Dear Eric: My daughter got married a year ago and decided to have a wedding with immediate family members only due to the huge family on the groom’s side (the wedding was still about 100 people). It was planned on the West Coast (we are on the East Coast).
Some of my friends sent them a gift, knowing why they were not invited but three of my close friends didn’t send anything (even a card would have been thoughtful). I’ve sent their kids very generous gifts.
One, I couldn’t attend (it was during Covid and the other was far away and very expensive to get to).
One of the other ones, we traveled to her daughter’s wedding, spent a fortune to stay in a hotel and gave her a generous cash gift. I mean, really, nothing from her? She wouldn’t have gone to the wedding if she had been invited. I’m so disappointed. I feel like even a small gift would have been nice. They have known my daughter since she was little. I’m having trouble letting it go. It just feels cheap. Some of my friends are shocked that they didn’t do anything.
– Giftless
Dear Giftless: You’re right, it would have been nice if they’d sent a gift. When it comes to children and grandchildren of friends, wedding gifts and other gestures for special occasions can become extensions of the central friendship. A gift to your kid is also (perhaps, primarily) a gift to you. So, I can see why this stings.
The answers to two questions might help de-escalate this situation.
First, did your daughter send out wedding announcements? Even if other people know about a wedding or other special event, it simply may not occur to them to send a gift without the trigger of a piece of cardstock in the mail. It’s a weird system, perhaps, but an announcement can serve as an indication that the couple is open to gifts, and help guests figure out where to send them. Without it, life can get in the way and gifts can fall to the wayside.
So, if your friends didn’t receive announcements, this may not be a one-to-one comparison with the weddings to which you were invited.
The second question is, does your daughter have any feelings about this? Often, in life’s biggest events, the gifts you get feel so thoughtful and generous that one doesn’t really think about the gifts that one didn’t get. Is it possible that your daughter doesn’t have the same expectations of your friends?
If so, you’re still perfectly within your right to hold them to a different standard. But, for the sake of peace of mind, it’s important to remember that everyone’s expectations of themselves and of others are different.
Dear Eric: This is not an earth-shattering question, yet I’d appreciate an opinion. We
call our firstborn son by his middle name because his first is the same as his father’s middle, who also goes by his middle name. This practice goes back generations on my husband’s father’s side. Imagine my confusion, years ago, when I learned of the tradition and discovered that our as-yet-unconceived son had already been given a first name (but we could choose the middle).
I’ve made my peace with the tradition despite its oddness (personal opinion). Now our son is going on four, ripe for learning and spelling his entire name and I’m worried he’ll be confused and in turn confuse others when we try to explain that his real first name is actually his daddy’s. I’m already cringing. I may or may not have noticed your name as an example of an elegant solution, but is it?
– Name Game
Dear Name: Well, the elegance of my nomenclature is up for debate. In high school, when I first started using my first initial, a teacher told me, “Eric, there’s a thin line between class and pretension.” Can you believe that? The audacity still makes me laugh and laugh.
Suffice it to say, your son will have plenty of opportunity to choose class, pretension or something else on his journey of self-expression. If you call him by his middle name, he may eventually choose to use his first. If you call him by his first name, he may choose his middle name. If he becomes a pop star later in life, he may choose a whole new name. All of those are just fine. But, for now, he’ll be able to understand the concept of a full name and that some parts of the name are used conversationally and others aren’t.
A name is an offering from a parent. And like all the myriad offerings of parenthood, one hopes that it is of use. But even if that use changes, it doesn’t make it less valuable.
(Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at eric@askingeric.com or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.)
