What Happened to Thank You Cards?

Hey Bald Man,

Growing up I was always taught by my parents that I should write thank you cards when I received gifts.  Nowadays I send gifts to a number of family members, mostly children who live out of town. We don’t receive a thank you note, or any kind of acknowledgement, not even a text or e-mail. Some live a long way away and I will wonder if the packages even arrived. I have emailed a relative who lives in the UK to see if my package arrived for their family, and all I got back was “yes, thank you”

I’m tempted to stop giving gifts to these relatives or start sending them thank you notes and stamps as Christmas gifts next year as a hint. Am I expecting too much? What do you think?

— Frustrated Gifter

Dear Frustrated Gifter-

No I don’t think you are expecting too much.  My standards are this:

• If the gift is for an out of the ordinary occasion like a baby shower, wedding, etc, a thank you card is required.
• If a gift is for a birthday, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Easter, or just a random day and it is given in-person, the thank you should be done on the spot and in-person.
• If the gift is for one of the more standard events listed above but is sent by mail, you have to do a thank you of some sort.  That could be a card, phone call, text, e-mail, whatever.  There does need to be a thanks/acknowledgement.

In your case, it sounds like your relatives are less than grateful.  I would tend to avoid the passive-agressive move of sending them thank you cards as a gift.  It sounds like most of the people you send these to are kids, which really mens their parents are not properly raising them.

I would first talk to the parents.  You will sound needy and whiney if you ask them to have the kids send you thank you cards, so you should approach that from an angle of telling them you just want to be sure they have received mailed gifts, and that it would be appreciated if you would get some kind of notice if and when they receive gifts.  If that can’t be accommodated, I would just stop the gifts altogether.

For the adults you send gifts to, is that reciprocal?  If they never buy shit for you, I would probably just stop sending them stuff.  They may not even notice or care.

-Bald Man