I need to ask...second baby shower registry etiquette?

Hi. Im new here. I am a bit taken back by something and wanted to get others opinions on it.


I have a friend...I shall call her Suzie. Suzie became unexpectedly pregnant with her second child last year. Her due date is approaching. She has an almost 2 year old little girl and is pregnant with a boy. She is having a small shower. I am not offended this is happening...I know her and her husband need the help badly. She is a social worker and he is a teacher...they are not rolling in the dough.

So I went to the store to buy her a gift...checked out the modest registry. I would say 90% of the items on the registry are for her older daughter...toddler bedding...pull ups and diapers for a toddler....toys for ages 2-4...for the newborn, they registered for a sheet set, formula and swaddler diapers. This is it.

I bought some diapers and two other small nonregistry items for the newborn. Do I have a right to feel this is a crappy thing to do...have a shower for a newborn baby and register for items for the kid she already has? (And had three showers for too I may add).

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spanky
I bought some diapers and two other small nonregistry items for the newborn. Do I have a right to feel this is a crappy thing to do...have a shower for a newborn baby and register for items for the kid she already has? (And had three showers for too I may add).

Crappy, rude, tacky, bad mannered, discourteous, graceless ... did I leave out any appropriate adjective?

The shower is for the baby. If she wanted to set up a beg list for the older kid, it ought to be for an appropriate reason, like birthday or Christmas.

Btw, who is throwing the shower? I hope it's not the mother. That would just up the tack-o-rama factor to an nth degree.

The only logical answer I can think of for their motivation is that maybe, and this is a big maybe, since their toadler is still pretty young, they have a lot of baby stuff left over that's still usable and that's why there's not a lot of it in the registry. That being said, I still think it's tacky to gift-grab for the toadler under the guise that this is a baby shower for the new arrival. The shower should be just for the immediate baby about to be born. It's definitely a big faux paux in my opinion.

Second Dorisan's thoughts on all fronts.

i'd get her a big box of condoms and call it a day.

I'm also with Dorisan. Buy her a large package of diapers, a pacifier, some wipes, and some newborn onesies. Throw it in a bag and call it good. And then start making new friends.

If I was the one looking at a registry like that I would throw it out and find reasons to not speak to the moo ever again. Tacky is not a strong enough word.

Her mom is throwing the shower. I offered to throw it, as did another friend. Her mom was not present at the first one and really wanted to throw this one. I gently told her showers are not to be thrown by your parents but she really didnt care.

they do have some baby stuff, but its pretty gender specific. Her husband is a dbag and has hang ups about this. I did buy her a huge box of diapers, pack of onsies and a rattle.

I want to buy her an IUD for after. Her and her husband were on the verge of divorce when she found out. She almost got a *smushmortion*. She told her husband she was going to do it, he flipped and then she kept the baby. He has been punishing her for it ever since. If it wasnt such a good awful situation, I probably would not go. I seriously feel awful for her...around the time she found out she was expecting, two of her grandparents fell terminally ill and suffered long, slow deaths over the past several months. Its been brutal for her.

While I am thinking that much of the older kid's stuff can be used for the newborn, it is tacky to ask for stuff for her. The baby shower is for the new baby. Third what Dori said.

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From a bottle cap message on a Magic Hat #9 beer: Condoms Prevent Minivans
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Tranquilizers work only if you follow the advice on the bottle--keep away from children.

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spanky
I bought some diapers and two other small nonregistry items for the newborn. Do I have a right to feel this is a crappy thing to do...have a shower for a newborn baby and register for items for the kid she already has? (And had three showers for too I may add).

FUCK YES. That is incredibly tacky of them!! Fuck, they should have leftover stuff from the FIRST loaf to use on the second. loafs don't care what color they're wearing- and they shit and piss and puke all over it, anyway. If they'd buy gender-neutral clothing, this wouldn't even be an issue!

"i'd get her a big box of condoms and call it a day."

yeah, what's with this UNEXPECTED BABY nonsense? WERE THEY FUCKING WITHOUT PROTECTION OR NOT?

" Her husband is a dbag and has hang ups about this."

She outta be having a DIVORCE THE DOUCHEBAG Party.

Slightly off-topic, but I've never understood how a woman "on the verge of divorce" got pregnant in the first place. When I was unhappily married, I avoided sex with my husband like the plague.

