To think that parents should send a quick individual thank you after kids birthday parties?

[comoatoupeira]

Hello
Sorry if this has been done to death, but does anyone else think that the childrens' birthday party and gift giving culture is completely bizarre in the UK?
What I mean is the way that people bring sometimes very large/expensive gifts, or really very thoughtful and nice gifts, like a book that has been chosen especially for the child, and yet nobody seems to expect an acknowledgment beyond 'thanks for all the lovely presents!' on the school WhatsApp group.
I know that everyone is really busy, and I know that this would always fall to the mum not the dad and we don't need any more small admin jobs related to our children, thank you, but it still feels wrong.

What feels wrong? It feels somehow grabby, or as though the effort gone into choosing the gift is just taken for granted (and the money).

I accept it's probably just something people have decided so as not to create too much work for themselves. But it bothers me. What do you think?

This is the kind of message I think would be good to receive: 'Hi! Just to say thanks so much for the gel pens, little Timmy loves them. See you on Monday'. The purpose being simply to acknowledge that a gift has been chosen and bought, nothing more!

OP suggested a message?

They are a scene, in the sense that it's the same rite of passage in other countries but the way they are done here is very particular.

YANBU. I also find it awful that gifts/money are not acknowledged. So grabby.

I used to do this after my kids parties. I would type a generic “dear x thank you for coming to my party. Hope you had fun. Thanks for the y they were z!” (Possibly with a photo of the party) and print them off for my child to fill in the blanks and give to their friends.

I think a general thank you is fine as presumably guests were thanked individually when giving the present to the child having the party.

yes talking about a text message

The irony of someone coming onto a thread about politeness to write this.

This is what we do, too!

For the most part we do get individual thank you messages as well

I just think it's nice/good manners!

DC6 has recently had her birthday party. 25 children came and we opened all of the presents the next day.

Yes I took the time to note down who had bought her what, yes I messaged every parent individually to thank them for coming and for the specific gifts, and yes I made DC handwrite a thank you card to every child thanking for the specific gift.

Texts took me 30 minutes on my commute. DC writing the thank you cards was more painful but it was a good lesson that you can’t just expect to be given nice presents without saying thank you.

I think just a generic thank you on the class WhatsApp is really lazy.

I hosted my 7 year old's birthday party this weekend just gone. Took me literally days to prepare for it. My mum helped me but I did most of the work myself because my exh didn't bother showing up. Sorting/cleaning house, buying and preparing party food, making a cake, making the garden respectable after winter so the kids could play in it, herding the kids around when they got here, making drinks for the parents who stayed. etc etc. don't get me wrong I was happy to do it for my child obviously but I was exhausted by the end. So when all the children had gone home I sat on the sofa and watched my ds open his presents without hovering over him to see which one was which. YABU.

I've always made sure on saying goodbye, that my child stood with me and thanked their friend (when with their parent about to leave) for coming and for their card and present. Upon opening the presents, if I had a number for the parent, I'd often send a text to them directly saying "little Johnny just opened the present from little Sebastian and he absolutely loves the spiderman set, thank you so much" or similar. But sitting writing individual thank you notes, not happening - and the school wouldn't thank me either, it's bad enough sending invites in to be handed out which at 5 years old ends to being the teachers, they wouldn't then want to make sure thank you notes go to the right kids too! And relying on a 5 year old to give them out, and for the 5 year old recipient to take them home and give it to their parent.... bigger likihood of King Charles turning up at the birthday party as a surprise than everyone receiving the thank you note! And what happens when one mum says "oh wasn't that a lovely note off Johnny's mum after the party" and the other mum didn't receive their note because it's sat in their kids drawer, or another kids bag, etc? They then get upset and fallouts happen.

Honestly, a generic message to everyone sounds like the PERFECT solution. We never had that group chat for any of my kids though - would have made life easier!

my dcs also thanked parents when child was collected fate the party. My dcs didn’t grow up in the uk so we didn’t have whole class parties and it was easy to have a quick chat at pick up time.

My dd is only 3 but I did individual texts to say thank you and the 4 parties she has been to I got a text to say thank you afterwards.

Sorry I should have been more clear - I am NOT talking about handwritten cards! I don't think that's realistic in a family with kids and jobs and everything else. I'm talking about using those lovely things, our phones...

You did all that for your own benefit though. That’s a separate issue to thanking people for gifts. It’s like saying I put all that effort in and got what I wanted out of it, I couldn’t be arsed doing anything for anyone else.

Exactly, in my view they sort of cancel each other out - they sent a present and you fed and entertained their kid/s, no need for thank you texts back and forth with literally dozens of people! Especially when the host will be absolutely bloody knackered afterwards

I delegated this to their dad, I did everything else. Surprisingly he never did it. More wife work.

I think people were probably giving presents still at that stage, but it definitely morphed towards token amounts of cash in later primary school years. I think everyone got sick of tat, or books you had to return because you already had them etc.

(I’m not from the UK either. The only thing I found odd about UK children’s parties has been the frequent hysteria about them on here — all these ‘rules’ about it having to be either a whole class party where you invited even children your child actively disliked, OR all the boys or all the girls OR less than one third of the class, or else it was ‘exclusion’.

I'm really glad there are more than a handful of people on here who agree with me. Sometimes I feel like all the standards we were raised with have just been chucked away. But seems like some values are alive and well, you just have to do them and not always follow the crowd.

Because you disregarded a what's app message of thanks in your first post and discussed kids writing cards in further posts I assumed you meant hand written .

I mostly agree with you OP. When we had a party for DS (the only party we've hosted) I made sure to text everyone the day before the party to remind them of it, then I made a note of which child sent which gift when they were opened the day after the party, and sent thank you for [name gift here] to all the parents. It took maybe 20 mins as it was a copy and paste job with the child's name and gift changed for each message. I couldn't say thank you at the time when the gifts were given because a lot of them were just put on the present table while I was sorting other things out.

If we'd had a WA group where I could have just sent a mass thank you though I would have done that, and I found it acceptable after parties the year after where there was a class WA and parents just sent "thanks for coming and thank you for the gifts" to everyone. The important thing is making sure some sort of thank you has been said, whether that's when given the gift or after, IMO.

Just say thank you when they hand it over!
I would find it really difficult to keep track of who gave what

I always individually thank. I also make them ring anyone who gave them money or a present at Christmas by the close of play on the 27th Dec!

You did all that for your own benefit though. That’s a separate issue to thanking people for gifts. It’s like saying I put all that effort in and got what I wanted out of it, I couldn’t be arsed doing anything for anyone else.

Lol

I made sure my 7 year old thanked each child for the present when they handed it over. He said thank you to each child for coming when they left. I had set up a WA group for the party and said thank you to all the parents for bringing their child and for the lovely gifts. I didn't take note of which gift was from who, that's all.

I don't have numerous adults helping me with parties like the OP seems to think.

I agree OP, it's the polite thing to do. My parents drilled it into me from a very young age to always send thank you cards, and we always do for relatives/family friends, but it isnt practical for a child's party with big numbers.

Youngest turned 6 a few weeks ago and we did a class party with presents opened at home afterwards. Eldest was tasked with noting down which child gifted which present, and I sent out twenty or so personalised texts along the lines of 'thanks for bringing (child's name) and for the lovely present, DD loved her stationary/book/craft set'. Most of the presents were just left on a table at the venue so we didn't get a chance to thank them at the time.

Really love this approach! A phone call is a really special thing now no one does them anymore, especially from a child or teenager