house full of 90s thongs.

We had the Herman cake last summer. DD was about as interested in seeing it develop as this and i kept forgetting to stir the bogger so we binned it.

no way. And not at 60p a stamp, either.

Well, quite. Stamps are pretty expensive now.