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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be upset about being left off the parents Christmas card DS (aged 9) made at school this year?

174 replies

alixpally · 03/01/2025 08:24

We are not normally fussed about cards of any kind, so am surprised to find myself a bit upset and puzzled by the fact that DS (9) completely left me off his school handmade Christmas card this year - it was addressed only to "Dear Daddy". We are an extremely close family (he's an only child, and we mostly work from home and do lots of activities together all the time), so it feels strange.
When I asked why I wasn't included, he said the teacher had told them it could be addressed to anyone they wanted and that's who he wanted to address it to.
When I pressed for further explanation/discussion of this, DP said I was making to much of a fuss over it, that DS is just 9 and not emotionally mature, and I should just accept his choice and a hastily added 'and mummy' on the card. He did this in front of DS, and I felt pressured to just sweep the issue under the rug, or be branded overly-sensitive or jealous.
Part of me agrees it's not a big deal and DS is emotionally immature, but I am still puzzled as to why it happened, and having reflected on it, it feels like a missed opportunity to help gain some emotional maturity by making him more aware of how his actions and choices affect the feelings of others, and having a discussion about misogyny. Am I being unreasonable?

OP posts:
AngelinaFibres · 03/01/2025 08:56

justanothercuppa · 03/01/2025 08:30

As a teacher who has witnessed hundreds of christmas cards making sessions, children do this all the time. I’d have children every year trying to write their cards to me and I’d keep saying ‘this is for someone lovely at home who looks after you, who could it be for?’ and they’d say they had no idea! I had loads of it being addressed to just Mum or just Dad and I’d have to try and gently push them to write both. Lots of them are also bored to tears of all the Christmas activities by the end of the Christmas period that they only spend about five seconds on their card and don’t pay it much thought at all. Please don’t overthink it, it won’t have been an hour long activity in which children were asked to carefully consider their most loved person and your DS said ‘Daddy’.

This. Plus you've got the children in difficult home situations and the children where a parent has recently died and on and on. Perhaps one of the children on his table was sending his to daddy because mummy isnt there anymore and he thought he'd do that. Who will ever know ?

SALaw · 03/01/2025 08:57

He probably thought he was to think of one person to send it to. Could equally have only been to you. Doesn't mean anything.

Whaleandsnail6 · 03/01/2025 08:57

Yare making a massive deal where there isnt one

And why on earth would this scenario lead to a discussion on misogyny?! Writing a Christmas card to daddy is not misogynistic in any way.

PumpkinPie2016 · 03/01/2025 08:58

Aww, honestly OP, he's only 9 - he probably didn't think very deeply about it at all.

As others said, he may have interpreted the teacher's instruction as writing the card to one person, and at the time, that happened to be daddy.

Or maybe his friend was writing theirs to daddy and he wanted to do the same.

I truly wouldn't read anything in to it.

My son is Y6 and this year, he wrote his to my parents. We weren't upset at all - he was probably thinking about the fact that they were coming to stay at Christmas or that Nana makes chips in the air fryer 😂

Kids do some funny things (to us!) But there is very rarely and malicious intent.

Sux2buthen · 03/01/2025 09:00

I'm a lone parent and my daughter gave hers to the class TA😂 the TA even tried to get her to give it to me instead but she was insistent Grin
I even work in the same school!
We all laughed because it means absolutely nothing

ButFirstCovfefe · 03/01/2025 09:02

I was once given a Mother’s Day card that had been written to my step mum (his grandma), then crossed out and “mummy” written. He then asked if we could share it. I thought it was sweet and a bit funny (tbf he openly says she’s his favourite person so 🤷‍♀️)

Matildatoldsuchdreadfullies · 03/01/2025 09:02

Kids do this all the time. Means nothing. After a few years as an infant teacher, I used to check cards to avoid this. Number of times they'd decided to address it to some random cousin, or even me!

