AIBU to find a baby shower wish list a bit grabby?

I guess if I was invited to such an event I'd presume I was expected to supply a gift. But I may be unsure of whether it should be for mum or baby. So maybe the list could be helpful. But only if it was within my budget.

I'd just put cash in a card I suppose.

have you ever actually been to a baby shower?

Only because literally nobody has said that either as attendees OR hosts they expect to give/receive two sets of gifts, in fact the opposite. I've never heard of anyone doing both. In my experience the vast majority of people give giftsts at the shower, as that is part of its purpose but if they would prefer to wait until the baby is born that's fine too - I've never known anyone to give presents twice nor known any parents who have expected that.

You seem to have manufactured outrage at a situation of your own imagining.

So this wasn’t your post:

Just stop and think. As an expectant triplet mum you need to buy many things in TRIPLICATE. That is why I had a suggested gift list. People rallied together to help us at an extraordinary time with THREE premature babies on the way. The financial implications short and long term are huge. They wanted guidance on what was needed to help to practically support us as a family and they asked for a gift list. It’s extraordinary that you think this is grabby. I only hope you don’t have to fund three newborns at once with little chance of getting back to work anytime soon. Extraordinary view.

It reads as quite rude. The last two sentences were particularly snarky.

Interpretation of the written word can be inaccurate of course and you may not have intended it like that.

I can’t stand baby showers, I’m so glad I’m in my 40s now and those days seem to be behind me, I completely bypassed gender reveal which I think is even worse. My friend had a gift list, I adore my friend but I remember thinking it was embarrassing that she did that. I always felt as though I had to get another present when I went to visit the baby too. I didn’t have a baby shower as I didnt want one. One girl I know had 5 kids and had one each baby!! It’s so grabby if u ask me.

The younger generation are doing it.

Yes, I think it is grabby, especially when they put items over £100.

These lists often include items which are contradictory, for example a breast pump, then lots of bottles to help give them formula.

It's stupid and grabby

as another poster pointed you, you’ve mixed up the people you are arguing with and giving lake America vibes. Gifts yes, registry seems to be dependent on where you live. I literally said I follow the registry rule for my American friends because I get that it’s what’s done there, but it’s typically not done where I’m from but you seemed to passionately believe that what I’ve attended are fake showers and not worthy of the name. We could start a mission to call them pre childbirth get togethers with optional gifts but I doubt it will take off.

How does my post come across as “incredibly demanding” which part?

i said it was a suggested gift list not a mandatory requirement.

if your friend was having three babies at once (or one for that matter) and said - “listen we have loads to buy, here is a suggested list of things we need to give you some ideas” why would you find that demanding? Why is that grabby? Personally I find it helpful to have a guide and I can buy something that’s useful and needed for my friend at a time that it’s really needed. If I could why would you not help your friend in that way? I find that strange.

Nowhere did I say that they must buy a gift and it must be off that list.

Who the fuck said you had to shell out twice per baby? Gifts are usually given at the shower by the people who attend and those same people generally aren’t then expected to buy another gift once the baby is born. You’ve invented a second mandatory round of presents and are now objecting to the expense of something you made up. 😭

Yes, I've always given the gift at the shower, agree that's the whole point of them. I've never heard of anyone giving gifts twice.

For quite a few showers, e.g. uni friends who don't live nearby, I haven't seen the baby until months after it's born, so makes far more sense to give it beforehand.

It's also better for the parents, as that way they have an idea of what they already have vs what they still need to buy, before the baby actually arrives. Plus it makes it easier for groups of friends can club together to get something more substantial that's actually useful, rather than yet another baby grow when the parents have already bought twenty and been gifted ten more.

I find the idea of giving out a present list a bit grabby, I have to say (and I'm usually the first to defend the baby shower concept on MN, where they seem to be almost universally hated!). The only exception would be if people had specifically asked you what to get, in which case I'd think it would be fine to send them a list of a few options, but only to them, not to all prospective invitees!

