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AIBU?

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Original poster

To expect a thank you card from 4 year old?

321 replies

tinyshinyanddon · 12/02/2014 03:48

Went to the birthday party. Brought gift. Then a few days later the mother send out an email to all guests:
"I've decided not to make Lucy write thank you cards thus year. She loves all her gifts, each and every one."
There is more blurb at the start and end about thank you for coming/didn't we have a great time/blah blah blah.
Is it just me or is this rude? Clearly Lucy would not be writing the cards anyway (just signing them) so basically mommy can't be arsed. May be its normal?

OP posts:
Nanny0gg · 13/02/2014 23:18

Thank yous and thank you cards are all about the giver. If the act of giving doesn't make you happy, but a thank you card does, I think you need to re-evaluate why you send gifts in the first place.

Not at all. Otherwise we would never expect Thank-Yous for anything.

I was brought up to think, and still do, that they are a courtesy. And I believe that it is the small courtesies that make life a lot smoother and more pleasant.

Catsize · 14/02/2014 00:14

Well said nanny. I expect someone to say thank you if I hold open a door for them, or give way whilst driving (even if it is their right of way). I think some on here would say that makes me a self-absorbed unreasonable person. Confused

DupontetDupond · 14/02/2014 00:25

The important thing is to say thank you.

If you thank guests for presents at the party - job done, no need for card too.

Our kids would only send a card to people not thanked in person e.g. Aunts, cousins, friends who couldn't come but gave a present.

Yab a bit precious and u

SomewhereBeyondTheSea · 14/02/2014 01:03

My parents made me write thank you cards because it was both a valuable way of developing your own connection to older members of the wider family, and also because it taught us basic courtesy and manners.
I still send thank you cards to people whose gifts I haven't received in person, and I do like to recieve the same from those I give presents to. If someone would say thank you in person, then why on earth would they not say thank you if not receiving the present face to face?

Monty27 · 14/02/2014 01:07

Oh fgs you were thanked, what do you want? A bow?

chemenger · 14/02/2014 07:34

Some people are losing sight of what this debate is about. It isn't about whether or not there should be thanks for a gift, it's about whether some forms of gratitude are acceptable - only a hand written note for some people, or whether any form of thanks - verbal, text, semaphore, smoke signal is fine. I think if people refuse to accept the form of thanks that is offered it does say more about them than about the person saying thank you. It says the gift came with tacit conditions, which I think is rude.

treaclesoda · 14/02/2014 07:45

chemenger you have explained my own thoughts perfectly and much better than I could have explained them myself!

In short, I personally find almost any sort of thank you to be acceptable (although I might raise an eyebrow if it were received in text speak Wink )

TamerB · 14/02/2014 07:49

I wrote thank you letters as a child, I made mine write them but to people who were not there when the present was opened. At parties it was much simpler to open and say thank you.
That method they wrote proper letters with news in addition to a thank you. They were personal. We didn't have a computer template where we just changed a name and the present - done by the mother. A waste of paper!

TamerB · 14/02/2014 07:50

Had anyone had a remotely interesting and personal letter from a child's birthday party?

Seff · 14/02/2014 08:09

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that you can still be thankful even if you don't say or write the actual words "thank you".

If I hold a door open for somebody, and they smile, I know they are thankful, even if they don't say it. Why would anybody NOT be thankful for someone holding a door open? "I wish that bitch would have let the door slam on my face." I don't need a pat on the back, or for someone to tell me how I'm a good girl for doing it. That's not why I did it.

There are drivers who will expect pedestrians to say thanks if they stop at a zebra crossing. Thanks for what, not running me over?

There was a similar thread the other week, where the OP thought the person on the check out at the supermarket was rude because they hadn't said please when telling her how much the shopping would cost.

Manners and rudeness don't begin and end with the words please and thank you.

Back to the matter in hand, I still don't think that a thank you card that a 4 year old has been "made" to write is truly sent with gratitude. I'd rather have no thanks than a forced thanks.

