Double standard. It’s just as prescriptivist to be assigning the responsibility solely to the recipient for allegedly “creating confusion and awkwardness”.
Yes, the whole system of customary gift exchange in almost any culture is permanently riddled with potential confusion and awkwardness. Many people find gift-registry specifications confusing and awkward too: hence the current OP, for example. That doesn’t mean that any of this is solely the fault of the inviter for handling gift expectations “wrong”.
To return to pure descriptivist literalism to answer your question: A gift is by definition not obligatory, in that it’s called a “gift”. When compensation for participating in a celebration is literally obligatory, it’s called a “price”.
We’ve given a couple, and I liked it so much, I have one for myself sitting on the kitchen counter. She’s so gosh-darn cute!
As for the OP, I grew up poor, so I rebel against anyone that wants too-expensive “stuff” for a shower. It seems…greedy. Entitled. But that’s, just, like my opinion, man.
You’re saying that if I live in a society where the custom is that you send a registry link, and someone did not, and this created confusion, that this is the fault of the people who are confused?
Then how do you get from that to the initial claim you made, which is that it is rude for people to offer a registry?
And when you can show up to a party without a gift, but you face potentially serious social consequences for not doing so, we call it a gift, not a price.
Well, there doesn’t have to be anything awkward about it, if celebration, generosity and gratitude are being practiced in sincere expressions towards people one cares about, without people keeping score about what they “expect”.
I have been acknowledging all along that unsolicited registry announcements are currently a thoroughly customary compromise between fundamental principles of graciousness and social scorekeeping. I just don’t think anybody should be shooting the messenger—either me or Miss Manners, either with or without ageist disparagement—for pointing out that a compromise is what it is.
There’s nothing awkward about a gift registry. It’s the accepted way to do things in American culture and the vast majority of people don’t feel the need to get up in arms about it.
Your “fundamental principles of graciousness” are no such thing. They are a cultural preference, and heavily biased towards the culture that Miss Manners happened to grow up in. In other cultures, these “fundamental principles of graciousness” might be downright rude. And other cultures aren’t separated only by space, but also by time. The 1950s-esque culture that Miss Manners started nostalgically appealing to in the 1970s no longer governs the way American culture works in 2024.
Huh? I never said that awkwardness about gift registries is solely the fault of the inviter.
Yes, since you ask, the gift-givers who whine that they have to have unsolicited registry information handed out with their invitations, in order to save them any effort or inconvenience in figuring out how to express their congratulatory generosity in a way the recipient will like, are also falling a little bit short of the “graciousness gold standard”.
Again, though, as I’ve been saying all along, that’s widely recognized as customary reality, and I’m not trying to tell anybody they have to change their current practice.
A few nerves touched here, it seems. This is why—zooming out a ways—it’s important occasionally to dig around in the elementary principles and historical development of etiquette practices, if only as a theoretical exercise. Because the constant evolution of cultural customs, plus their deep connections to important personal relationships and social feelings, mean that people who just follow “what everybody’s doing nowadays” without ever really thinking about it are always in a bit of existential doubt about whether they’re maybe inadvertently being a little bit rude.
Okay, you are definitely not very familiar with the actual content of Miss Manners’ advice.
Huh? I never said you said that awkwardness about gift registries is solely the fault of the inviter. You’re not responding to the quoted sentence at all.
Originally, you said:
I think that’s BS. I don’t agree with your “fundamental etiquette principles” being fundamental at all; I think they just seem fundamental to you because that’s how you grew up, and in fact they are entirely arbitrary and no better or worse than the entirely conflicting “fundamental etiquette principles” that other cultures might have.
We all go through life living in a society and interacting with other people. When you make those interactions more awkward or confusing, this is rude. When you make those interactions smoother, you are not being rude.
In 1924 America, if you sent someone a baby shower invite with a checklist of gifts on it, this would create awkwardness and confusion and be very rude.
In 2024, if you include a registry with your baby shower invite, you are conforming to the standards of American culture and ensuring a smooth social experience free from confusion or awkwardness. That’s the opposite of rude.
Yeah, Miss Manners was certainly up-to-date, in fact, ahead of the curve, when she started her column. And when i wrote to her (i got published!) in the late noughts about inviting polyamorous friends to a bar mitzvah (i may have used a different type of party in the letter, for privacy) she gave a very reasonable and helpful reply.
Also, i was paraphrasing her in saying that gifts are the point of a shower and expected if you attend a wedding. I think she’s quite right in saying that it is gracious not to expect gifts, gracious to accept whatever is given in the spirit it was given (interpreted charitably) and also gracious to give a gift if you decide to attend the wedding or a baby shower.
Well, I quite often find myself interested in why people think the way they do. Especially as I so often seem to think differently than a majority of people.
Some effort is often required to ascertain exactly what they think, as many folk seem unwilling to express their opinions. I personally tend to respect people more to the extent they have thought about a range of things, have formed opinions, and are willing to express their opinions and the reasons they hold those opinions.
