Tag: Showers

As a long-term reader of this site, I’ve come cross many “baby shower” related stories. This is another.

I’m in the UK and the Baby Shower has only very recently made it’s way to us from the US – I’d say within the last five years or so. Admittedly, I know very little about the whole “process” as I don’t have any children nor do a lot of my friends. My family members who have recently had children didn’t have a Baby Shower.

I am currently 27 weeks pregnant with my first (a little girl!) and I’m beyond excited about her arrival. I work full time and I’m quite organised so I budgeted carefully over the past six months or so and managed to purchase the majority of equipment/clothes/nursery furniture for her arrival (with the help of my partner). Of course there are still a few items I need to buy as well as stocking up on nappies and more general things like that – but I’m getting there! I haven’t asked for help or money from parents and I haven’t been gifted anything for the baby just yet.

Having said that, the girls in my office are constantly asking when I’m throwing my Baby Shower. As my pregnancy progresses, the asking has turned to Impatient Demanding near enough with comments such as “you must get this Baby Shower arranged” and “you need to let us know the date of your shower so we can work around it” – also it’ll be thrown into conversations “X will be good for the baby shower!”. These women are excited and impatient about a Shower I have no intention of throwing.

I have said each time the shower was mentioned that I won’t be arranging one. Each time I am met with horrified stares or confusion and so I elaborate further with my reasons – I don’t require one & I am not comfortable with the idea of one and I certainly won’t be throwing myself one. This is met with more strange looks as though I’m being rude and anti social. I suggested instead of a shower situation, we could all go out for a nice lunch before I head off on maternity leave and we can do all the “baby discussions” there! I’m not adverse to receiving gifts for my baby – in fact I’d be so touched – but I certainly don’t want it to be a requirement. The lunch idea was met with near silence pretty much. This isn’t what they had in mind.

I was wondering how I go about this situation now? I’ve already been clear about my personal opinions on the shower idea and tried to suggest an alternative that’ll still show that I’m grateful for their effort and support but I am still being hassled about throwing myself a shower. The rude part of me feels like saying “if you want the shower so much then YOU throw me one” but that seems aggressive and still goes against all my above reasons for not wanting one anyway. I feel these women are getting quite offended by my declining now. Do I .. throw MYSELF a shower anyway just to please them? 0617-18

You have co-workers who are not out for your best interests but rather theirs.   They are cruel to offer gifts only under the condition that you host a party.   If you want baby gifts you’ll have to work for them.  Even worse is the implied exchange of baby gifts for your expenditure of time AND money to host a party for yourself.  This isn’t kindness and generosity, it’s bartering of goods and services.   Their free time beyond work is far more important than yours since hosting a party in your honor is obviously too onerous to even consider doing.

As has been written here on Ehell many times,  you are under no obligation to cater to the demands of rude people who insist you behave in ways you are not comfortable doing.

Think of your remaining weeks at work as preparation for parenthood of very small children.   Demanding, incessant whining, selfishness, confusion when confronted with “No”, tantrums, etc., are all childish behaviors every parent encounters when rearing and child training their offspring to eventually be good adults.

In case it’s a regional thing, let me explain the event where this occurred. By some of the language and terminology I get the impression that many of the readers are in the UK, but I could be wrong. Diapers are what we call “nappies.” (please feel free to edit this part out if I am wrong)

Around these parts (rural Ohio, USA) instead of a baby shower, expecting parents opt to host what we call a “diaper party.” The attitude is very casual and it’s an all-family event as opposed to just the women at a shower. The understood message is “we don’t want or need gifts, but these are the brand of diapers & wipes we will use, so please bring a pack for us to use when the baby arrives.” No need to wrap since it’s not a surprise present, no guessing, no “will they like this,” and everyone wins.

I recently attended one of these parties hosted by a couple I know who is expecting. They are not “best friends” of mine, but we see each other often and they host many events where I am always invited and welcomed.

Seeing as they often host and I do not have the means to reciprocate (I live in an apartment with roommates) I try to compensate with my bringings to show my appreciation for the invitation. This party was no different. I was at our local warehouse store (Costco, Sams, BJ’s, that sort of thing) and picked up a box of diapers, about $45.00 USD for a box of 174. I found a cute card, taped it securely to the box, and attended the party.

When I arrived, there was the usual groups of guests – some were sitting in the family room watching a sporting event on TV, and the rest were outside playing yard games and enjoying the weather. I was told, “Go on and leave your gifts on the table over there, grab a bite to eat, and join the fun,” which I did. I met up with friends outside until it was time to go inside and open the gifts. I did mention before that it was all about the diapers, but some close friends did bring onesies, toys, and other personal things. Also the couple was able to thank everyone in a group setting as they saw who brought what. Again, very casual.

The gifts were opened, people ooh’ed and ahh’d over the outfits, and guests were thanked as their diaper boxes were seen. I heard my name called, and “Hey, thank you for bringing these! Good to see you again,” while the mother-to-be held up a 12-pack box with my card attached and waved at me. I smiled and responded appropriately, immediately realizing that someone had switched the cards on my box and a smaller one, and took credit for the very large package while leaving me with the smaller one. I did not see who was thanked for my box, so I don’t know who did the switch.

This was several months ago, and for some reason it bugged me again today. I realize that in the grand scheme of things, the family still has the same amount of diapers to use, I won’t be unfriended either in real life or on social media, and the world will continue to turn. I wasn’t expecting the family to pick me up and carry me around the room and cheer for my generosity. However, it was very irritating to know that I made a generous purchase for my friends and someone else took credit for it.