I also made sure the card design could be photocopied/quickly replicated so children could have 2 cards if parents were separated.

Londonrach1 · 03/01/2025 09:05

You over thinking this

Autumn38 · 03/01/2025 09:06

He would have made the card, then his teacher told him to put someone’s name in, and he decided to put his dad’s name.

next time he might have chosen you (or the dog)

Original poster
alixpally · 03/01/2025 09:07

Mumofmarauders · 03/01/2025 08:32

One year the Christmas card design that my youngest came home with (you know when they design them and then you buy Christmas cards with that design on them and the money goes to the pta) featured my youngest, her brother and her dad dancing round the Christmas tree together. I queried where I was and apparently I wasn't in it because I was off making the Christmas dinner - but my husband cooks Christmas dinner every year! Admittedly she was six or seven rather than nine but I just laughed. I was and still am her preferred parent for pretty much everything so that helped not to read too much into it. Honestly OP I would laugh this one off.!

Ha ha, this really made me laugh! Great to hear of everyone's experiences with this sort of thing, that's what Mumsnet is great at.
@TwentyTwentyFive I should have explained, we only found the card yesterday, at the bottom of his school bag - so I haven't been brooding on this for weeks.
@Doingmybest12 Yes, I think you've hit the mark here, I have been feeling a bit underappreciated lately, this time of the year invites brooding about where you are in life, etc.

OP posts:
CountTo10 · 03/01/2025 09:08

Well I wouldn't be having any conversations about misogyny until you've educated itself on what it is because you clearly have no idea!

Tootiredmummyof3 · 03/01/2025 09:09

You sound a bit immature emotionally yourself. It's just a Christmas card. I'm sure your DS has made loads of cards in the past and will make loads in the future.
I've had it a few times with my DDs and it really didn't bother me.
I can't believe you were making it in to such a big deal.

BallerinaRadio · 03/01/2025 09:10

Only on Mumsnet can a child's innocent Christmas card be used as a potential discussion about misogyny with a 9 year old

Baileysatchristmas · 03/01/2025 09:12

Misogyny over this is a bit of a reach.

DowntonNabby · 03/01/2025 09:13

You are massively overthinking this! It's not misogynistic in the slightest for a son to send a card to his dad over his mum. It's just what he wanted to do in the moment! I think you need to unpick why you're so triggered by him not favouring you for a change – because kids do swing back and forth – rather than making your poor boy feel at fault. Do you really want him to think he has to send you cards etc or you'll get upset otherwise? That would not be a healthy dynamic.

DowntonNabby · 03/01/2025 09:16

It was also wrong of your DP to add the "and mummy" on the front of the card. That wasn't what your son wanted and if we're talking teachable moments, you have both just taught him that he has to do what Mummy expects or she gets upset.

Comedycook · 03/01/2025 09:17

Jolietta · 03/01/2025 08:26

Perhaps your son misunderstood that the card has to be doe one person only?

Perhaps you receive more cards addressed to you than your husband so he was evening it up a little?

This was my first thought too

TwentyTwentyFive · 03/01/2025 09:18

I should have explained, we only found the card yesterday, at the bottom of his school bag - so I haven't been brooding on this for weeks.

So you were ok when you thought he hadn't made either of you a card but once you realised he'd made just his dad one you decided that wasn't ok and turned it into a whole thing? I think in some ways that actually makes it worse to be honest.

financialcareerstuff · 03/01/2025 09:19

OP, sorry but this was a misstep on your part. You are basically sending your son the message that who he expresses love to is a forced issue, and not his choice. And that he is being bad in some way for not expressing love to you in a specific moment. This could have been a beautiful, positive moment between him and his dad. Instead, you stole it and taught him that he needs to walk on egg shells around you. You have taught him that his expressions of love should not be authentic. You have taught him it's not ok to express love for one parent, without immediately evening it out for another. You've taught him love is a duty and currency, not a feeling he's allowed. You've taught him that expressing love is hurtful and something to be careful of.

