Thank You Notes

Thank You Notes

Dear Peter and Molly,

My son and his new wife got married at the beginning of August last year. They put on a nice reception and received gifts to help them start their home from many friends and family. I received an e-mail this week from my mother in-law (my son's grandmother.) She was wondering if he had received her wedding gift, and if so if they were planning on sending out thank you notes. I had always tried to teach my son the importance of giving thanks, and I know that he knew the importance of thank you notes for wedding gifts in particular, yet it seems that he has failed to send them out. I certainly don't want to tell him and his wife how to live their lives, should I say anything to them? How should I respond to my mother in law's e-mail in the meantime?

Sincerely,

Meddling Mamma

Meddling, meddle please. There is nothing quite so tacky as not sending out thank you notes for wedding presents. There are many reasons why he may not have sent the thank you note, they may be waiting for special ordered thank you cards, (These are becoming more popular, but they take too long to get back, they are a bad idea,) they may have legitimately not gotten his grandmother's present, or they may have gotten so busy with other things they have forgotten the second most important thing you can do after a wedding, so tell them. As for your e-mailer, your son is an adult now, simply e-mail her your son's contact information, and tell her that you hadn't heard, but that she can ask him herself.

I think that forwarding your mother in law his e-mail address is a great idea, but do that and don't tell him what to do, he can learn for himself when he starts to get more and more people curious about whether there gifts were received or not. Marriage is a very natural point to let your children learn consequences for their own decisions.

Amazingly I basically agree with Peter on the point that marriage is a great point to let your children go, obviously, but the consequences for not writing thank you notes are too high. You are basically choosing to alienate everyone who supported your getting married. That is a huge network of people that you need to be happy and successful. If your two year old was running into the street you'd stop him because he might be killing himself, this is kind of like that.

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