Not to want to make my kids write physical thank you letters if they've texted/emailed/said thank you in person?

[Isthisrudeornot]

DD is 16 and DS is 9, almost 10. DH's family insist on thank you letters for every present. So much that they will ring up DH a week or so after said birthday/christmas to check if DD/DS liked the present as they haven't had a thank you letter. As in, a thinly veiled disguise for 'where is my letter'

I hasten to add that DD has a phone and will text people the minute she opens presents to say thank you. DS doesn't but I send texts/emails on his behalf. They both think that if they have said thank you another way (text, phone call or email), they shouldn't need to write a physical thank you letter. I do actually agree with them, but DH thinks a thank you letter is required for all presents, even if the person was there when you opened it and you said thank you at the time!

So the minute they've opened their birthday or christmas presents, DH harps on at them to write thank yous, when they go 'ive already thanked so and so!' he tells them they're being rude and ungrateful and he'll tell so and so not to get them anything next year.
The other problem is DH's idea of a 'proper' thank you letter is at least 1 side of a4 fully covered, all well and good but if they have 10 of them to write that's a lot of work! DH has been brought up like this though, and insists he had to do it, so his kids will too. I think it's over the top. As long as everyone is thanked, I don't see the drama. AIBU?

YANBU- As long as you thank everyone in one way or another it's fine

YABU- - Everyone should write thank you letters no matter if they've already said thank you another way

I sent letters to my grandma and her friends, everyone else gets a text and photo or call if not thanked personally.

I hate clutter and have hoarders in the family. I don't treasure letters or cards, they get recycled. I always feel guilty if kids have written or drawn but i refuse to hoard and so recycle after they've seen i have it.

eddiemairswife But they can, which was my point. Not everyone will keep letters but you did. Also, during the war I imagine most people kept things because no ones life was guaranteed and people were separated more so than now. It’s easier and quicker to keep in contact these days.

And yanbu. DHs family sound controlling and indulged. An a4 page, wtf? I'd prefer no gifts.

Get a pack of small thank you cards or have them send an email with a couple of photos.

I hated being forced to write long letters to people i saw regularly. Only my auntie and grandma i enjoyed writing too. I rarely saw them and it wasn't a task but fun. Everyone else i switched to calling with relief.

Mine send them. Not to everyone but certainly to older family members. They always have since they were little, and still do at 18 and 20. I buy packets of quite small notecards, and provide the stamps.

I think it’s good manners.

I'm a bit torn on this. We were raised to write thank you letters so that's what we've done with our children and our families expect it. Our friends don't expect it and nor do they reciprocate. In fact some of our friends don't say thank you at all (the latter really annoys me).

What we have taken to doing is doing a standard photo and the child does some standard wording that they write onto the main letter. We then create the relevant number of photocopies and they then write something personal but brief onto the end of each letter. It means they're not spending hours doing it but it still shows they care.

I hate this job so I don't judge anyone who doesn't send them but at the same time I feel that sending thank you letters is the polite thing to do so we send them. I'm not onside with a4 sized letters in great detail though.

When I went to uni in the UK I discovered this was a thing. I've never experienced this before. We wrote thank you notes only to super special events like weddings and even those are not personalized.

I'm.not British but I find thank you text more than enough if the gift gives hasn't been there in person. Anything above that would go straight to trash.

Myself and my children thank the person in person, I would rather this than a bloody long letter every time something was bought.

I believe a thank you in person, phone call, text, email, is just as good as a letter, and I never made my DC writa additional thank you letters or notes if they had already said thank another way.

And do those demanding a thank you ever reciprocate? Or do the thank yous only go one way?

OP, does your DH still write A4 thank you letters? If not, why not, given he is expecting his DC to do them.

The 16 year old can make up her own mind, surely.

Email is fine, and greener.

So I ageee OP. it’s completely OTT.

is this a class thing, it seems very middle-class and rather old=fashioned to me.
I was a child in the 60s and no one ever told me to do this; I only heard of it much later when I was grown up, I think reading about how humble princess Diana was in making the boys write thank-you letters, so I assumed it was something that rich people did.
I guess some grannies seem to like/ expect this, so it's nice to indulge them, but I agree it can become controlling, like another way of disapproving of the daughter-in-law not being good enough.
this is only my subjective view, but the middle-classes seem to go in for a lot of passive aggression. this kind of thing, with hidden expectations, disapprovals etc.
I find on the whole working -class people and people of all classes from other countries, much more warm, welcoming, genuinely friendly and generous; more accepting and straightforward.
perhaps this could be a discussion for another time...
I noticed someone above, not from uk, said they'd never heard of this written thank=yous.
so many purported gifts come with requirements.
I heard once that the innuit, used to be called eskimoes, have a tradition in leaving gifts secretly, and if the recipient happens to see them, then they have failed in giving a gift, because unless it is anonymous, the recipient will feel an obligation to reciprocate.
it makes sense. not sure if I've explained it properly. think we can learn a lot from other cultures.

