Dear Abby: I read with interest your advice to aunts and uncles to stop sending gifts to unappreciative nieces and nephews who never acknowledge them. Am I alone in feeling that the same should apply to one's children and grandchildren?
In my present marriage, we share six adult children and grandchildren, and after years of sending them gifts for birthdays, graduations, weddings, etc., and wondering if they had ever been received, I decided to quit sending gifts to people who never acknowledge them.Have you heard from others who feel as we do about gift-giving?
- Speaking Out in Florida
Dear Speaking: Have I ever! Read on for a sample:
Dear Abby: I have given a lot of thought to the question that was raised in your column concerning gift-giving when the recipients never seem to get around to acknowledging them.
I have concluded that I don't really mean anything to these people who take, take, take and never say thank you
I have been giving for two generations, but starting in 1994, I am going to send only cards for all weddings, bar mitzvahs and new babies, and the recipients can spend the rest of the day looking for the check.
- Aunt/Grandma in Santa Monica
Dear Aunt/Grandma: You would make your point more clearly if you tell the offenders why the gifts have dried up.
Dear Abby: This is in response to the letter from "Auntie J. in L.A.":
Two years ago, I married a wonderful man whose family had never sent a thank-you card in their lives. After our wedding, I sent 250 thank-you notes for the gifts we received.
Later, I was shocked when my mother-in-law said that by sending all those thank-yous, I made her two other daughters-in-law look ungrateful.
- Lisa in Arizona
Dear Abby: A great big "thank you" to "Auntie J. in L.A." who had no children of her own, but sent gifts to all her nieces and nephews on every gift-giving occasion - and usually had to telephone them to find out if the gifts were ever received.
I never gave it much thought, but that's exactly what I have been doing.
No more gifts for relatives who always have their hands out but seem unable to pick up a pen.
- Wised Up in Kittanning, Pa.
Dear Abby: Lydia Palmer recently wrote that she felt a thank-you note was not necessary if the giver has already been thanked verbally, because one just throws away all those thank-you notes.
Not me. I've always saved the cards, letters and notes I received from my grandchildren. Now that I am retired, one of my pet projects is sorting out all their thank-you notes, and making a scrapbook for each grandchild, niece and nephew. I know they will get a big kick out of reading the very touching - and sometimes hilarious - notes they wrote while they were growing up.
- Vivian Anderson,
Libertyville, Ill.
Dear Abby: The letter about the little girl who always said "I don't care" when she was offered something, brought back memories of my girlhood days. When I was 8 years old, we moved into a new neighborhood and I made friends with a girl my age down the street. Whenever she was offered something, she'd say, "I don't care" - which irritated my mother no end.
Finally, one day my mother asked my friend if she wanted some lemonade - and my friend replied, "I don't care." Then Mom very calmly said, "Well, when you care, please let me know" . . . then she walked away. I'll never forget that. This was just one in a long list of lessons my mother taught me.
- R.M.H. in Fort Walton Beach,
Fla.
Good advice for everyone - teens to seniors - is in "The Anger in All of Us and How to Deal With It." To order, send a business-sized, self-addressed envelope, plus check or money order for $3.95 ($4.50 in Canada) to: Dear Abby, Anger Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054. (Postage is included.)
1993 Universal Press Syndicate