To not give birthday money to children who don't say thankyou

[Owlsoutsidethewindow]

I might BU with this as it says more about the parents, but...

When I was a child, I was taught to say thank you to everyone who gave me a gift or money for my birthday. This included picking up the phone and saying thanks to people who sent money in cards. I'm in my early 30s so this wasn't that long ago, really. When I was too young to do it off my own back, my parents helped and reminded me. Some of my relatives would, and did, stop sending money to children who never said thankyou. Maybe that's why I get annoyed if I don't get a simple thanks.

We've given birthday money to 4 children in the family in the last 2 months and haven't had a thank you from one. This is basic manners and it irritates me.
WIBU to not do it in the future? Money doesn't grow on trees and saying thank you isn't hard (even copying and pasting a generic text takes 1 minute). We are in a cost of living crisis and there's better things I could have done with the £80 total - not a lot to some but two tanks of fuel for me.
Happy to accept AIBU because parents should be raising children to say thank you ultimately.
I am possibly more annoyed by it because the parents themselves are very expectant and entitled when it comes to this sort of thing (people spending their money on them).

YANBU.

Exactly this.

Important things are prioritised - good manners included.

So many excuses for bad manners.

I agree. A text from the recipient or the parent on their behalf is a reasonable expectation. No acknowledgement at all is very poor manners.

It's basic good manners to say thank you for a gift.

I have stopped sending anything at all to certain relatives. First, their wedding - they asked for money and we gave it. Not a word of thanks.(To make matters even worse, the bride boasted that they hadn't spent any of their own money on the wedding. It was paid for by her parents and gifts of money from friends and family).

Then their first born. I gave them two sets of baby clothes, a pram blanket and two toys and again, no thanks or even acknowledgement.

So I refuse to give them either cards or presents now.

Performance gifting is pathetic though. IDK why people get so arsy about it, needing a thank-you for a gift from someone, unless they only gave to receive fawning and a feeling that someone is indebted to them. Not really a gifting mindset to my mind.
BiscuitsandPuffin, I just couldn't disagree more.

Giving gifts is usually a pleasure because you genuinely want to please the recipient, and much thought and expense might have gone into it. But it is partially dependent on some kind of acknowledgment by the recipient of that pleasure. I'ts not 'performative giving'.

Aside from this, gratitude is something we probably all need to be taught by good parents or other adults in our lives while we're young. It's an attractive feature to be humble about expecting others to give you things and to become gradually aware of how much trouble they've gone to - even just to think of you.

I was always taught by my family that ANY present is special - however seemingly small, and even if ill-judged (boxes of embroidered hankies from kind old ladies when I was young!). Someone took the time to think of you and to spend their money on you, often to wrap up and post or deliver the gift. Why, oh why wouldn't you say thank you??????

Personally I detest ungrateful people. Of course we cut children a bit of slack but their parents need to parent. There are SO many ways of thanking someone now - I had to write letters - that there's no excuse.

For very little ones, I suggest asking them to draw a picture and write 'thank you' or their name, or the name of the giver, on it.

Yes, I comes down to horrible entitled parent not teaching manners and the appropriate attitude to gift giving.

Don't withdraw the love, just the cash/present. There is no excuse, it's basic manners.

Glad to see that nearly 80% of pps agree with you, OP.

Isn't it funny that so many people - who I hear about on MN, not in my real life - seem to be absolutely brilliant at writing wish-lists of presents they would like form relatives - going to the trouble of specifying exactly what model, colour, make etc, yet somehow can't be arsed to text a 'thank you'?

Massive, massive eye-roll from me. They wouldn't get another present, ever!

I disagree with you as the children are not responsible for their behaviour around thanking you. I have always written thank you notes with dd but was never made to write them myself. It takes ages to write and sort them. With many parents both working full time, there aren’t enough hours in the day so I cut people slack.

I was raised like this too. If they’re too young, the parents should say thank you. If they’re older they should be taught to do it themselves. It’s is just plain rude.

even easier to say thank you nowadays over text! You don’t even have to speak over the phone which may be daunting if you’re more of a shy child

I have one particular (entitled CF) 24yo nephew who never says thank you when given gifts in person for birthday/Christmas, he also never gives presents or cards- even to his own mum (single parent). He also never responds to texts. A quick "yes I got it thanks" would take him 5 secs.

So I recently sent him a cheque with the wrong year on it by mistake. He rang me up to crossly complain that he couldn't cash it and why couldnt I just do a bank transfer!
I told him exactly why I wouldnt be doing that🤣
His brother has much better manners!

The literal point of a present is that its an expression of love.

If you see it as anything else you don't understand it and are doing it for entirely the wrong reasons.

And saying thank you is a form of love - works both ways

I spent years doing thank yous - from when they were very little we'd make a card, then I'd get them to write their own thank yous.

Nowadays I want them to do that themselves - even if it's just sending a text message. I tell them if they don't say thank you people won't send them presents - but they still do get them anyway. I do tend to say thank you instead on their behalf, though, just so the sender knows it arrived.

Don't punish the children for the parents' bad behaviour. I never said thank you as a child - my parents were abusive, I was too busy trying not to get hit and finding enough food to eat. I didn't have stamps, an envelope, the address or phone number of the people who sent me gifts. But I do remember my grandparents telling me off for not sending thank you cards while completely failing to see or not wanting to see the situation I was in. I'm not saying the children you're sending money to are living through something like this but just as a general rule - take it up with the parents, not the children.

I hate not receiving a thank you. I would tell the parents tbh because it's really their fault and they probably won't put two and two together if you just stop gifts.

Forcing love from a child or withdrawing it as punishment for not receiving you desired level/type of love is completely abusive is also not acceptable.

I'm starting to see why so many men grow up thinking if they love bomb women those women owe them.

Maybe an old fashioned think you letter through the post?

Even with social anxiety, you could write the message for him to send and read a response if he doesn’t want to. And I say this as someone who copes with social anxiety by doing the least scary thing a lot of times until it’s not as scary and building up from there - sending a text is often that least scary thing.

But aside from that, I don’t understand people who just want copy and pasted thank you notes or generic ones. It doesn’t mean there’s any real gratitude. I do not know who in my life has and hasn’t thanked me for gifts, and I generally thank those I get through the post more as a mechanism of letting them know it’s been received, rather than demonstrating any true gratitude (even where I am genuinely thankful).

Expecting a thank you is abusive - I've heard it all now

It's probably not the same but I recently bought a gift for a friend's daughter (1). It was more than I would normally pay (£30 in total) as they give me 24hr notice of the party. Haven't had a thank you from the family either and it grates me too.

The reason I asked my kids to write thank you notes is because it's good manners – and having manners is a good thing in life.

That is really not an excuse for good manners. I give two strikes then don’t bother anymore.

As I have said in similar threads recently, I got fed up with the lack of acknowledgement of presents by close family, so have stopped. If they can't be arsed to even text, I can't be bothered to choose, buy and send anything.

YANBU

In Christmas Day growing up I used to ring everyone who had given me a present or money. My DS is 8 and always says thank you or I send a message in his behalf. To not is so rude.

If a child has ASD/anxiety and is unable to say or message thank you then their parent needs to do it.

And the PO who said expecting a thank you was 'performance gifting' - FFS. If someone has spent time and/or money as a gift of course a thank you is expected.