I attended a few when we lived abroad. One woman particularly struck me as a CF. The invitation included a wish list, they had registered at a store like you do with a wedding. They had the audacity to state that people weren’t to shop “off list” ie anything they hadn’t asked for or from anywhere else. They were all expensive gifts.
I didn’t go. They then had another baby and had a “ baby sprinkle” 🤮 I didn’t go to that either ,they did the same with that for gifts. Not many people went to it and she complained that people were tight 🤣

And yet some people complain if they don’t get something when the baby is born as well. It’s a bloody minefield

I object to being expected to shell out twice per baby to be honest.

In the triplet situation it’s not the job of others to provide stuff in triplicate and it’s somewhat transactional to use your friends for that.

i went to one at the weekend/ she had a wish list it was great. I literally just picked something in my price range and checked out. I wouldn’t then buy them then another gift care after the baby arrives.

I wouldn’t cut them slack for using that tone of ‘well I’m having three babies so you need to give me stuff’

Luckily none of my friends would behave like that

Because words have meanings, and you seem determined to argue with one while accidentally proving it. A baby shower is called a shower because the expectant parent is being showered with gifts. A registry is optional. Gifts are not some bizarre American contamination of the concept, they are literally the central feature that gave the event its name.

And the Halloween comparison is nonsense. Pumpkins replaced turnips in America because pumpkins were actually available there and easier to carve. That is an adaptation of a tradition, not the removal of its defining purpose. Nobody is saying a baby shower stops being a baby shower because there isn’t an Amazon wishlist attached to it. If people came to the showers you attended and brought gifts without being told what to buy, then congratulations, you attended baby showers. You have spent several paragraphs angrily explaining my own point back to me.

The distinction really is not difficult: registry optional but useful, gifts central. If your objection is specifically to registries, then say that instead of pretending the entire gift-giving element is some tacky American invention and then immediately describing events where everyone brought gifts anyway.

Yes it is grabby. I dont like the very idea of baby showers. Something could go wrong.

Great, then don’t have baby showers lol. If they’re “not your culture” and the entire gift-giving premise is considered grabby, why are you adopting the specifically American tradition built around showering an expectant parent with gifts in the first place? You can’t borrow the name and format, remove the defining feature, then tell Americans they’ve misunderstood it. At that point you’re just having a pre-baby party, which is perfectly fine, but it isn’t somehow the more culturally correct version of a baby shower.

But you do realise that when your real life friend was, perhaps, commenting about her situation online, she might not be using the same language to describe her feelings - she might sound demanding and entitled to you, and let out frustrations that she doesn't do face to face with her friends?

And in real life, you'd probably cut your actual friend a bit more slack even if they were being demanding.

I find it useful to hear people's opinions on Mumsnet precisely because you see the less-varnished view of someone's feelings.

No, its not. A portion of one, maybe two generations copying America because they live their lives on social media, does not equate to a entire change of culture for a country.

yes, in other places in North America too, can be multiple showers. And they main point that people are missing here is that they are thrown for you BY SOMEONE ELSE. Lots of the attendees are from different circles (like colleagues) and wouldn't necessarily even be invited to the wedding (or to visit you at home with the baby or whatever). Just a different tradition!

In the US, if you give a gift at the baby shower, you don't normally give a gift after the baby is born. For a wedding shower, it is often a matter of two gifts because the wedding shower gifts are usually fairly modest. But if someone does give a more expensive wedding shower gift, they would not be expected to give a second wedding gift.

Some of y'all will definitely clutch your pearls at this: In the Southern US where I live, it is not uncommon for there to be multiple wedding showers, although they might not have overlapping guest lists. Pre-wedding parties (not all are showers) are a big part of getting married in the South; there can easily be half a dozen or more.

I was commenting on the tone of the PP’s comment on here.

If one of my friends was overwhelmed then I would be supportive. If they started issuing lists of stuff they wanted without being asked then that isn’t a good look.

Would you give a wedding gift a few months before the wedding and then another gift at the wedding? I’m guessing not. So why be so grabby?

To be fair I think its different if people have asked for a gift list vs just being sent one with an invitation to a baby shower, no?

It was a friend of my parents so I didn’t really know them. We suspected they were regifting it! 😂