What to do: Recevied HS Graduation Announcemnt from Cousin's child

Anonymous wrote:Send a nice card and a $100.00 cash....that's what we do. We can't attend graduations as our school year in NOVA ends later as a school year in a different state. We don't expect anyone to attend our DC graduation except for the grandparents if desired.

Off topic, do you find that your relative in other states don't seem to understand that our kids truly, really are in school till mid June? FIL seems to think that is just a lame excuse.... and not taking kids out of school is just us being impolite?

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05/30/2019 09:04

Subject: What to do: Recevied HS Graduation Announcemnt from Cousin's child

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Anonymous

Send them an amazon or BBB gift card to buy things for kid's dorm room for the fall if you don't want to send a check (but I would send a check).

Don't blame the kid here, and stop making this issue about you. Be the bigger person.

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05/30/2019 12:45

Subject: What to do: Recevied HS Graduation Announcemnt from Cousin's child

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Anonymous

Anonymous wrote:There are challenging family dynamics. The parents are divorced and it was a nasty divorce (mostly around money because there was an obscene amount of it)
Children are in custody of mother. Cousin is father.

We used to see them once a year when the child was aged 2-7 as we were the only family in the area and would get together for birthday parties. As the kids got older, less family birthdays - and we never found the time to connect. Christmas card would be sent back as they moved and we did not have the new address. We would see each other possibly every three years at a family event.

I interpret the announcement as - oh that's nice. They needed to buy the announcements in set of 25 or 50 and had extras so sent us one.

My husband looks at it as an invitation to the graduation and feels obliged to send a gift. He was going to send a check. I find it tacky for someone you have not seen or heard from in 4 years to send a graduation announcement. I also think it is inappropriate to send a check to a child who has a personal net worth of more than $1M [the cousin shared how divorce settlement was set up]. I said - send a small gift from the school the child will be attending - something like a Tervis cup or school mug.

Questions for DCUM:
1 - would you attend the HS Graduation? [note- we have not received any communication from the cousin]
2 - what would you give as a gift?

OP I hate to say it but you sound like a real jerk. It is hardly "tacky" for someone to send you a graduation announcement. The parents are proud so they sent it to all the relatives. There is nothing wrong with that. It's also not inappropriate to send a child a check just because the child is wealthy. So the child's accomplishments just don't count if you're rich?

Personally, I like your gift idea rather than the idea of sending money. It's more thoughtful.

NO for question 1 should have been obvious.