Baby Shower Thoughts

I have been thinking about baby showers and for that matter, wedding showers.

What exactly is the point?

When were they started?

Is it primarily a middle-class thing?

Would you be more inclined to give a nicer/bigger/more expensive gift to someone who is married or in a committed relationship vs. someone who had an "oops" and has no intention of making a commitment to the other baby maker?

Or are you the type of person that doesn't care and thinks that all babies should be celebrated regardless and buy whatever you want to even if the new parent (s) don't want/need/like it?

DH & I have been having an ongoing discussion about this subject. Mainly because we don't really want people to buy us stuff. We can afford to get the baby everything that it needs. And if people buy us stuff, are we obligated to somehow return the favor at some point? We did cave into the pressure of our parents and set up a registry, but we are using it as a checklist for things that we buy for the baby.

Take wedding showers...Okay if you are going to the wedding shower, more than likely you are also invited to the wedding so that means TWO gifts. Yes, maybe we are stingy, but why not just give one nice bigger gift? I have heard that the wedding gift is supposed to equal the amount spent on the cost of dinner for you and your date...but that itself seems tacky as can be. Why not just make people buy tickets or pay at the door if you are going to base it on that? I know that when we got married, we did not have a wedding shower. We had a reception and did the whole registry thing. But we registered for higher-end items (Portmeirion dishware, Wusthof knife set, Wusthof steak knife set, etc.) through Dillards. We invited people to come celebrate with us, not expecting presents but if they felt so inclined, these were the things that we really wanted.

I was just happy that people came and celebrated with us. And about the obligation thing...I have a cousin through marriage that got married a couple of months after we did. We are not close, I don't even know what her phone number is. Half the time I can't remember what her married name is. Well, they gave us a check for $x amount so when they got married, we sent them a check for the same $x amount. Tacky? Maybe. But the amounts ended up equaling themselves out so what is the point?

Were baby showers invented because people used to have children at younger ages and people wanted to "help them out"? Seriously, if you can't afford to buy your baby the things that it needs and are using a shower to obtain said items, maybe you ought to re-consider your priorities AND your future birth control methods.

And maybe I need to consider getting off my high horse sometime soon. Not good for a pregnant lady.

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I am working on finishing some projects today that have Saturday deadlines so nothing else to share at the moment. Soon though!

Peace!