i HATE thank you notes...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How nice that you RECEIVED 350 newborn gifts. I'm shocked that someone as ungrateful and entitled as you are received ANY much less that many.

Wow, okay then. I received fewer than 50 gifts when I had my first baby and wrote all those notes within two weeks of the shower, before the baby was born.

[Anonymous]

16:46, you got all 350 of those gifts AFTER the baby was born? And why in the world didn't your DH write some of the notes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How nice that you RECEIVED 350 newborn gifts. I'm shocked that someone as ungrateful and entitled as you are received ANY much less that many.

Wow, okay then. I received fewer than 50 gifts when I had my first baby and wrote all those notes within two weeks of the shower, before the baby was born.

you know, this is one of life's little mysteries. how is it that THIS PP, who seems very nice, received a lot fewer presents than the anti-TYN poster, who seems to be the least racious person ever? i feel like this stuff happens so often -- the nastiest people seem to fare well in the attention/gifts/luck category. Ugh.

for the record, i don't mind writing thank you notes. i think we owe people a lot more gratitude than most of us show.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, something important to remember: Men can write thank you notes. They really can. So if his dear Aunt Greta is all up in your case about no thank you notes, then it's not your problem, it's his.

Bwahahahahahahahahahaha...

Oh, you were serious?

[Anonymous]

Hey 350 gift lady, I'm on your side. Ignore the can't read good crowd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hey 350 gift lady, I'm on your side. Ignore the can't read good crowd.

Yeah, me, too. I don't want their presents. If they want to feel smug about my 'poor manners', let them. I would much rather be around the people who've never written a thank you note in their life than be around them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How nice that you RECEIVED 350 newborn gifts. I'm shocked that someone as ungrateful and entitled as you are received ANY much less that many.

Wow, okay then. I received fewer than 50 gifts when I had my first baby and wrote all those notes within two weeks of the shower, before the baby was born.

you know, this is one of life's little mysteries. how is it that THIS PP, who seems very nice, received a lot fewer presents than the anti-TYN poster, who seems to be the least racious person ever? i feel like this stuff happens so often -- the nastiest people seem to fare well in the attention/gifts/luck category. Ugh.

for the record, i don't mind writing thank you notes. i think we owe people a lot more gratitude than most of us show.

Many of us don't buy the premise of your argument which is "thank you note = manners/gratitude" I DO write thank you notes but not becuase they are an expression of my gratitude or appreciation. I do them because it was inculcated in me as a child that it was something you had to do. I'm working on letting go of that because thank you notes are frequently a waste of time/paper.

For those people insisting on thank you notes, I'd say we owe them a lot less gratitude than they've been shown.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate thank you notes, don't do them, ever.

Thank you email and in person. That's it.

Suck it.

Am I the only one who finds the attitudes of the "anti-thank you note" crowd aggressively negative and off-putting? "Suck it?" Really? I took the trouble to select, buy, wrap and deliver a gift and this is the response I get? I don't think I would ever want to be friends with you, much less give you a gift.

I don't care. 8)

Hey Hijacker! That was my post.

To the PP: Suck it twice. If a call or email is not good enough thanks for you then take your toys and your tears and go the fuck back home.

[Anonymous]

It is hilarious that people who don't give gifts after not getting TY notes actually think anyone gives a shit about them not giving another gift. To put so much emotion into a gift is so shallow, it is like the gift giver is dying for some attention instead of simply gaining happiness from there mere act of gift giving.

A strange bunch you are.

[Anonymous]

I'm pretty much in the anti-thank you note crowd except when it's used to also let the giver know the gift was received. But, I just saw an episode of Undercover Boss. At the end of the show, the boss paid off a great worker's mortgage ($150K) and gave him a $50K bonus. Although the guy thanked him profusely, THAT kind of gift definitely deserves a note. If you're gifting me like that, I will definitely send you a card!

That makes me think these people who get all pissy about note getting a thank you note are really justed miffed that I don't think their gift is worth the effort of the note - and you'd be right unless you're paying off my mortgage, your gift really isn't worth that much to me!

[Anonymous]

I can't believe it's another TY note post.

I write them - because I was raised that way. Do I look down my nose at people who don't? No, I just assu

[Anonymous]

*assume they don't know better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How nice that you RECEIVED 350 newborn gifts. I'm shocked that someone as ungrateful and entitled as you are received ANY much less that many.

Wow, okay then. I received fewer than 50 gifts when I had my first baby and wrote all those notes within two weeks of the shower, before the baby was born.

you know, this is one of life's little mysteries. how is it that THIS PP, who seems very nice, received a lot fewer presents than the anti-TYN poster, who seems to be the least racious person ever? i feel like this stuff happens so often -- the nastiest people seem to fare well in the attention/gifts/luck category. Ugh.

for the record, i don't mind writing thank you notes. i think we owe people a lot more gratitude than most of us show.

Okay, explain to me why I'm the "least gracious person ever?"

