Would you knit any more gifts?

I think a lot of younger people have not been taught to write thank you letters. I have also given up knitting for GC as my DL does not appreciate hand made items. Don't think they have any understanding of the cost or effort involved in making them.

Antonia

I love knitting and have recently had a grand niece. So far I have knitted a pram blanket and a jacket. But since I sent them to the couple, together with a pram toy and two other bought outfits, I haven't had any acknowledgement. This was over a month ago.
The baby is my sister's son's child. My sister was upset that the couple haven't so far said thank you for any of the gifts they received, and so she posted thank you cards herself, pretending they came from the couple. I got one myself, but it didn't make me feel much better, since I know it didn't come from the couple themselves.
She did this because a lot of people complained they had not been thanked for the couple's wedding presents, over five years ago. No one got a thank you, not even a text.
My dilemma is, I have lots of left over yarn and I could knit more baby clothes but I feel they are not appreciated.
Am I being precious, or am I right to feel offended? Do young couples actually want hand knitted clothes anyway?

I think there's nothing as delightful as hand knitted tiny baby clothes! The effort and love that goes into a hand knitted gift is so touching. I suggest knitting your spare yarn/wool into gorgeous little baby things and donate to BLISS the charity for new teeny tiny babes! I'm sure they will be so thankful and you can rest assured that your little knits have a good home!!?

This has happened to me. After many years of 'no thankyous' I no longer send a gift, just a card. I don't get thank you for that either!

Young people today do not send out thank you cards, it is a thing of the past.
If it upsets you to not receive thanks for your gifts stop sending them. Only you can decide if the pleasure you get making the gifts outweighs the sadness of no thanks.
I have given up expecting my family to thank me for gifts but I love giving them so for me it works out ok. The most I will do is message them to see if the gifts arrived.
You have to choose

I did knit for my own children using the bright colours of the sixties and seventies not white. When the GC arrived my mum was still knitting and she made matinee jackets etc but I am not sure how often they were used. Looking on line there seems to be some very expensive hand made babies clothes but for most babies home made is out of fashion. I am amazed how expensive it can be to do it yourself now and I think most young parents prefer to choose themselves. Thank you notes have really gone out of fashion too it seems, a text or email far more likely.

I knit for new babies in the family and also for friends' grandchildren and I always get a genuine thank you.

Personally, I'd be hacked off if my efforts were not acknowledged and I wouldn't knit again for people who did not thank me. "Too busy with new baby" is a lame excuse.

I do however have a friend who says the reward is in the making, so there's that attitude too.

When DD was a baby (over 40 years ago) my MiL knitted a beautiful lamb's wool dress and leggings for her. I dressed her up in them the next time we visited so that MiL could see how pretty she looked in them. The little dear threw up an entire bottle of milk over the dress and spent the afternoon reeking of wet wool and baby sick. It was back to Babygros after that.

How long does it take to write a few words in a pre printed 'thank you' card and drop it in the post when you are passing? How long to send a text? However busy, these people are quite clearly incapable of saying thank you, given the wedding present situation too. I don't expect gushing thanks, but an acknowledgment, especially when something is hand made especially for your child, is not unreasonable.

Thank you cards/notes have died the death. It's now a few words in a text if you are lucky, but very rarely does a recipient thank you properly.

Recently, I went to great lengths to get a close friend something really special and all I got was 'Oh and thanks for the XXX' at the end of a text about something menial.

All it does is put me off buying presents (and I buy lovely things with a lot of thought put into each one.) In the end, my friends and relatives will lose out, but at least, I tell myself, I won't feel hurt.

Right up until my two step granddaughters were teenagers I used to spend a lot of time buying suitable little birthday and Christmas gifts for them as my DH would only buy gift vouchers or give money which I thought was not very exciting. The two of them would gushingly thank their Grandad but never a word of thanks for me. I found this very hurtful so stopped doing it even though I felt mean.

