Why I Don't Believe In Thank You Note Shaming

I guess there existed a time in history, when mail was delivered by ponies. As such, if a letter or note failed to arrive, it was common to point fingers at The United States Post Office. But these days, at least at my house, if you don’t receive an appropriate form of appreciation, don’t look to The Postmaster General…

You need to blame me.

The Woman in Charge, the Top of the Food Chain, The Crosser of the T’s and The Dotter of the I’s. Miss Manners Herself – The One Called Mom.

Yes, I am whining about the bane of every mother’s existence, that formal form of formal gratitude, that slip of paper that speaks volumes about you as a parent: the oft-forgotten, dreaded Thank You Note.

Every mom out there knows what I’m talking about. It’s your kid’s birthday and the checks come rolling in as if you held an epic fundraiser. $10 here, $20 there. Maybe even $100 from Grandma.

It’s time to crack the whip on your little Birthday Bundle or Christmas Angel.

We all want our kids to write a nice thank you note. For 3 obvious reasons:

To let the sender know the gift was received and appreciated by the Entitled Little Shit(s) you’re raising.
To let the sender know you’ve got a shred of class left in you, despite the fact that you are drowning in your very own reproductive choices.

But most importantly…

A well written thank you note is a character-building parenting opportunity that serves as a subtle reminder to your child that “sacrifices of goodwill” are made on his/her behalf by others to whom he should express a modicum of handwritten gratitude and humility. A line or two will suffice.

Surely, we can all agree, it’s the thing to do. Or make your kid do.

Like every other facet of my parenting endeavors, I had my A-game on in the early years. I ordered thank you notes custom printed to match my eldest two daughters’ birth announcements, so enthusiastic was I about imbuing in my young all the rules of etiquette.

I diligently wrote thank you notes for every baby gift, birthday gift and Christmas gift, until my offspring were old enough to write a note or express themselves with a drawing. As the years went by, my children were able to take over the task to a limited degree, but, alas, I was still very much involved. I was the one who located the stationary, addressed the envelope and dropped it in the post.

In short, Mommy is the Keeper-of-the-stamps and the Owner-of-the-address book.

I added it all up the other day, and after 30 years of parenting 5 children, through all their Christmases, birthdays, graduations and other sundry occasions, multiplied by all their Grandparents, Great-grandparents, Godparents and friends – I came up with around 700 “gratitude opportunities” for me to supervise, oversee and facilitate.

I’m estimating I might have a 95% accomplishment rating. This is nothing short of amazing if you’re a politician or CEO, but an epic failure if you’re a parent. It means there were around 35 notes that didn’t get written – 35 gifts that went un-acknowledged.

And I’m pretty sure I got a wrist-slapping over Every. Single. One.

These conversations were disguised as “concern” that the gift was never received. There was the suggestion that the gift had gotten “lost in the mail.” (As though the gift had fallen out of a saddle-bag and was lying in the dirt somewhere on the outskirts of Little Rock, Dallas, Houston or in the dessert somewhere just west of Phoenix.)

Who are we kidding here?

Odds are – your gift arrived. And I suck. I have absolutely no excuse to offer, except that in the daily hullabaloo of shoddily raising my kids, I failed to get that task accomplished 5-7% of the time.

But, please don’t think for a minute that my children weren’t lectured in earnest to appreciate everything that’s been done for them. Please don’t think that It wasn’t my goal 100% of the time to teach them to be good people and give back more than they take from the world. Please just give us the benefit of the doubt. Indeed, there was an occasional “I” or “T” that got lost in the shuffle.

(It may have even happened when you were raising yours? But who can be expected to remember? It’s all such a blur.)

It’s not that I got completely lazy through the years, dropped the proverbial ball or stopped giving a damn – just that there was a lot going on and so many life lessons and character building moments to choose from on a daily basis.

At one point I was so paranoid about forgetting thank you notes, that I developed a “SYSTEM.” No check would be deposited until a thank you note was in the mail. As time went by, I found many expired un-cashed checks. Drats! We can ill-afford that.

The good news is that several of my offspring have moved out of my house, (or their dormitory) and graduated from college/post-graduate degrees. These quasi-adults have gone out into the world and acquired their very own stamps, stationary and mailboxes – thus eliminating me from the equation. With me out of the picture, these people became dutiful and consistent authors of the humble thank you note.

Still…until I purge every single one of my offspring from my home, I promise to try to remember to remind the ones that are still “in transition” to text you, call you or send up a smoke signal of thanks.

But if for some odd reason you don’t receive the note, don’t blame them, blame “The System.” It’s probably floating around somewhere under the seat of my car.

Bio:

It all started one Christmas when they bought her an iPad…

Everyone from Leslie’s husband of 33 years, to her 5 children squirm in discomfort as she taps away with her middle finger, using everyday family experiences as fodder for her blog, “A Ginger Snapped.” They can routinely be heard complaining as she prattles and tattles on what they now commonly refer to as, “Pandora’s tablet!”

She has been featured in Your Teen Magazine, and on websites such as Scary Mommy, BonBon Break, Today’s Parent, BlogHer, and Faithit. She has been interviewed on NPR and is also proud to be liberally splashed about The Huffington Post in the United States, France, Spain, Japan, Quebec and Germany, as she comes to realize this may be the only way she ever travels abroad.