Seriously, can you read? I wrote thank you notes. I am not "anti-thank you note" for me. I simply said that it was a HUGE burden writing so many thank you notes so soon after the birth of a colicky, very high-needs baby who required parental motion (oh, not just holding, but actually walking around and active soothing - that's what colic means) about 20 hours a day. This baby was nonetheless was the light of my life, and I didn't want to plunk him crying into a bouncy chair to write note after note. When we did get him down, we slept. I wrote as many thank you notes as I could. I wrote them myself because my husbands solutions was pre-drafted thank you cards with our names signed. I did between one and three a day, and on good days, I banged out 5 or 10. Do you want to do the math on that? Let's say I averaged 3 thank you cards a day. That is 116 days of thank you note writing! In order to get all of my thank you notes out in one month (let's say 31 days, the LONG end of what someone would consider proper etiquette for a thank you note), I would have to write 11 or 12 thank you notes a day, every day. Do you really think that a new mom should write this many thank you notes in a day? Oh, and by the way, for that math to work, I would have had to start writing them on the day my son was delivered. If I took a day off on his arrival date, that would add .5 notes to every day. Skip day 2 of his life? Take a whole week off to bask in the glow of being a new mom? Well, I'd then have to write 17 notes a day to get everyone their thank you notes within four weeks. So can you understand how writing thank you notes for 350 gifts can be completely, totally, and utterly overwhelming for ANYONE, much less a new mom? Can you seriously not understand that? Do you really not understand that I was WRITING THE NOTES but people complained that they didn't get them fast enough? I actually had one person complain to my MIL not even a month later. (Hey, maybe you are posting here - I would not be surprised!)

So I want to hear from someone who has actually read what I've posted, realized that yes, I wrote every single thank you note, to tell me straight that writing thank you notes is so important that a new mom should write 17 of them a day, every day, in week 2, week 3, and week 4 of her child's life. How long do you think it would take you to write 17 thank you notes? Yet, when I voiced how upset I was about getting criticized for not getting them out "on time," people were actually like "yes, that's right, if I took the time to buy, wrap, and send your child a gift, you can take the 10 minutes it takes to write me a thank you note." Seriously? So, if that's the case, please just say what you really mean: You and your bill of gratitude is more important than me, as a new mom, spending time with my new baby, than getting the 1 or 2 hours of sleep available to me at that time, than maybe, just maybe, taking a goddamn bubble bath.

How is that so ungrateful? I WROTE THE NOTES. Maybe you're mistaking me for the people who say they don't write notes. I am not them, I simply said that I think it's fine that they don't. That I tell new parents please do NOT write me the note. That I think new parents shouldn't feel obligated to put pen to paper when they should put their sleep deprived face on a pillow instead. I just didn't write them fast enough. People like you, the etiquette sticklers, are just sour, hateful, spiteful, odious, mean ass people. The world needs fewer of you. And I don't care if some asshole who would rather I park my baby in a bouncy chair and get down to what's really important (ie. YOU and your precious thank you), thinks I am ungrateful. If you're my friend, consider yourself, well, not.

[Anonymous]

BTW, since you all aren't good at reading, I'll assume you're also not good at math. If I spend 10 minutes on a thank you note and write 70 of them, that is 170 minutes, which is roughly THREE HOURS. Maybe I could go lightning style and bang them out at five minutes each. So that's about an hour and a half a day. Every day. For 21 days. So maybe you say, aw shucks, we'll give the new mom extra time. Take 2 months (by that time, several people had complained - both my MIL and my own grandma reported their friends were upset). People are STICKLERS. It's not that you're bad for not writing thank you notes. Oh no, you're bad for much less than that! You're bad for not writing them *fast enough*. And it's not okay or a sufficient excuse for the sticklers that you're a new mom. Or a grieving, bereaved spouse. Or whatever other extenuating circumstances might make it hard to write thank yous within. Oh no. The sticklers will have you know your thank you note was not received! These people don't care if that hurts you or adds to your stress, or takes away the joy of being a new parent. So, sticklers, can you really blame us for saying, "save yourself some time, and keep the gift. I don't want to be indebted to your stickler bullshit."

[Anonymous]

One more time, for the screaming PP who seems to be reading impaired.

Perhaps people in YOUR FAMILY lack manners, but ripple who typically write TYN do not. We do not point out whether you write them or not (see above) and we do not "look down our noses" at people who do not write them. Many of us simply refuse to continue making an effort if none is made in return. (Please note that I am not yelling.) I did write all of my birth TYN after 5 days in the hospital with DS for the record. All 79 of them were out within one week of my rerun home from the hospital with a baby who had just returned from the NICU. No, I'm not superhuman. It can be done. Notes don't take 10 minutes each to write if you've been writing them since you were little. You can write a very thoughtful note in a matter of a few minutes. Yell and scream all you want. Write TYN or don't. I don't care. You have your opinion and I have mine. It's what makes the world go 'round. Being mean is unnecessary. I really do hope you have a good day, and I'm sorry if this discussion has upset you. It was just a discussion.