I have had 2 instances where gifts not being acknowledged has caused concern; one a gift of an expensive canteen of cutlery to the daughter of a friend, who had always sent thank you notes. I happened to see a thank you note to another mutual friend, and was genuinely concerned they had not received ours. Especially as, to their huge annoyance, there was another wedding in the same hotel the same day. Have always wondered if the other couple got our gift and wondered who the aunt and uncle whose name they didn’t recognise were. And I was too embarrassed to ask her mother.
The year before last, I sent a lovely a Welsh woollen mill baby blanket to my god-daughter. It was only when Royal Mail returned it that I found out they had moved away to Manchester from London. Apparently it was on Facebook, which I don’t do. Her Mum and Dad (my main friend) have divorced, and her Mum used to “do”the family correspondence. Not the first time she hasn’t acknowledged a really nice gift. Don’t want profuse thanks, just to know the items have been received! My other 2 god-daughters also never send thank-you notes, it does put you off sending gifts. I have a personal rule of buying for the children not the parent once they have any, they have amassed several, so the gifts mount up.
By contrast, my godson, now 18, invariably sends thank by WhatsApp as soon as he gets a gift. He lives in Switzerland, so I don’t expect a surface mail letter. Makes me feel so much more that the gift is appreciated.
Comments about being busy with baby and tired in the short term are fair enough, I know I was with a colicky baby-but I daresay Mum and Dad will find time to be on social media with pictures of the baby!

On reading through these posts an old Bob Dylan song popped in my mind, "The times they are a changing".
Sorry to say it but even though we know it is bad manners we are in the main going to have to accept it. If we still send presents then that is our choice whether to say thank you is the recipients and if they don't then we have to think hard next time who are we doing it for.

OldHag I honestly don't think it's fair to expect your daughter to take responsibility for her adult children.

My mum has always been one for guilt-tripping, and I usually sigh and go along with what she wants, but I drew the line at letting her guilt-trip me in the hope that I would guilt-trip my children and save her the bother.

I wold often get 'did X like her birthday card?' questions, as though I would know the answer. Why my mum thinks that my children will tell me about a birthday card I didn't send is beyond me ?. I started as I carried on, and said 'I have no idea - why don't you ask him/her?' and refused to be drawn into a conversation about why they hadn't thanked her for a card.

I did bring my children up to be polite, but as adults they have made their own decisions as to which parts of their upbringing to accept and which to ignore (as all of us did). Like many people of their generation they see a FB thank you for a present as sufficient, and my feelings on the matter don't really come into it.

We all seem to be in the same boat, in that Than Yous are rare from younger generations.
My nephew has three children who are 10, 8 and 6. I came up with the idea of sending a cheque for all three together, suggesting they might put it towards a family game or a trip out that they would all enjoy. I never get a thank you or hear how they have used the money. A text message would be fine, i dont expect more.

I stopped giving gifts to wider family members, in part because money was tight, but if I'm honest that was the reason I needed, because some never thanked us or even acknowledged the gifts. If it was gift vouchers or similar I might not have minded, but a lot of thought and effort went into them all and it's just not nice when you don't even hear if them or their children liked their presents. I've never given to receive but when the parents can't even wish you happy birthday on social media, which they're on constantly, it makes you wonder if you ever register in their consciousness.

I have 3 granddaughters who I had a very close relationship with until the youngest one was 10, and we moved 4 hours away. We still keep in regular contact via text. So when I didn't even receive so much as a birthday card from the oldest 2 who are 19 and 18 last year, I was really disappointed. I mentioned it to my daughter, and she said 'oh, you know what kids are like', and just brushed it off. I told her I felt it was her place to have reminded them that my birthday was approaching, and she said she 'hadn't thought about it'!! It still rankled somewhat, so the next time I spoke to the eldest one, I said 'Oh, thanks for the birthday card', she came back with 'oh, sorry Nana, I didn't think', so I just said well now that you have a job, and expect to be treated as an adult, it's time you learned to do jobs like this off of your own back, you need to keep a diary of some sort to remind you, and not rely on others all the time. After all, how would you feel if I forgot your birthday?' To my surprise, the lesson has been learned, I received a card and small gift in the post last week! My birthday isn't until next week, but she was going on holiday and wanted to be sure that it arrived in time, bless her!! The point of telling you this, is that perhaps their parents haven't done the best job of raising them, and if no one says anything, then they're not going to learn. So perhaps OP, you could send them a text and say something along the lines of I hope you got the baby things I sent, only I haven't received a thank you card yet! You never know, it might just be the kick in the pants they need.

