The Midults: I'm cross with my ungrateful goddaughter

Telegraph

2 days ago

Dear A&E,
I have noticed that my 15-year-old goddaughter has not thanked me for a present in the past few years. I send something for every Christmas and birthday, and I used to love getting the little scribbles and drawings. These days I don't even get a text, and it's making me not want to send anything ever again. Should I tell her mother how I feel? Or suck it up because she's a teenager and doesn't prioritise? We used to have a good relationship, but we haven't seen each other much lately.
– Ticked-off
Dear Ticked-off,
Obviously this is rude. Don't we abhor rudeness? Wouldn't it be infinitely more satisfying, given the effort you made, if you were instantly rewarded with a perfectly pitched thank-you letter? ChatGPT would never forget to send a malleable missive, but teenagers aren't AI, and they aren't emotionally intelligent either. They are wandering the world in a hormonal vortex of their own, sliding between one existential crisis and another, triggered by anything from the break-up of their favourite band to pointed whispering on the bus. Not forgetting causes and atrocities, and the horror of skinny jeans returning.
Anyone who disputes this has just forgotten what it is like. Being a teenager is pretty awful; you lose your collective mind. Never forget that there was a national helpline set up when Take That broke up in 1996. Your goddaughter probably (definitely) struggles to say thank you to her actual parents, let alone the random woman who sends her presents every year, as lovely as they may be. Especially since her mother probably (definitely) can no longer be bothered to police the process.
We know, dear Ticked-off, that feeling like some random woman is not nice. Particularly as you clearly take the present-giving aspect of god-parenthood seriously. Most of us would rather avoid buying presents at all – the pressure, the cost, the pressure again. Unless you are Meghan Markle; consider gift-giving one of your many love languages; and are happiest indulging in hours of calligraphy and petal-scattering a day, present buying is extremely stressful. Presents for teenagers? Intimidating. Your goddaughter neglecting to acknowledge this effort? Well, it makes you feel invisible, doesn't it?
We are no strangers to this gratitude vacuum. Emilie, who usually has an extremely long and elastic tether about things, got fed up with a friend of hers' children never responding to the tenners she sent in the post. She stopped. But Emilie was brought up in a feverish 'thank-you letter' environment. One year, she and her sister wrote the thank-yous as they opened their presents.
Emilie slightly regrets her decision to stop sending the money – particularly when she sees how thrilled and grateful her own teenagers are when unexpected things arrive. Even if it takes them a bit of nagging to respond. Annabel's goddaughter went a bit quiet during her teenage years and then astonished her recently with a two-sided love-bomb of a letter. Annabel, impatient in almost every aspect of her life, had decided to hang in there, and she reaped the rewards.
So, perhaps instead of viewing this in strictly transactional terms, why not think a little differently? Here we have two females: one, a teen, feeling confused and buffeted by the world in general, and the other, you, taken for granted. Why not change things up? Instead of sending presents, which were delightful and magical when she was young, you could consider converting this into time and space together. Perhaps you might take her out for an experience.
Instead of walking away, is it time to deepen your relationship? She might appreciate having another sort-of-family-member-but-not grown-up in her life. You might appreciate it too. You could take her out to the theatre or to dinner or for a manicure – Annabel took another set of goddaughters out for lunch and a piercing last Christmas.
Wouldn't it be more rewarding if being a god-parent became about offering yourself up as another trusted adult to help steer your goddaughter's journey through life? Instead of seething at the rudeness (and we still agree it's rude) of teenagers, why not lean into the situation? Why not use this as an opportunity for connection rather than disconnection? Some readers might disapprove of this approach, thinking it wrong to reward bad manners, to double-down when people are behaving in a disappointing fashion.
Sure, you could absolutely cut your goddaughter off, or talk to her mother about the lack of gratitude, and see how that works out for you. Or you could quietly think about how you can reconfigure all this so that you gain something lovely and meaningful, a new set of memories you can cherish as much as the adorable hand-written scribblings of the toddler you once knew. And, dear Ticked-off, with this new relationship, who knows, you might find you get a really beautiful yield.