A moment to be grateful for your MIL ....

[VapidLapid]

I'm afraid the generation not writing thank you notes could be the reason the post office is so broke. Writing notes is good for the economy. iPhones already have a new generation using nothing but their thumbs. This has already caused an epidemic of dreadful penmanship. Not to write even thank you notes could eventually lead to human evolution with only thumbs, no fingers. Our hands would be like mittens. We would then have only posable thumbs, since without fingers there would be nothing to oppose them. Then the only thing that seems to distinguish us, our culture and our manners from the Bonobos will be lost. In effect then, we will evolve into Bonobos if we don't write thank you notes.

Thanks for taking the time to read my little rant.

 

[JewelFreak]

I also think it's particularly weird to expect a thank you note from a family member who stays with you for a weekend. Even before DH and I were engaged, my parents considered him, as my partner, to be a member of our family.

Yeah, Octavia, the stepmother pretty surely doesn't consider FI a family member! Writing notes to family depends to me on how often you exchange visits & see each other. I don't see my sister more than every 4 or 5 yrs -- so when one of us visits the other, the hostess lays on lotsa cool stuff & goes to trouble. She shoots me an email saying thanks, it was a great time, when she gets home & vice versa. If you do it once a month, etc., it's not such a big deal.

To me, it seems like Heidi could have been on slightly better behavior and made a bit more effort to do things MIL's way, but I also get the impression that no matter what she did, MIL would have found something to complain about.

You got that on the money! My impression is the MIL has a hotsy-totsy image of herself & FI is just too "common" to fit into the stratum MIL imagines she occupies. MIL has proved her own picture pretty inaccurate!

Missoph, hadn't thought about Type I -- good point. It's a lot more inelastic than Type II & you can't mess with its timing requirements. It's critical.

VL

 

[AGBF]

Thanks for taking the time to read my little rant.

My pleasure. You're preaching to the choir. We may be on opposite sides of the fence on whether the mother-in-law had any business writing her e-mail, but I love bread and butter notes and elegant script. I was dismayed when I (briefly) taught middle school a few years ago to learn that my students couldn't decipher what I had written on the blackboard!

Deb/AGBF

 

[merilenda]

I'm surprised y'all don't write thank-you notes when staying for the weekend. I don't anymore when staying with FI's family but the first time I stayed I wrote one.

With this situation...I am more surprised that Freddie did not tell his fiancee more about what was expected...or tell his MIL about any dietary concerns.

Being honest, it never ever ever ever, not even once, crossed my mind to ever do it.

I'm with you, AN. It would never cross my mind to send a written thank you note. And I absolutely wouldn't expect one after someone stayed at my house. Obviously I would verbally thank the hosts, but I wouldn't go on to write a card afterward.