"I seriously feel awful for her...around the time she found out she was expecting, two of her grandparents fell terminally ill and suffered long, slow deaths over the past several months. Its been brutal for her."


not to be a bitch, but the grandparents geting sick cannot be helped; getting pregnant CAN be helped. i think suzie may actually like all the drama because of the attention and sympathy it gets her. let's see: married to an asshole, not using birth control despite already having a kid and having no money, getting pregnant and then telling douchebag hubby she wants an abortion (didn't she already know his feelings on abortion? why tell him at all, when she could have faked a miscarriage?) and now having this grabby shower.

people like this use you for everything you have and then when they exhaust your good will they will find new people to help them. i guarantee that if you ever need her to be there for you she will have a hundred excuses as to why she was too "busy" to help you.

do not get drawn into the crazy.

Dorisan nailed it!

Second brat showers are tacky, inappropriate and greedy.

And Spanky, no one just becomes "unexpectedly pregnant". Your friend planned it that way.

Oh gods, someone tell me this is not the dawn of a new gift-grab movement where people have showers for their toddlers and/or have combination toddler/loaf showers. It's bad enough they're having another shower (seriously, they don't have bottles or clothes from a scant 2-3 years ago that they can put on Junior? Last I checked, babies don't care what color their onesies are and I'm sure Junior will not suffer ill effects from wearing pink jammies).

But then they decide they're gonna stick out their hands and ask for toddler shit too? If they're so fucking broke that they still can't afford basics for their toddler, why the fuck are they having another kid? They seriously are so broke that they can't go to a second-hand store and buy toadler sheets and teddy bears themselves? Same with clothes - kids outgrow clothes every fucking month and they could easily go get both kids several outfits from a thrift store that look nearly new for a few bucks.

If it were me, I'd probably get them nothing at all. But that's just me - I find second showers and registries pretty tacky to begin with. However, if you want to try and salvage the friendship, I would say just get stuff for the impending loaf and not the older kid. And I echo getting their dumb asses some condoms, maybe a card for a urologist who will do a vasectomy. Because you KNOW she will "accidentally, unexpectedly fall pregnant" again (funny how they don't figure out what causes those "unexpected" children after having several), and have her hand out in another 2 years when #3 is coming down the chute.

Geez, WTF is gonna be next? Moos having a second loaf 15 years after their first one and begging for iPhones and laptops for the teenagers while also begging for shit rags and clothes for the new loaf? Or there can be college showers - everybody give college-bound brats tons of money and new clothes and a computer (alongside high school graduation gifts, of course).

Ranty CF goodness (updated 3.23.2012)
Caffeinated Childfree

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spanky
Hi. Im new here. I am a bit taken back by something and wanted to get others opinions on it.


I have a friend...I shall call her Suzie. Suzie became unexpectedly pregnant with her second child last year. Her due date is approaching. She has an almost 2 year old little girl and is pregnant with a boy. She is having a small shower. I am not offended this is happening...I know her and her husband need the help badly. She is a social worker and he is a teacher...they are not rolling in the dough.

i have a problem with the "became unexpectedly pregnant with her second child last year" - THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS UNEXPECTEDLY PREGNANT - every adult woman knows the risks involved when spreading her legs and secondly she ALREADY HAS A 1ST CHILD SO SHE KNEW VERY WELL WHAT THE HECK SHE WAS DOING. she and her husband DIDN'T CARE to USE PREVENTION.

"she's a social worker" "he is a teacher" - no wonder our society is such a mess with people like that as SOCIAL workers???? and teachers..

"they're not rolling in dough." no, but they're rolling in the hay, without any protection.

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spanky
I am not offended this is happening...I know her and her husband need the help badly.

and now you feel bad for their poor CHOICES. and they're going to give the air of sympathy and pity out to most because our society has been conditioned to that, rather than these people should realize that it's one thing to get a helping hand at TIMES but to repeatedly live in that manner where they're behaving so recklessly as to add to their problems and that will result in adding to problems of the community around them, they're going to have to deal with it.

i have had more than my fair share of confronting past friends that did this to themselves and giving them a good admonishing of the risks they knew they were taking when they allowed such circumstances to take over their lives before it did. and you know what happened? they COULDN'T TAKE IT. and treated me like i was the one that caused their problems and why didn't i hand out the sympathy card for them and rally around them.

people need to grow a backbone and become responsible and i see absolutely nothing wrong with letting someone who is reckless about their lives know the truth instead of cloaking it with a bunch of gifts.

maybe now they'll use condoms or get a snip.

and get a couple more jobs..