There are 70 people who think you're unreasonable. There are 70 arseholes on this thread. Although there are 17.4 million documented arseholes in the country so I suppose 70 is less than expected.

Letters are lovely. But hey! The world has changed! I send thank you texts on behalf of my children. And I think it’s perfectly fine. Maybe prep the present givers that thank yous will only be delivered in person or text / email

My dh was like this only my ds and dd had to hand make thank you cards using our craft box.

Dd was only 3 at the time and it was expected after every gift, they took ages with everything known to man stuck on the outside of the card they were really heavy once finished and must of cost my dh a fortune posting them.

I remember once he posted them without putting enough postage on them and everyone had to go to the sorting office to collect them and pay the excess, funny enough it was the last time we made thank you cards its now a simple thank you by phone.

I have never wrote a thank you letter. Neither has dh or ds. If we are given a gift we thank them in person. Nobody in both sets of families have either written or received a thank you letter.

If I give a gift I don't expect a thank you letter and it wouldn't bother me if I didn't receive one.

For context I'm a stickler for saying thank you, but even I think it's completely acceptable to call, text or email. It's the gesture of appreciation that counts, not whether it's written in blood on vellum

I do think it's important that the 10 year old should do his own though

I always find the idea that you would send a card to someone thanking them when they gave the gift in person really odd! Like texting someone sat next to you on the sofa.

Anyway, giving thanks is a must, but the message is what's important, not the medium.

Like texting someone sat next to you on the sofa.

Exactly. I am a member of a very etiquette minded culture (southern US), but even here, it has never been expected that you write a thank-you note to someone whom you have thanked in person.

How big a letter does your husband send when he receives gifts off his family?

Exactly! Why is it only children are expected to do this? It’s bonkers. An acknowledgement of receipt is fine. I admit I stopped sending Oz dollars to my nephews when I never received an acknowledgement from them or parents, but I don’t want a letter of bowing, scraping, debasing themselves to thank me for some minor gift!

@Holly147 When the gentleman died we were in our teens, and we found out that he had kept every one of the thank you letters we had written next to his chair, and used to read and re-read them.

This. It’s a small gesture which can mean a lot to some people. DH writes to his 96 year old aunt several times a year. He hates writing, but he feels it is worth it because she loves it.

I paint and illustrate in my spare time, and recently took to just posting little hand drawn cards to far flung friends and relatives - they (or at least they tell me they are) have all been delightfully received. These are people I WhatsApp on a regular basis.

In a world of quick communication, sometimes having to put in little a bit of effort to communicate can mean a lot more. It’s lovely to come home from a busy day to see a handwritten envelope on the door mat.

yanbu
if that's so important to dh he should write the letters.

maybe get a stack of 'thank you' cardlettes with cartoon character from the birthday party section

This is a very English MC thing . I had to do this and my mother wants this too
We also text but sometimes send a card to make her happy 😃

Do the adults have to write A4 letters of thanks too after birthday etc?

While any kind of thank you is better than nothing, the decision on format should be based on what the gift-giver would like to receive, rather than on what the recipient thinks is best.

Exactly as, when you buy someone a present, you choose what you believe they would like to receive, not what it is most convenient for you to give them.

Many people set a lot of store by a letter or card - something they can keep and that is personalised by being handwritten.

My mother was exactly like your DH - the immediate nagging, the insistence on a long, immaculate letter etc. She'd make me rewrite if there was a spelling mistake or my handwriting wasn't neat enough - and I struggled with spelling until well into my teens. Each letter had to be individually tailored to the recipient so I couldn't copy out duplicates.

As a child it put me off the whole present exchanging ritual. I honestly dreaded receiving presents. This was especially the case as a lot of the presents were things which would just gather dust or be passed on/ regifted - handkerchiefs and big frilly knickers featured excessively, as did hard sweets in tins of the kind people eat to ward off travel sickness...

I hate gift exchanges to this day and have radically pruned our gift exchanging circle with mutual agreements with people not to exchange gifts.

I've never made my children write a thank you letter and never will. Of course it's important to thank, but anyone nagging or making snide comments to prompt a thank you letter is giving for the wrong reasons and is an unpleasant, self centered person - people who force their children to write these excessively perfect letters usually care more about how their children reflect upon them than anything else.

I hate receiving thank you letters, they make me sad as I imagine the joy being sucked out of the gift I sent intending to make the child receiving it happy. However my teen DD has recently started sending thank you notes of her own volition... Obviously I'm not actually going to stop her... All my children enjoy giving presents and use their own pocket money to buy presents particularly for one another, again I've never once suggested they should and neither has DH.

Like apologies, forced formalised thanks have no meaning at all and under some circumstances can become almost punitive - my mother managed to achieve this and so has your DH.