It's not your son's job to feed you with love.

Absolutely, we need to teach our sons about sensitivity and not ignoring or taking women for granted. But one card means nothing. I find it hard to believe he has not been allowed, at some point, to express some kind of love for you/ mummy without having to instantly include his dad in it? Every time he hugs you, do you immediately tell him he has to hug his dad too, or dad's feelings might be hurt. I hope not.

If he consistently ignores you, speaks to you more aggressively or dismissively than his dad, hands you his dinner plate automatically instead of his dad etc then you have a problem to address. But do it strategically and thoughtfully. This? Not the way to go about it.

Peaceandquietandacuppa · 03/01/2025 09:22

My goodness OP.

It’s happened lots of times to us. Our kids have both asked to design a Christmas card to one person of their choice both at school, playgroup, beavers etc. They sometimes choose me, sometimes their dad. Neither of us has ever taken offence! What if they decided to draw one of you a picture? Must it always be labelled to you both?

Maybe you can start a tradition of your DS doing a card for DH and DH doing the same for you; so he gets used to giving you both cards. But that’s totally separate to anything they do at school.

NameChangedOfc · 03/01/2025 09:23

ueberlin2030 · 03/01/2025 08:26

Perhaps in the moment he just felt that he wanted to thank his daddy. It's probably not because he doesn't love you, just at that moment daddy was on his mind.

I agree with this, OP. Yes, it can hurt when that happens (been there, I get it!) but we have to try not to project "adult" intentions/logic/interpretation to what children do. Easier said than done, though!

ETA: Children live in the present (that's the wonder of being a child), and that's what probably happened here. There's a card to write, daddy pops up in his mind (it might as well have been you or his granny or whoever), and he writes it to them.

BusyMum47 · 03/01/2025 09:23

justanothercuppa · 03/01/2025 08:30

As a teacher who has witnessed hundreds of christmas cards making sessions, children do this all the time. I’d have children every year trying to write their cards to me and I’d keep saying ‘this is for someone lovely at home who looks after you, who could it be for?’ and they’d say they had no idea! I had loads of it being addressed to just Mum or just Dad and I’d have to try and gently push them to write both. Lots of them are also bored to tears of all the Christmas activities by the end of the Christmas period that they only spend about five seconds on their card and don’t pay it much thought at all. Please don’t overthink it, it won’t have been an hour long activity in which children were asked to carefully consider their most loved person and your DS said ‘Daddy’.

Fellow teacher here & I wholeheartedly agree! ⬆️

We had kids writing cards to pets, friends, grandparents, etc! Not gonna lie - we were also exhausted & running on empty by that point & didn't really care what they were writing in them!!

Original poster
alixpally · 03/01/2025 09:23

I think it's amazing he made a card for his dad, and said so clearly to both of them at the time - that's not the issue at all. It's just that in all previous years cards have been addressed to both of us, that's why it seemed a bit unusual. But obvs am overthinking it.

OP posts:
RainbowSlimeLab · 03/01/2025 09:24

it feels like a missed opportunity to help gain some emotional maturity…

Have you not gained any from this incident, then? What a shame.

OldChinaJug · 03/01/2025 09:25

alixpally

I agree that it happens every year.

I try to be as all encompassing as I can - write it to the people you live with and give examples of what that might look like.

But every year there will be someone who writes it to their best friend, or misses a parent out, someone who says they only want to write it to the parent who died (understandable but upsetting for the surviving parent), someone who doesn't want to include their parents and only write it to their sibling... I also.check all the cards for this and give an opportunity to make a second one if appropriate but when all the childen had gone home on the last day of term before Christmas last year, i discovered one boy had crossed out his mum's name, written mine in it and left it on my desk!

They're children. They do odd things at times and they haven't yet learnt the social expectations of things like this. Don't overthink it.

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