Kay's mom sent us a

Kay's mom sent us a Valentine's Day card, which was nice. While the thought was nice, I was a bit concerned with the copy on the card. It was a flowery, frilly card with that script font you see on wedding invitations, and it read on the front precisely as follows:


Happy Valentine's Day to my daughter and "son"
Do you see the problem? Why does the word "son" have quotation marks around it? Does it not mean I'm part of the family? Is there a special section of a Hallmark store devoted to parents that might not be completely sure they accept someone into the family? Kay says to take the quotes out insinuates that perhaps a mother's offspring have married each other. I'm sure there are heated debates down at Hallmark HQ over this, but as a recipient of their fine cards, I can't get over how a couple punctuation marks change a message entirely. To wit:

I like sauerkraut.

I "like" sauerkraut.

See the difference? I'm probably reading too much into it though. It was a nice gesture and a nice card, and I don't think Kay's mom purposely picked it based on any weird implied message.