Dear Snarky,
I feel like a bad person because I’m beginning to hate babies. To be more precise I hate baby showers. I have a friend who is pregnant and so far I have been invited to six, that’s right six, baby showers for her. There was a shower announcing her pregnancy, a gender reveal shower, a “Baby Play Time” shower, a “Welcome Home Baby” shower where the gift registry was nursery furnishings (and she was registered at Pottery Barn Kids so everything was pretty expensive) a generic baby shower and there’s one coming up this week that is a “Baby Mama” shower where you are supposed to bring things to pamper the mom.
I quit going after shower number four because I didn’t have the money to buy any more gifts. Now, my friend is mad at me and says I’m “being unsupportive of her happy time.” When I told her the truth that I couldn’t afford to go to any more showers she called me a cheapskate. Who’s right? I’m I being cheap or is she placing presents above our friendship?
Signed, Going Broke
Dear Going Broke,
If it makes you feel any better I’m on your side. There are many ways to celebrate a new arrival without doing what I would call a greedy gift grab. Please, the nursery furniture shower. Cha ching. My view of baby showers is one and done unless you’re the future grandma. That’s not to say someone can’t have a million showers. There’s not a law against, you know, except the law of good taste. But if you are going to be “The Gifted” you need to be careful and not invite the same 12 people to every shower because that can place a party goer’s pocketbook in a pinch.
Also, if your friend was really concerned that you weren’t attending showers 5 and 6 AND after you confessed that fiscally you couldn’t afford to buy any more gifts she should have told you all that was required was your presence not a present.
I wouldn’t do anything as dire as writing off this friendship. Give it some time and blame some of her emotions on pregnancy hormones. For the perfect gift wait until the child is born and then offer to babysit. It will be a priceless present.
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Snarky in the Suburbs 