Here is a copy of a column by Miss Manners on thank you notes. I thought that since we have had many threads of discussion on giving quilts without ever receiving any acknowledgements that we would be interested in her opinion on the subject.
Dear Miss Manners,
My 24-year-old son has just advised me that sending thank-you notes is no longer necessary. He states this is a generational thing, and while my generation (you and me) think a thank-you note is required when a gift is given, his does not. He has polled his friends and they agree.
I am appalled to have just learned that he did not send thank-you notes to all those who attended his wedding two years ago. When I mentioned this to my daughter-in-law, she just shrugged. And had no comment. I know he sent notes to a few, as I asked him to do Grandmas etc. first, but evidently the reason my offer to help address envelopes for them was not taken up was they didn't send thank-yous.
Can you provide current evidence of proper custom in this matter? And if a thank-you is still required would they be too late to send them now?
Gentle Reader,
Here is a bit of news for your son the etiquette authority:
Generosity and gratitude are indissolubly linked. They always have been and they always will be.
No doubt he and his friends make an apparently high-minded argument that people ought to give for the pure joy of giving, with no expectation of any return. Do they not imagine that this joy might be tempered by not knowing if the present was even received, let alone whether it had the intended effect of pleasing the recipient?
And do they seek such joy themselves, sending out presents to people they never hear from? Incidentally, when was the last time your son had the joy of sending his grandmother a present?
While it is much too late to save him and his wife from being thought to be boors, there is no statute of limitations that now frees them from the obligation. If he were to undertake the task, he should not make excuses --the declaration of being busy just irritates those who took the time to be kind -- but humbly apologize and write about how much the present has been appreciated all this time, and that it always makes him think of them.
Miss Manners does not have a lot of faith that he will do this. At any rate, tell him from her that ingrates are barred from fooling with the rules.