Carolyn Hax: Bad manners allowed under mom’s roof

Dear Carolyn: My late son’s daughter became 17 last month. I live 1,500 miles away and never failed to send her cards for every holiday and birthday, with a modest amount of money. In all these years, I’ve received just one birthday card from her. This year I just balked near her birthday and mailed her a note saying (politely) WHY I wasn’t sending anything. I said I wouldn’t bother telling her if I didn’t love her as much as I do, but that she should be thoughtful toward others as they’ve been toward her – at least a card, a phone call to say thank you, something. I said she’s a sweet and intelligent girl, and believed she’d realize what I was saying was true.

Her mother called, left a message saying that I was “(expletiving) terrible” and wasn’t to contact my granddaughter ever again!

Even one of my own daughters thinks I’m being unfair and says it’s hard to get “kids” to write thank-you notes. Either I’m being selfish and don’t know it, or I’m one of few grandparents willing to be thought “mean” and tell a grandchild something no one else is telling her. Maybe I should’ve just stopped sending cards and said nothing? – K.

It may be hard to get kids to write thank-you notes, but it isn’t hard for a parent to embargo gifts until their kids learn some manners.

And while it’s hard for me to evaluate your approach without reading your entire note or knowing your entire history with the mother, it isn’t hard to know that, regardless, the mother’s response redefines “(expletiving) terrible.” She didn’t like the way you made your point, so she attacked the point itself, about 15 laws of common decency, and a well-meaning grandmother who is the girl’s closest tie to her dead father? Wow.

That the mother not only condoned her daughter’s rudeness, but also lobbed a bomb of her own, in its sad way proves both the necessity of what you did, and the futility.

At least in the short term. As long as she’s in her mom’s house, your granddaughter is shielded from any hard lessons by a bubble-wrap of entitlement, excuses and blame. That’s a hard education to unlearn, but some people do manage; maybe, just maybe, when she’s a few years older and out of her mother’s claws, she’ll grow mature and receptive to you.