Sadly in my experience it seems the younger generation does not say thank you anymore! They always seem to be on their phones! So how long would it take to say thank you! I get mad then still end up sending gifts/money, DH says I only have my self to blame!!!

I always ask first if hand knitteds are liked. There is no excuse for rudeness and we have all had at one time or another had to pretend a received item is just what we wanted. If they live away from you it's not as if you expect to see the baby wearing it anyway. There are people who send hand knitted garments overseas to babies and children who desperately need them so wool is never wasted.

No, I'd knit something for someone who took the trouble to thank you! We all like to be thanked and not taken for granted. We were taught to always write thank you letters or, better still according to my mother, make phone calls. I taught my boys the same.

I had to do the same in sending pretend 'thank you' notes to some people. ? I think as you made so much effort with the knitting, a thank you should have been sent. Perhaps you could phone them to ask how the baby is and whether the clothes fit etc. I'm sure they will express their thanks. Writing etiquette seems to be disappearing these days I'm afraid.

My niece was 18 in June. I have saved into an account for her by standing order each month as well as paid in part of her birthday and Xmas money since she was born. I gave her a cheque in June for nearly ten thousand pounds on her 18th and I have not had a thank you. I delivered it in person and sat in my brother’s garden where they discussed where to invest it to get the best rate of interest and never thanked me at all. A week later my niece came with my brother to deliver something to me this was the 1st opportunity she had had to thank my husband for the money. Still no thank you to him either.
I’m very sad for her as it isn’t a pleasant reflection of the young adult she has become.

I wouldn’t take it to heart, you could ring them and ask how they are and how’s the baby etc and hope got your things ok. I can’t actually knit with my arthritis but I did buy knitted items for my granddaughter born last nov. So maybe knit some things and sell online to others or put card in your shops ask if anyone would like any thing knitted. I know my daughter inlaw was happy to receive mine but granddaughter was born in the winter.

My mother knitted matinee coats for my 1st Grandaughter 13 years ago. They were beautiful but my son's wife just looked at them and said 'I am not using those, they are old fashioned'. I asked her if she would put them on the baby and photograph them to send a pic. to my mother but she would not even do that.
They could at least say thank you.
I would knit for Knit for Peace, at least they would be appreciated and worn.

*Who's post are you referring to Doodledog because if it's mine I never mentioned a card and I don't think anyone else has either.
No one expects a thank you for a birthday card or Christmas card but if it is accompanied by money or a present then a thank you is appreciated.*
No, not your post. It was above my reply, but I think there must have been a flurry of posts when I sent mine ?

I agree that a thank you is appreciated, and I would always thank people for gifts, but honestly - people are complaining about gifts given five years ago that weren't acknowledged. That's a long time to bear a grudge, and not seeing someone for five years suggests that the recipients weren't very close anyway.

My mum (91) is always complaining to me about her grandchildren not thanking her for the items that she knits for her great grandchildren ( as birthday and Christmas presents ).
Lucily my own children ( 3 daughters in their 30s ) do thank her for their presents for their families but only because I keep on to them.
As for knits, my girls have enjoyed receiving them but it is only my youngest who really wants handknits ( and nothing but handknits ) for her little girl.
So my mum is posing the same question, should she really bother knitting for 6 of her 11 great grandchildren ?
I think the lack of response ( apart from bad manners ) is that those who do not knit actually do not realise the amount of time, effort and love that goes into that knitting , and of course the cost of wool.