Dear Etiquetteer:
My sister-in-law and my brother do not communicate with our family but she is on [Insert Social Media Platform Here]. I have sent my nephew cards and cash for holidays and birthdays for many years with no thank-you or acknowledgment. He started sending me thank-you emails this year, 2023. My sister sent me screen shots of my nephew graduating from middle school and should we send a gift? This family has totally ignored our family, even coming out to visit and not making any attempt to visit us. My brother’s wife does interact with my sister. Not even a phone call from my nephew. I’m not inclined to send a gift. How can I respond to my sister without sounding resentful? I’m thinking of just saying I am not planning on sending a gift.
Dear Auntagonistic:
Why correspond with any of your relatives about this at all? The relationship is between you and your nephew, and a high school graduation is a symbolic time to begin to have direct interactions with younger relatives — without their parents as intermediaries. That your nephew has started to acknowledge your generosity this year is an encouraging sign; based on that, Etiquetteer would encourage you to consider a modest gift — perhaps stationery, to make a point, with “I hope to hear from you more often” in the text of your Lovely Note. But if your feelings just don’t let you stretch your generosity that far, best to send only a Heartfelt Note of Congratulations.
All that said, gifts should not be given with the expectation of thanks (even though we do expect it) but with the desire to please the recipient. (Gifts that the recipient does not desire should prompt them to consider what the giver wanted to express and to consider their own position of privilege. Recipients need to understand that the desire to please is the most important part of this, not actually pleasing.)
The larger question is, how much of a relationship do you want to have with your brother’s family in general, and your sister-in-law specifically? Your tone makes Etiquetteer think, well, not much. Suppose you did just send a Lovely Note of Congratulations without a gift, and your sister-in-law complained to you (or your sister) about it. Rather than be cowed into sending a gift after all, it’s then time to have a Discussion About Feelings. Always with an air of Infinite Regret, cite specific examples of how your sister-in-law’s disinterest in your family has led you to believe that she only values you for your generosity toward her children — from whom you have heard directly only once in the many years that you’ve sent gifts. Explain kindly that you need to direct your emotional and financial largesse where it’s truly appreciated.
To keep this from becoming a full-blown feud, you need to maintain that air of Infinite Regret — don’t lose your cool — and keep the focus on how your sister-in-law’s actions (and inactions) have impacted you. Etiquetteer wishes you clearer air and strengthened family ties.
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Erty-farf years ago Etiquetteer graduated from high school, and received many gifts from relatives and friends of the family. The most memorable was a giant clothespin, a desktop device to organize bills, engraved with the legend “Just when you start to make ends meet, they move the ends!” But of all the engraved pens (all sadly lost), books, checks and other things received, the most useful and used has been a traveling nail kit from the local drugstore. To this day it doesn’t fail to conjure an image of the giver. Which just goes to show, you never know what sort of gift is really going to make a lasting impact.