Once again, nice to receive them, but not the end of the world if I don't. I probably wouldn't even notice.

fluffandnonsense · 14/02/2014 08:17

I do hope you write a thank you card for your thank you card, it would be rude not to!

chemenger · 14/02/2014 09:57

If you strongly believe the you know there is only one "proper" way for something to be done then you need to look around you. This is the 21st century, we live in a multi-cultural country; there is no one correct way to do anything. When I was a child I lived in a village which was as close to culturally homogeneous as it was possible to be. Literally everyone had the same religion, ethnicity, went to the same school and Sunday school, most had parents who had done the same. Then everyone did know exactly what to expect of each other. That world does not exist any more and expecting everyone to live by your rules does say more about you than them. When I was a child I would have been told off for not saying good morning to everyone I met in the street, where I live now they would think I was very strange. Cultural norms are fluid, times change. If thank you letters are important to you write them, but don't get your knickers in a twist if others don't, you don't get to make rules for their life.

Megrim · 14/02/2014 10:43

My favourite thank you note was from DH's godson:

"Dear DGF, thank you for the Amazon voucher, I am planning on spending on X. I will need to take a rain check on the beer, as I am only 8 yrs old and I think that's still a bit too young. Love DGS."

NewtRipley · 14/02/2014 16:43

Nanny/Catsize

No thankyou at all would be rude. The OP got a thankyou.

Catsize · 14/02/2014 18:51

Newt, my post was more in relation to other posts, but yes. I suppose she got a thank you like I get personal emails most days from Amazon/eBay/Groupon etc. And then there are those companies who thank me and three million others for my custom etc. A round-robin after a party doesn't cut the mustard with me I am afraid. As I said upthread, the manner of the 'thanks' is worse than none at all.

Seff · 14/02/2014 18:57

What does cut the mustard? What do you class as an acceptable thanks?

flippinada · 14/02/2014 19:25

Personally, I turn my nose up at anything less than a thank you note written on fairy paper using angel tears which has placed on a velvet cushion and been borne through the streets in a made of gold and silver by a score of liveried footmen.

Anything else is just not good enough I'm afraid.

Oh, and the footmen better bow so low I can see their nose touching the floor. Otherwise words will be had (but not by email or phone, naturally, as that is for a lower class of person than myself).

chemenger · 14/02/2014 19:34

flipinada I am just the same, I once got a thank you engraved on a solid slab of gold but I just could not accept it because they had used times roman AND the full stop was not a diamond. And they sent the same thing to everyone so I cannot believe it was really sincere. I sent my footman to spit in her face.

After all I had spent £8 on a gift for the party girl, and all we got in return was a couple of hours of entertainment, a meal and a party bag.

Catsize · 14/02/2014 19:59

Seff, I guess anything above a round-robin email/text. Love the semaphore idea upthread! Smile
I will continue to write cards/letters and my children will do the same.
I confess I am tardy with thank yous, but they play on my mind and get done eventually.

Catsize · 14/02/2014 20:01

And I have kept thank you letters from my nieces and nephew to show them in years to come. After my gran died, we found all our thank you letters in a box, and it was lovely to think that she had treasured them and as adults, they were lovely to read.

flippinada · 14/02/2014 20:03

It's the only way they'll learn chemenger.

LadyBeagleEyes · 14/02/2014 20:08

Who sends thank you cards any more, especially a children's party.
I presume she said thank you at the event, and then the Mum in an e mail.
You want three thank yous?

FitzgeraldProtagonist · 14/02/2014 20:12

HAVE WE NOT GOT ENOUGH TO DO???!!!! Aggggrah Angry

YABU

ShakesBootyFlabWobbles · 14/02/2014 20:56

YABU

Thank you cards/notes = Straight. In. The. Bin.

Must be a regional thing, entire childhood in North West, never wrote or received a thank you card yet managed to be grateful for my presents. Live in Home Counties now where you are a social pariah if they are not issued within two working days. Watched the joy being sucked out of a present opening whilst mum and her mate bossed a five year old who just wanted to look at what she'd been given, but no, it was all about organising 'the thank you list' FFS Hmm Thank goodness my kids have summer hols birthdays, parties are always at the end of term and everyone's forgotten by September Grin but then again, reading some of these posts, perhaps not Confused

Catsize · 15/02/2014 04:45

Sorry shakes, I grew up in the NW and sent them. And have come back to live there. I still send and receive.