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

It's a very old North American tradition from when people had babies much younger and were much poorer, and the community would gather to shower them with baby gifts so they would have what they needed for the new arrival (and the same principle applies to the wedding shower). It comes from a lovely place and was never a grabby thing at all (small gifts were always acceptable) and you don't give another gift when the baby arrives. Also, you only got a shower with the first baby - that was the rule. In this day and age I think an Amazon wishlist is brilliant providing there is a good range of values on there.

I’m 32, live in the north of England.

I’ve been to about 8 baby showers. Gifts are always given at the baby shower. (Usually send flowers once the baby has been born)

I think only one of the expectant mothers had an Amazon wish list. I wouldn’t say it’s “grabby”, I’d rather buy something that they actually want than something that might not get used or worn.

This is such a weird bit of revisionism. Baby showers are an American tradition, and the clue is literally in the name: you shower the expectant parent with gifts. That is the custom. You can dislike it, skip it, or hold some gift-free tea-and-cake gathering instead, but pretending gifts are somehow gauche or “doing it American style” at an event whose entire tradition is American and gift-based is ridiculous.

If you personally “couldn’t stand the thought of people expecting to give you gifts,” fine, don’t have a shower. But other people having one in the normal way is not some ghastly collapse of British standards. It is quite literally how baby showers work.

And this is the problem here, everyone wanting to do baby showers, hen/stag dos and weddings American style!

I’ve been to multiple types of baby showers, work ones, family, friends, mix sex, fancy limousine pickups taken an hour and half away to 5 star hotel fully paid, but that was all immediate family (mums, grans, aunts, sisters) Not once were gifts asked for or expected. The only time I’ve ever had any requests was based on the parents lifestyle choices (Vegan) but nothing was expected. Also not all British.

if you don’t know the parents well enough to ask what they need or already know, then you stick cash in a card maybe with a token practical gift.

Best gift I ever saw was a very socially unaware man who bought the parents several large packs of bigger sized nappies, they loved it and have admitted the most particle gift ever.

personally I never had showers as I couldn’t stand the thought of people expecting to give me gifts.

I think that the registry is useful, provided that there’s a range of price points and no pressure to purchase more-expensive items only. I didn’t have a baby shower (Canadian living in the UK), but my friends and family back home asked me to make a registry as they wanted to ensure that they could send things that we needed for the baby. Agreed that there’s a cultural difference here and in the UK token gifts for the baby seem more common. That being said, we loved every gift we received and still treasure a lot of them.

Well, in the US all you would have to do is drop a hint to a friend. We love any excuse for a shower. Maybe you could host a recipe exchange party, perhaps as a potluck.

One of the nicest showers that I attended was for a friend who was going back to work after having taken several years off while her children were young. Several of us pooled resources and bought her a Coach work bag which she still uses 20 years later. I was also invited to a "divorce shower" for a male friend whose ex got most of the household goods and their dog in the divorce. He was showered with dishes, cutlery, a cookware set, and a Labrador puppy.

A pre-wedding party where gifts are given. Often there is a theme and the gifts are fairly modest if the attendees are also giving a separate wedding gift. When DH and I got married, our friends gave us a stock-the-bar shower. When my niece got married, she was given a recipe shower. Everyone brought a favorite recipe and dish or pot to cook it in. The hostess had the recipes bound in a book.

But I think the poster was responding to other posters who were calling a gathering with no gifts a shower. Gifts make a pre-baby gathering a shower, whether or not there is a registry.

Well then, one presumes wrong. A wedding is still a wedding without a registry because the point of a wedding is, rather obviously, two people getting married whereas a baby shower or bridal shower is literally called a shower because the guest of honor is being showered with gifts. The registry is I guess technically optional, but pretending it’s some tacky corruption of the event is absurd when gift-giving is the entire premise and comparing it to a wedding is a pretty flimsy analogy because gifts are incidental to a wedding and central to a shower. The Amazon checklist isn’t the defining feature. The 'showering with gifts' is.

But there’s still showering the person with gifts - they just haven’t told you what to purchase? In the same way a wedding is still a wedding minus a registry, the celebration is the central part rather than the Amazon checklist one presumes?

For me the worst part of all this is men at a baby shower.

Personally, I don't like wish lists at all. Even for weddings, really; its so cringey. Either ask me what I want/need or surprise me.

A pack of nappies, a toy or a little outfit is all I'd expect at, or bring to, a baby shower.

What on earth is a bridal shower?

Ha, I agree about the weddings too.
The huge majority of people getting married already live together. What do they actually need?
I did go to one wedding where they said they just wanted money to go towards their honeymoon. That seemed reasonable to me.

In north american tradition, you don't invite people to your own baby/wedding shower - they are arranged for you (and sometimes more than once, in different contexts), by friends, family members, work colleagues. They might then ask you for a list or ideas, but it's not 'you' who is doing the inviting and expecting in quite the same way, but the hosts. Presents are often little, and useful. They might be themed (like a 'book' shower, or for a wedding, a 'kitchen' shower or a 'camping' shower or whatever). They are a nice chance for different groups of people to get together before the baby is born - traditionally, to offer advice and experience, so a wedding shower would often be all the female relatives, including ones that you might not see often. And the games or activities might reflect that.

You can't judge them as an import from somewhere else when you don't have the same history and context surrounding them, because the whole set of cultural norms would be different. It's the same with trick or treating, and other N American customs that have been imported (back) into the UK (I know the origins), things that are totally different there, and have been totally changed and sometimes worsened when imported here, and are then derided, despite the import here not really being very much like what it is there.

Horrible idea that should have stayed in America, where having babies costs a bomb we in the UK don't face.

I secretly think anyone having them in the UK is a bit of a greedy git and refuse to attend one. But I think asking for money for weddings is shit as well.

This is why I detest the American Baby Shower tradition, even more so that so many are doing it in the UK now. In my culture, you take a gift to mum and baby AFTER baby has been safely born.

What is the point of a bridal shower?

They have always been about gifts. You are showering someone with gifts, hence the name.

Also where I live in the US, the bride or the expectant mother (or her close family) should not host her shower. That would be considered grabby. Showers are usually hosted by friends of the honoree or perhaps friends of her parents.

I’m with Miss Manners on this. Lists, where there’s an expectation to gift an item listed, are grabby and tacky. I don’t buy the “it’s too hard to answer a question about what you’d like” nonsense. Pregnancy is not a lobotomy.

Then what you’re describing isn’t really a baby shower, it’s a pregnancy get-together with cake.

And the parents get 5 baby baths, 6 bouncers and all the clothes in size newborn that won’t get worn.

What gets missed out on these threads is that Americans don’t have baby showers for themselves. A non-relative has to offer to host one. It’s something your mom’s best friend offers to do.

OMG the games. The one I went to, the poor pregnant lady had to be hugged by everyone, and we then had to then use a piece of string to guess how big her bump was.
Another was a version of 'pin the tail on the donkey' except it was 'pin the dummy on the baby's mouth'. Every time someone had an attempt at it, the host went "wah wah wah"...

I remember when they were a big thing a few years ago. Probably the side hustle of choice for mums. Social media was full of "businesses" making them.
I have not seen any in a while.