I just need to vent…

Another Southern girl raised to hand-write thank you notes.

I don't interfere at all in DS's life EXCEPT to nag him about writing thank you notes.

I still growl a little when I think that one of my best friend's daughter and son-in-law didn't acknowledge the check I sent when they were married.

Like someone said upthread, people spend so much time (me included) on their damn phones, they have enough time to pen three sentences.

Agree completely! Ridiculous.

As a cardmaker, I don’t have a problem with a pre-printed sentiment but not actually signing the thank you card with a small personal blurb is beyond rude.

As a very young kid, my mom’s aunt would send me $5 on my birthday and for Christmas. My mom always made me call her and thank her for the money. I dreaded it because I really didn’t know her but it was important to my mom that I did it. Looking back, that was one of the best things my mom ever did for me. 

For those of you who are admittedly calling out your kids or grandkids for not sending thank you notes, why are you not telling them or their parents how rude they are? I mean you had a hand in raising these people. 

I didn't know about that podcast! I'm excited to listen to it.

The phrase always makes me laugh. There is that phrase and "Were you raised in a barn?" My sister, who loves a mixed metaphors, is always asking if people were raised by barn wolves. So barn wolves has become a thing for us.

She is also fond of "I'll burn that bridge when I come to it." I so relate to that.

And yes, not handwriting even part of the note is tacky.

I don't blame you. I think that was a mighty big ask in the first place, and if your guests go through all of the extra hassle to attend a wedding like that for you, then seriously, you can take a bit of your precious time to write a few words of your own on the card--even if it's just "Thank you so much!" and the couple's names.

Mind you, DH & I ordered blank fold over Thank You notes with just our names on the front, so our guests each got a mini letter. So I might not be the right person to ask.

I will say, though, that it was touching how many people reached out to thank us for their thank you cards. People brought them up the next time we saw them, and we received calls, messages, & emails about them, too. It was really sweet. So clearly, they meant a lot to people. I now hold those reactions as a really important memory from our overall wedding experience. It felt incredibly good to know how happy we had made people.

My mother-in-law called us the day she received hers to talk to DH because I had asked him to write the card out for his own parents. He had been hesitant at first because he didn't know what to say and because his handwriting is abysmal, but he managed to fill one side of that card and his mother was so emotional about receiving something so clearly from him, you know? Not just something I wrote & made him sign.

And more than one person told me that their card made them cry! I remember telling them "Well that certainly wasn't the idea!"

And as for the time people insist they don't have for things like that? All of the non-note writing portions we did while watching TV. (Which is the same thing I do when addressing & stamping holiday cards each year.) And for the notes we knew would be shorter & very to the point, we wrote those during ad breaks. You know, the ones that were just "Thank you for attending and thank you for the [insert gift here]".

So it wasn't like we had to carve out hours of extra time from our ridiculously busy schedules to sit at our table sweating it out over this terribly difficult task. We were cuddled up in PJs, each with a glass of wine or a cup of tea, watching whatever it was we watched at the time, a box of thank you notes and a gift list alongside us. And it was definitely worth however much time we did spend on them.

Sounds like DIL. She writes the best thank you notes for EVERYTHING. DH met her first and took her and my son out to dinner and she wrote a note. He told me, "She must have been really well raised." We knew she was a keeper.
Oh, yes they should. Otherwise, she shouldn't feel entitled to a gift.
When I was a photographer, we sent thank you cards from the engagement shoot to the couple as a gift. It helped with marketing that our logo was on the back. Everybody wins.
I don't if it means I get a thank you card. I think "Raised by Wolves" even lets it slide.

Validated! I'm still waiting to hear what happened to the cash gift we gave thru theknot.com to a great-nephew who's wedding was called off by the bride 3 days before the wedding.

I was raised to write thank you notes. I expect my kids to do the same. That was really lame. Not as bad as getting a rude response about being too busy to write thank you notes.

Yeah vent away super annoying!

I still remember in the mid 00s some scrapbook mini celebrity had her house burn down (I think - or some other tragedy) and asked for donations.  I sent 25 bucks.  I remember at a convention talking to a woman who knew her IRL and I mentioned I would have liked to have known if she got the money.  She snottily replied:  You can't possibly expect her to thank everyone who sent her money!  Like...wow.

Super rude. Vent validated.

Wow! I’m generally a “live and let live” person but that would definitely irritate me.

I’ve lost track of the number of family showers I’ve attended in recent years where guests have been asked to self-address thank you note envelopes that are never sent. That’s some special level of tacky to me.

Just a few weeks after my son’s wedding a couple of years ago friends and family were commenting to me about the very personal thank you note they received and how much they appreciated it. They were both up to their ears in grad school and preparing for a cross-country move but they worked together to get their handwritten notes out promptly. From the numerous appreciative comments I got from the recipients it seems that timely, personalized thank you notes are definitely the exception these days. That’s my experience as a gift giver.

I did teach my sons how to write thank you notes from a young age, starting with asking them what they wanted to say and writing it for them when they were too young to write. Sometimes they drew pictures. Eventually they mastered it on their own. They didn’t always love doing it but they knew they should and still do. I’m happy that’s a habit that stuck with them.

My daughter-in-law also was taught to write thank you notes and has occasionally commented about the lack of gift acknowledgment from the extended family, especially since they live on the west coast, most family events are in the Midwest and they literally don’t know if gifts were actually received.

I have no explanation to offer her for the relatives who were apparently raised by barn wolves, have crossed the thank-you note bridge and chosen to burn it.

I go back and forth with this kind of stuff in my head. I was raised to write thank you notes. I would say that 80% of the gifts I have given in the last 10 years have not been acknowledged. Have I stopped giving as many gifts? Yup.

ETA: I was also raised to write a TY note even if I received the gift in person. I don't think that is needed.