<p>I am the godparent to my cousin’s child. When we were growing up, my cousin and I were close and later on in life, we kind of grew apart. I was surprised and honored when he asked me to be his child’s godparent. They live many states away and I cannot really visit often. We don’t really communicate except for the occasional visit when we are in each other’s state. I thought that we would communicate more often at least by email after the Christening but this has not really happened. I send birthday gifts to my godchild and Christmas gifts to all their children (3). Except for one year, my kids never received gifts or birthday cards from them and that one year they sent gift cards, I sent a quick thank you email. After many years of sending gifts and cards (the child is 9), I find that I have become annoyed at the fact that this is not acknowledged. I don’t expect the child to send me a thank you note, but I do expect one of the parents to say, “hey, we received the gift, thanks”. Once in all the years, they sent me a picture of the child with the gift.</p>
<p>So this year I am wondering how long do I need to keep doing this? Especially, at Christmas, it is expensive to send three gifts when I have other nieces and nephews I could splurge on. Appreciate your thoughts.</p>
<p>Personally, when a gift becomes nothing but an obligation, I stop giving. It sounds like you’ve reached that point.<br>
It is expensive to send gifts, to be sure. If you don’t feel like stopping altogether, a small gift of cash in a card with a note of good wishes might be the way to go.</p>
<p>But you should - that’s basic good manners. The fact that you don’t even get an acknowledgement of your gifts says a lot (about the parents, not the child). I would stop sending gifts but, if you want to stay in contact with your godchild, keep up the cards and write something personal to him/her in them.</p>
<p>The way I see it, you are referring to a social contract of sorts. You are doing the traditional, thoughtful and polite thing expected of a godparent - sending cards and gifts. The appropriate response would be a note of thanks, at a minimum, and now that the “child” is an adult, a reciprocal gift would also be nice. In this case, the godchild has made it abundantly clear that s/he does not choose to participate in this social ritual. The gifts may even provoke a feeling of guilt and thus unhappiness as this person knows s/he should respond. In my opinion, you should stop sending gifts entirely. Send a card and friendly note expressing good wishes at the holidays.</p>
<p>I have had this experience with relatives and when it was clear to me that they didn’t want to participate in the gift ritual, I stopped. To be specific, I finally asked one of my brothers if the gifts for his kids arrived. He said “I don’t know, what did you send?” When I told him what his daughter’s gift was, he said “Well I guess she put it with her other one.” Needless to say, I never sent another package and I actually feel much better about our relationship now and am no longer annoyed or resentful. I continue to give gifts to another brother because I receive phone calls or sometimes lovely handwritten notes from the kids. Clearly they appreciate receiving the gifts and thus I enjoy sending them.</p>
<p>Thank you for your replies. I guess I did not expect a note from the child, since she is 9 and I know how they can procrastinate on that issue. I agree, it would be good manners to do so and I have hounded my own kids write thank you notes when they receive gifts from people. That said, at the very least, I expect the parents to acknowledge the gift on behalf of the child. I mean, they get the mail or sign for packages so they should be aware of what came in. The mom is a stay at home mom, so a parent is usually home to sign for stuff.</p>
<p>I think I am leaning towards stopping the gifts. It does not make sense for me to spend money and time searching for a gift that is not appreciated.</p>
You never ‘need’ to send a gift. Since you clearly no longer want to send the gifts then just quit sending them. You can always still send a card if you want but you’re not obliged to do that either. The behavior of the parents is rude and they’ve apparently not taught their kids how to politely acknowledge a gift.</p>
<p>Is your cousin still sending Christmas gifts to your children? Are you going to suggest that they stop, or how do you plan to handle that? </p>
<p>I agree that they should have acknowledged receipt of the gifts you have send in some manner. However, I think that actual thank-you notes among family members are expected in some families and not so much in others.</p>
<p>I’m glad I was never asked to be a godparent because the expectations are unclear (to me) and families often grow apart, making the whole thing kind of awkward.</p>
<p>I’ve been in, or observed, a number of relationships in which the two parties had differing expectations about the exchange of birthday or Christmas presents. Often the person who does not want to exchange gifts finds it difficult to explain that to the more gifty person.</p>
<p>I have a different take on this. I believe that the role of godparent is a sacred commitment made by the godparent to the child. It’s not just a social compact. If all you are doing is sending gifts a couple of times a year, I ask you why that’s all you are doing. Why aren’t you calling your godchild often to find out how he or she is doing, to remind him or her that you are always there for him or her and that you want to be a part of his or her life even if you aren’t close by. THank you notes are right and appropriate, but you made some promises in church that you should take seriously as the adult in this relationship. I don’t think you walk away from such an important relationship because of a breach of etiquette. If you find his or her manners lacking, why not try to model better ones. In a general relationship, I’d be all about stopping the gifts, but not to a minor godchild. The responsibility is on you.</p>