What should I have done in this situation to make things right? I didn’t want to make a scene or otherwise ruin the parents’ special day. Too much time has passed and it would be silly to ever bring it up. However, if I were to ever experience this sort of thing again, how should it be handled? Or do you just smile knowing that the recipient has a gift to enjoy regardless of who it was from, and go on enjoying the party?   0402-17

For all you know, your card fell off the package of diapers and someone reattached it to whatever box of diapers appeared to be cardless.   I’m not sure there is any gracious way to point out that the diapers you are being thanked for are not the ones you bought. I suggest taping the card using a very distinctive tape or use duct tape which comes in all kinds of colors and patterns.   Better yet, make a diaper “cake”!

I’m writing mostly for help. I have a horrible track record of ending up in ehell where showers are concerned and I’m worried I’ll end up with yet another one. I’m hoping maybe you can help me protect myself. I may be worrying over nothing however. I’m pregnant with my second child. I’m mostly afraid a friend of mine will decide to throw me a shower and I’ll be unable to get out of it. She had a Gender Reveal/Sprinkle for her own second child. And if she offers I’m not sure how to decline without telling her I believe showers for 2nd children in most cases are tacky. But I can’t tell her that since she had a shower for her 2nd child in a manner I found extra tacky, and it would be rude to let on I felt that way.

If it helps here’s my past shower offenses. Please feel free to edit as needed or even leave out entirely. For our Wedding, my husband and I had to move the date up by about 6 months suddenly because of the economy. As such I had about 2 months to plan/replan the wedding. I chopped my guest list and switched to the chapel at our church (instead of the larger sanctuary), so that I could get a room at a nice restaurant for the reception instead of trying to find a caterer and a hall. Well, our church women’s group always held showers for brides and 1st time mothers-to-be. When the lady in charge of Women’s ministries contacted me about the shower I told her I wasn’t going to have one since I didn’t have the time and could not invite the whole church like most of the couple from the church did when they got married. (This is generally an insert in the bulletin saying anyone in the church is welcome to attend the wedding at date and time, not full formal invitations to each member.) Well she insisted they had to have a shower for me since it’ll cause problems in the church if they start having them for some people and not others. Well, I didn’t feel right about causing problems for her by refusing so I let her have it. So the big faux pas was having a shower where the vast majority of the guests were not invited to the wedding.

For my first baby I had two showers, which is a bit tacky in and of itself, but the only overlap of people was myself, my mom, and my sister-in-law, so not too awful. The first one was a family/friends shower. My aunt, and cousin planned it with some help from my mom. I know family is not supposed to plan showers, but they didn’t ask me if they could. They called me up one day with a theme picked out, decorations already bought, and some progress on the games and food to pin down a date that worked for me. This was the first I’d heard of it. My aunt and cousin are both pretty strapped for money and I didn’t know how to tell them that it was rude for them to host the shower and all their work and money spent was for nothing, so I went along with it. Doubly so because this aunt was a huge help while I was crash planning the wedding. She called and set up appointments for me with florists, restaurants, and cake places while I was at work. (She was basically housebound on disability at the time) They are both people who just love to do for others and are not generally people I would consider presumptuous or controlling. I certainly didn’t feel any need to nip anything in the bud. 3 years later, I can say I was right about that.

The church shower, they asked my parents small group to plan for me. So the only real faux pas was my mother was again in the thick of the planning. Again it was half planned before anyone said anything to me about it. I’d say it was less of a faux pas in this case since as I stated before the church had showers for ALL first time moms anyway.

The church isn’t a concern this time around since A. they only do stuff for first time moms and B. We no longer go there. Our current church doesn’t do anything for moms, there are much too many of them. My family/friends shower was rather early (the Saturday before Thanksgiving) because I was due February 5th, but at high risk for pre-term labor and my aunt wanted it before her surgery scheduled on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Also we wanted to avoid Christmas craziness. None of my friends offered to or hinted they were planning a shower last time, but with the early shower I’m afraid they just got beat to the punch. Hopefully, I’m worried over nothing. But I really don’t want to get caught unprepared again. 1127-13

It is possible to get out of attending a baby shower in your honor without explaining to anyone that you consider second and more showers to be an etiquette faux.  When asked for a date that would be convenient for you be in attendance at a shower, sigh and say, “It looks like my calendar is full .”    That won’t prevent a surprise shower and to be honest, you shouldn’t expect one.   But if it happens, be gracious.  A good friend surprised me with a baby shower for my second child. I had no idea and was totally caught off guard when I opened the door to her home and met a dozen women yelling “Surprise!”  You go with the flow and behave kindly.

Last year I was invited to a “gift card” baby shower. According to the emailed invitation, it was hosted by the daddy-to-be’s sister and the mother-to-be’s friend at a modestly priced restaurant over the brunch hour.

There were about 15 of us in total, including the guest of honour, and the baby’s two grandmothers. We were seated at a series of pushed together tables at the back of the restaurant, but not in a private section, so lots of other patrons around us. The cards and little bags we brought were put into a corner for safety and not acknowledged at all. There were three tiny balloons on little stands on top of the set of tables as “decoration”.

We all ordered our breakfasts from the regular menu and basically just chatted for about an hour or so. No games, no special menu, no speech from the mother-to-be, nothing at all.

At the end of the meal, the waitress came around and handed out individual bills for each of us. My jaw probably hit the floor at that point, but what could I do? At that point in time, the two grandmothers “fought” over the mother-to-be’s bill because she had also been presented with a bill! I quietly paid for my breakfast, wished the mother-to-be luck and left.

What could I have done? I definitely feel like a bait and switch had been pulled on me. When an event is hosted, doesn’t that mean that they are paying for the guests to eat? Had I known I would have been paying my own way I would have declined, or at least decreased the dollar amount of my very generous gift card. 0324-15

I hate to say it but in this day and age, I think it is wise to presume people are rude boors and go prepared to pay your own way.    If the hosts actually pay for the meals, it will be a delightful and unusual surprise.