Baby Shower Gift List - How rude????

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Had an invite to a baby shower with a gift list - how rude is that?
Surely gifts should be personal according to expenditure and how friendly you are with that person. I cant think of anything sader than a woman opening her presents without her partner being present and how embarassing to fluant your gifts in front of others. Presents should be given to both parents after the birth and all is well. I've never spent more than £20 on a gift anyway. Its another commercialised spin whats the matter with a nice party with fun and food, good old friendship! My husband would be horrified if I had sent a "want list" around and I'd deffinately wouldnt have any friends left either! We should all stick together on this and say NO! I'm not doing this!!

what was on it?

It sounds like an American thing

Pretty rude imo

Close family and friends usually ask what they can buy & to give a list to anyone else is presumptuous imo

Even when people asked me what we needed, I felt so uncomfortable, I said oh nothing, we have it all. Couldn't ask anyone outside family and my 2 best friends to get me something!

My friend had one of those and I too thought how rude... and so did all her friends..
It's oh so wrong...

I bet there was a lot of frilly stuff on it

wedding presents gift list yes - totally understandable and acceptable - you don't want 5 toasters.

A gift list to friends for your impending birth - no - sorry that's really greedy! I wouldn't expect anything 'big' from friends, just silly slogan babygros or a cute stuffed animal - that's what I tend to buy others.

Will there be a gift list to all the toddlers at her DC's 3rd birthday? Probably!

horrible
but yeah, what wason it?

there was another recent thread re this - at least this is your friend I suppose, the other poster only knew her in passing kind of

Horrid I agree. I bought one of those baby books recently, you know the ones you do for a baby's first year? Anyway it had a whole 2 pages dedicated to the baby shower and what presents you got, from whom and a space for a photo of the presents. How obscene is that?

Horrible- on a par with people wha ask all the wedding guests for money instead of presents- quite vulgar IMHO.

Is she really a friend of yours?

Greedy,selfish,blah blah blah

I agree - horrible. I've made the mistake of going to one and they play party games... groan... like having different mashed up chocolate bars in nappies and you have to guess what they were... Honestly - greed and stupidity. I now refuse to go. Even though it is dressed up as I just want to see all my friends before the birth. Do that, minus the 'shower' and the games. It is like wedding showers - double dipping!

Totally agree too. Yeeuch. SO rude and inappropriate.

Americans do seem to register for a list for stuff for baby showers, but it just comes across as tacky and inappropriate in a UK context.

Doozie that is vile

I hate wedding lists too. People should just give what they want - if they want to get something practical, they should ask personally what would be useful, and otherwise people should just give vouchers or something if they don't know.

I hate, hate, hate this list thing. It's just so self centred and control freaky.

So rude!

I went to one a couple of years ago. It was organised by the American SIL of the Mum-to-be.

I politely ignored the 'wants" list and took my own choice of present which my pregnant friend loved luckily.

I got the feeling a lot of people didn't "get" the whole thing as one mum brought a selection of things her dd no longer needed.

My friend was delighted with them but I couldn't get over the whole thing of asking for things.

I refused to send out a wedding list with my wedding invites. I wanted people to ask what we wanted or just choose something or vouchers. I would hate it if people thought we were grasping.

Are they becoming more common then?

think they are common amongst wealthier people. I suppose if your friends are buying expensive gifts for you then its helpful if they at least spend it on something useful, however i don't think it sits very well amongst anyone who isn't dripping money as it does seem very materialistic. A gift shouldn't really be expected its a nice little extra.

Tis is such an American thing, but is aparantley becoming alot more common over here. At my NCT class there was a couple who were registering at John Lewis, they now offer a baby gift register.

Don't understand baby showers full stop, let alone gift lists for them.

Surely the exciting bit is when the visitors come and see the baby?

But then I don't really get hen weekends either.

I LOVE baby showers, and me and all my friends had them.

However there were NEVER present lists - that it shocking. We just got cute outfits, and life-time supplies of wipes etc.

i'm american...and usually there is a registry so people can look it up but babyshower registrys are usually done at discount stores like walmart and target (unlike wedding ones which are done at upscale department stores).

anyway, for our wedding (and i've married a british man)...my side of the guests bought us gifts/gave money etc...husbands family did not. NOTHING and his side of the family brought 300 guests where as my side only invited 100 (and my parents paid for the wedding) and his family insisted on a large wedding...anyway now we're going to have a family baby shower (i had one with friends and didn't ask for anything). but because my husbands cheap family is coming along (they never gave us a single wedding gift..ever) i'm sending them an amazon wishlist...i'm currently trying to figure out how to reiterate the point that they never gave us wedding gifts so they better make sure to buy out all the things on this list if they want to keep on civil grounds with me.

i'm probably being petty but i wouldn't mind depriving my son of all of them.

I'm originally from the US too. I know lots of Yanks who do this and it seems to be increasing in popularity among the Brits I know in London. John Lewis does a list, for example.

How's this for rudeness? I got "invited" to a babyshower in Germany - three days before the event. (I'm based in London.) Hmm...funnily enough, not enough time to organise flights, etc. Helpfully, the link to the gift list was attached though, so whoever couldn't "make it" could still buy a gift. Several emails went round when it wasn't working too, as clearly we were all so worried about getting that present across.

Generally, I think these lists are more pathetic than rude. How could normally sensible women be taken in by yet another attempt to extract money from people on 'must haves'???

well to be fair, it all depends on how often the question of "what can we get the baby?" comes up, don't you think?..but then again i personally think only family should get gift lists like this and the items shouldn't be more than £15-20 a piece.