This makes me wonder why they chose you to be the godparent unless it was just a formality of some kind in their eyes. Since being a godparent implies a religious connection and perhaps some obligations you may want to discuss this with a minister of your church and seek guidance from him/her. Zoosermom has a good point.</p>
<p>zoosermom, I believe the OP has stated that the godchild is the parent of a 9 year old, so not a minor at all. I wasn’t suggesting that she walk away from the relationship, any more than I ended my relationship with my brother. Are you suggesting that lifelong gifts are an essential element of the sacred commitment made by a godparent?</p>
<p>Also (and I hate to generalize), if your relationship is with the father of the godchild, it doesn’t surprise me at all because many men rely upon their wives for family/social things.</p>
<p>Sending thank you notes is becoming a lost art. The rule in our house was you needed to send a thank you note to anyone that sent you a gift that you did not open and thank in their pressence. My kids were required to send them by Jan 1 for Christmas presents. It didn’t need to be anything much, just: “Dear xxx, Thank you very much for the yyyy. I really like it and have played/worn it… Love, zzz”. Once they could write, it was their responsibility. (when they were younger, they dictated it to me & I wrote it down and let them sign it.).</p>
<p>Interesting thread. I liked the different viewpoints. I think I mostly agree with Puzzled88. You continue the <em>relationship</em> and the important obligations of your godparent role, but that doesn’t at all mean you have to keep sending gifts. It doesn’t sound like the family expects this nor even appreciates gift giving (people definitely have different values around gift giving). I think it would be much healthier all around to maintain the relationship in other ways.</p>
<p>Skyhook, they only sent gifts to my children once. My oldest child is now 19. Since we grew apart as we became adults, I was surprised when they asked me to be the child’s godparent. </p>
<p>For everyone else the godchild is 9 years old. We live a plane ride away. Whenever I am near their home, I arrange to visit them. They have done the same when they are near me. This of course, does not happen often. So, it is a bit difficult to be in this child’s life from such a distance. I have reached out to my cousin or his wife over email or phone over the years, but my cousin travels a lot and the wife and I don’t know each other well nor have much in common so conversations have been brief. When we have spoken, I have asked to speak to the child and we have had a brief conversation. Of course, the child feels awkward doing this. I don’t blame her. So, the best I can do at this point is send gifts for important events and visit whenever I can. If distance was not an issue, I would be more involved. Since my cousin works long hours and travels often, I guess he does rely on the wife to handle the family stuff.</p>
<p>I don’t want to end my relationship with them, I am just re-evaluating whether it is necessary to keep sending gifts. </p>
<p>Choosing godparents is not always easy. In my case, D1’s godparents have disappeared from our lives over 10 years now. Their lives took a different turn. Unfortunately, at that time, they were were our first choice because we were such great friends and our siblings were too young to be given the responsibility. For D2, we picked my brother and his wife and since they live nearby they are big part of our lives.</p>
<p>In that case, my guess is that your cousin and his wife will actually be hugely relieved if you stop sending gifts. They have probably been feeling guilty all these years and didn’t know how to tell you.</p>
<p>Perhaps, but I think the could have told me when I have called or emailed to inquire about sizes, color preference or Christmas and birthday lists. They happily provided the info.</p>
<p>I won’t comment on what the role of a good godparent is, as that is not what you asked.</p>
<p>As to continuing to send gifts, I am with those who say that you are NEVER obligated to send gifts. To anyone.</p>
<p>In addition, I am with those who say that you should, indeed, expect a Thank-You note (or call or email) from a 9-year old. If the parents are not doing their job in that regard (and it is the parents’ job, imo to train their children to make appropriate thank-yous), then the parents should be thanking you on the child’s behalf. That is not very good parenting, imo, but it is better than nothing.</p>
<p>When he was too young to write a note, we did it together, with him signing his name in typical pre-kindergarten fashion as soon as he was able.</p>
<p>In raising my son, now an adult, our rule was that you sent a thank you before using the gift. Worked beautifully. I did not require him to send a thank you note if he had thanked the giver in person, and I might have felt that a thank-you long distance call would be ok, if he pushed it, but he didn’t.</p>
<p>If a child is too busy to send a note then s/he is too busy to play with/wear the gift. And not many of them are too busy for that :).</p>
<p>“I send birthday gifts to my godchild and Christmas gifts to all their children”</p>
<p>Ah, so I am the one who misunderstood this and thought the children belonged to the godchild. In any case, I still think you should stop with the gifts. Perhaps when the child is older and more independent, you will get the chance to build an actual relationship. This has happened with our goddaughter whom we barely saw when she was growing up as we lived in a different countries for many years and then on opposite coasts the rest of the time. She recently spent a couple of years closer to us during grad school and we now have a wonderful adult relationship. I actually enjoy sending her gifts much more now as I’ve gotten to know her hobbies and interests. And she sends us very gracious thank you notes via snail mail - obviously raised right!!</p>