On the Difficulty of Thank You Notes

I knew that when I became a parent, the day would come when I would inevitably repeat a power-struggle from my childhood but with the roles reversed. That day happened a few weeks ago when I found myself threatening my 6-year-old son. “If you don’t do write this thank you note, I’ll take away your screentime,” I hissed.

To be fair to Stanley, our post-Christmas thank you note writing session had started well. I’d gotten out bright stationery and cards. He found it great fun to stick address labels and stamps on the envelopes, but when it came to writing out the notes in his wonky first-grade penmanship his patience waned. This was the Christmas of Legos, so by the fourth round of scrawling, “Thank you for the Legos,” he was done. Cue meltdown. Cue me flashing to my own meltdowns when my mother made me write Christmas gift thank yous.

This year I enjoyed typing out my thank yous on my 1965 Olympia SM7, but I haven’t always loved writing thank you notes. As a college writing instructor, I see firsthand how any obligatory writing task incites dread. It’s intellectual labor that forces the writer to express something in words that may not be a true expression of who they are or how they feel. The thank you note is all too often coercion in the name of social duty, imprisonment in a formula:

Dear So-and-So,

Thank you for the such-and-such. I look forward to something-or-othering with it. Sincerely, Your gift recipient.

I used to receive a lot of thanks you that used this template (ones that may have satisfied Emily Post’s requisites but felt dead and rote). They arrived reliably in my mailbox after I’d mindlessly ordered a gift off someone’s digital wedding registry, and in what seemed an equally fair exchange, the recipient mindlessly fired off a rote thank you note in return. We were equally jumping through the hoops of social conventions and barely clearing the low bar of expectations, but we did it. Thankfulness is tangled up in duty. In its synonym list for gratitude, the Oxford Languages Dictionary lists: “sense of obligation.”

I wrote my own obligatory thank yous after my wedding. Like Stanley, I chafed at the tediousness and struggled to find meaningful connection when I wrote: “Thank you for the salad bowl. I look forward to the salads I will make in it” to a friend of my parents who I didn’t know very well. There was also the sheer quantity of notes to write. Even though we’d had a small wedding—we had received at least 50 gifts.  

Something shifted years later when I started receiving baby gifts. The first few weeks of Stanley’s life, I found a small routine of sitting down during his afternoon nap time to write out 2 or 3 thank you notes, and my heart shimmered with gratitude.

Why now? Why did I look forward to this quiet ritual? Was it just the slurry of those postpartum hormones making me an emotional mushball? Maybe. But I think that what touched me so much was that I hadn’t expected the gifts. I hadn’t been thrown a baby shower, few of my close friends were parents themselves, and yet, the gifts kept arriving, unbidden at our doorstep: onesies, pastel swaddling blankets, Dr. Seuss board books, a hooded bath towel with bear ears, packages of impossibly tiny socks that would soon disappear into the laundry ether. Big presents, too: a highchair, an electric baby swing, a bassinet. It was all so overwhelming and beautiful—this outpouring of gifts without the social formality of a baby shower. In the social exchange, these people didn’t even get any tea sandwiches or a slice of cake, but they gave anyway. Expectations breed entitlement, and when one feels entitled to a gift, there’s very little room for genuine gratitude. I’d expected wedding gifts; I hadn’t expected baby gifts.

Practicing gratitude is possible, I learned. Fifteen years ago in a Quaker spiritual formation group, I’d set a year-long intention to make gratitude a spiritual practice. It clued me into noticing the good, the abundance, and the privilege I was so often gifted, not by earning it or deserving it, but just receiving it from the divine goodness of the Universe. Grace is all round me if I pay attention. In her wonderful book, Wake Up Grateful: The Transformative Practice of Taking Nothing for Granted Kristi Nelson explores the wisdom of practicing gratitude. She points out that gratitude keeps us awake to the things that matter most, and alerts us to the joy and abundance around us. (2,312 new Lego blocks!)  

Keeping a formal gratitude journal is not one of this year’s resolutions, but my 2024 Word-of-the-Year is Noticing. I want this to be a year in which nothing is lost on me, in which I notice what is important—and that includes noticing all the gifts that are bestowed on me (large and small, expected and unexpected, formal and frivolous). Noticing is a path to living with intention, to truly appreciating those who make my life better, and to cultivating contentment.

Being thankful can’t be forced on others. Whenever I host Thanksgiving dinner, I offer small note cards for guests to write gratitude statements, and I’ve noticed people either love it or hate it. Some friends gladly fill dozens cards full of appreciative gushing: for my cat who makes me laugh, for sunshine, for my family, for chocolate, for clean water. Some refuse to write even one, saying no thanking to my cajoling [I’m thankful for such-and such]. Gratitude can be weaponized, especially toward kids. “You better be grateful for this, you little shit. Do you have any idea how hard I worked so you can have this? Do you know the sacrifice?”

I don’t want Stanley to think that thankfulness is only something we fake because social convention calls for it, but forcing him to write out, over and over, Thank you for the Legos, looks a lot like it. I want him to see thank you writing as a way to reflect on the good things he has received, the joy these things bring him, and to let the giver know this directly—in writing—because receiving a piece of personal snail mail is a surprising delight. In a New York Times article, “Do Thank You Notes Still Matter?” Shivani Vora argues:

“A handwritten thank-you note isn’t just a time-honored art, it’s an act of thoughtfulness that makes our society a better place by encouraging a spirit of generosity and appreciation.”

That’s the kind of world I want Stanley to notice.  

As I’m cajoling him to finish the last card, that’s how I try to entice him: “Imagine how happy Grammy will be when she opens your letter!” I chirp. “Isn’t it exciting that she’ll get special mail from you?”

He’s not easily baited by my leading questions. “It will take you just a few seconds to finish. You can do it!” He writes the last few words in a scramble of lower- and upper-case letters, his meltdown having taken ten times longer than doing the task. A lot of parenting looks like this: making my child do something I believe is good for him to instill the values I want him to cherish.

Stanley hasn’t had any problems loving his gifts this year. He rapaciously assembled all his Lego set gifts in a span of 5 days, working hours at a time in focused concentration. I want to remind him how good these gifts make him feel. I want him to understand that pointing that out to the giver, is a wonderful generosity too.

When a gift generates something good in our lives, it should be…well…noticed. All the better if that notice comes in writing on beautiful stationery.

---

Reflection and Comment Sparks:

• Do you make your kids write thank you notes?

• Do you have a practice of gratitude? What does that look like?

• What’s your relationship to the expectation of writing thank you notes?

---