Who knows. Maybe I’m neurodivergent, deserving understanding and accommodation. Or maybe I’m just a jerk. Or perhaps both. I tend to ask questions when I don’t understand or am curious about something, as I feel asking direct questions from persons expected to have knowledge about the subject is the best way to get information. Yet certain offenderatti seem to believe asking questions to which I desire answers/explanations is worthy of criticism as “just asking questions” with some ulterior motive.
I think this explains a good portion of my reaction. You’re having a baby? Good for you (but not something animals haven’t been doing for hundreds of millions of years.) When is it due, boy or girl, and what names are you considering - and everyone being healthy - are about ALL I care about your kid. If you don’t want to tell me 2 or the 3, well, don’t count on me becoming enthusiastic when you wish to disseminate the information however you wish.
How about if they disseminate all of that information when the baby is born , perhaps because they didn’t have it any earlier? It took my daughter and son-in-law a day or two after my granddaughter was born to settle on a name for her. And they didn’t know the gender.
As far as the less and hand-me down stuff goes, some of it is because things change , especially safety standards. I’m sure there were people who had kids in the 60s who couldn’t understand why their grandchildren needed car seats. And ones who didn’t understand why the heirloom drop-sided crib was no good for the kid born in 2013 when it was okay for the one born in 2010. And then there are other issues, like how many car seats are needed? It’s not necessarily one per kid. That’s what I though at first, right up until I was moving the seat from one car to another twice a day. There was quite a bit of stuff I needed more of because I wasn’t a SAHP nor did I use a daycare center - my mother didn’t have a crib/playpen etc.
Cool. If that is the case. But in this case, they DID know the gender.
And if they say, “Gee, we’re not sure, but we’re thinking about Susie or Carol if it is a girl, or Bob or George if it is a boy,” it isn’t though I’ll chastise them should they decide to name it Parker instead.
Sure, some idiots might say, “Ugh - Susie? Wasn’t that the name of the fat, slow kid down the block?” But I’m just making conversation. And if they don’t care to tell me basic info - and don’t know and respect me enough to know I won’t criticize their name choices (to their faces, at least! ;)), then I simply won’t care much about their kid, other than offering congratulations and general hopes that they are all happy and healthy.
Wait til you get invited to a baby shower for parents preparing to raise a genderless baby so it can decide when it’s older.
I bet those are real fun.
About gifts, I don’t think I ever cared if someone neglected to bring me a gift for any occasion.
Couples marrying or Baby showers create so much stuff you don’t have time to care if rude Aunt Ida didn’t bring something.
I say if you’re a special family member to the couple wait til after the event to present your family heirloom silver spoon or college fund contribution.
? Not sure if you’re kidding, but I don’t see why a shower for a “temporarily genderless” baby would be any more or less fun than any other baby shower (however much fun one personally considers that to be).
Everybody just calls the imminent baby “they” and doesn’t buy presents in blue or pink (or otherwise conventionally gender-themed). Simple.
In fact, for one brief shining moment back when I was a kid in the '70s, that started to be how most baby stuff was treated in general. The “Women’s Lib” movement was pushing back against the conventional stereotypes of pink and dolls and Easy-Bake versus blue and trucks and GI Joe. And it suddenly dawned on a lot of people that hey, we can just let all the kids wear or play with all the things, rather than designating half of them “for girls” and the other half “for boys”.
Moreover, the trends leaned toward ditching conventional baby pastels altogether, in favor of cheerful high-contrast primaries and brights that the child psychologists considered more child-friendly. (We called such things “unisex” rather than “gender-neutral” back then, but same principle.)
Of course, it didn’t take retailers long at all to figure out that they were leaving money on the table by letting parents buy baby stuff that could be (gasp!) reused by little siblings (or other relatives, or friends or neighbors) of different gender. So they got on shutting that shit down right quick.
Now the social pendulum is starting to swing back towards more gender neutrality for children, although AFAICT actually committing to a “genderless baby” will always remain an extreme outlier in parenting philosophies. But I don’t think retailers are going to give up their “sell twice as much stuff” advantage of gender-specific marketing; not without a fight.
I think I heard one of the names this couple was thinking about was something like Jayden, which they observed could apply to a boy or a girl. But at that point THEY already knew the gender (girl I think.) So I’m not sure what appeal an unisex name would have.
When i was young, most baby showers were for unborn babies and most parents didn’t learn the sex until the kid was born. So basically all baby showers were genderless. That’s, like, the normal state of pregnancy for most of human history.
I’ve had a couple of friends who referred to their already-born baby in genderless terms for a couple of years. By the time it matters, they seem to be okay gendering the child.
One of my “reader hobbies” is seeing how high pre-modern (native-speaker English) writers will go on the age of an unknown child that they refer to as “it”.
Okay, you are