NWR - A humdinger....

PnkBride · January 2014

Posted by an acquaintance on FB tonight:

"To all my family and friends who do not live close by, or cannot make it to my son and his girlfriend XXXX's baby shower next month:

I have set up this account to accept donations for those of our family and friends who do not live close by, and still want to help with a gift for XX and XXXX's baby. She is due March 17, 2014 and they still need much help. Thanks in advance for all those who help out."

Along with a link to Smartypig.com

Her son and his gf are teenagers and the whole thing is just a snowballing mess. I could go on for hours.

bethsmiles · January 2014

Oh wow. I get that teenagers who are expecting a baby are going to need a lot of help but that is still incredibly tacky.

RebeccaB88 · January 2014

I'd think that most people know that teenagers having a baby would need help. We don't need it thrown in our faces. Dad had better have some kind of job.

phira · January 2014

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh. Nope.

GrrArgh · January 2014

Not acceptable, still better than established 25 year olds doing it though I suppose. I can at least understand soon-to-be grandma is in a panic over the whole situation and probably isn't thinking the entire thing through.

ChemFanatic25 · January 2014

"Donation"

misssunshine17 · January 2014

Eeeek. No freaking way.

delujm0 · January 2014

A "donation" is what you make to a qualified nonprofit organization, for which you get a tax write off.

She is just asking for money. She may as well be out on a street corner pan handling. If her teenaged son and his gf cannot afford to raise the child they are having, there are a lot of responsible things they can do. Get jobs. Look into qualified nonprofit organizations and government organizations that offer assistance to people in their condition. Give the baby up for adoption to a couple that can afford to raise it properly.

There are lots of options that don't involving begging your parents' friends for cash. That is beyond tacky. It's not like they were "forced" to get pregnant. I'll give a pass to people who get into terrible accidents, or have life threatening diseases. But for an unplanned pregnancy? No.

JCbride2015 · January 2014

Nooooooooo.

You know who deserves "donations?" My coworker who was hit by a NYC bus while walking to his job as a public school special education teacher, and is now paralyzed from the neck down. HE deserved the party thrown in his honor and online donation site. These pregnant teenagers need to GTFO.

Nope nope nope. I need HisGirlFriday's hermit crab gif.

PrettyGirlLost · January 2014

Where can I send the NuvaRing or the IUD or the BC pills and all of the condoms I am going to donate to them?

smalfrie19 · January 2014

delujm0 said:

A "donation" is what you make to a qualified nonprofit organization, for which you get a tax write off.

She is just asking for money. She may as well be out on a street corner pan handling. If her teenaged son and his gf cannot afford to raise the child they are having, there are a lot of responsible things they can do. Get jobs. Look into qualified nonprofit organizations and government organizations that offer assistance to people in their condition. Give the baby up for adoption to a couple that can afford to raise it properly.

There are lots of options that don't involving begging your parents' friends for cash. That is beyond tacky. It's not like they were "forced" to get pregnant. I'll give a pass to people who get into terrible accidents, or have life threatening diseases. But for an unplanned pregnancy? No.

You know, on this subject (sorry for the thread jack) I have a family member who had a tumor removed from his brain and set up a go fund me for his medical bills (he doesn't have insurance). I feel bad, but I could NOT bring myself to share it on my FB.

smalfrie19 · January 2014

dup

Amyzen83 · January 2014

Grandma needs to stop hounding her responsible friends for money and instead should be making her kid and gf get jobs so they can pay for their own damn kid/s??!

Jen4948 · January 2014

Taaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaacky.

NYCBruin · January 2014

Ugh. Semi-related, this reminded me of this article. I think the author makes a really interesting point:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/valerie-alexander/lets-ban-weddings-and-baby-showers_b_4428778.html

PrettyGirlLost · January 2014

NYCBruin said:

Ugh. Semi-related, this reminded me of this article. I think the author makes a really interesting point:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/valerie-alexander/lets-ban-weddings-and-baby-showers_b_4428778.html

Meh I dunno. I think the article was a little too cynical, and assumes that all women who are getting married or having kids are young, vapid, and materialistic.

If you raise your children to value the marriage over the party and showers, to respect the awesome responsibility of bringing a child into the world, then there is no problem with society celebrating marriage and parenthood via showers. These are important milestones and are just as important socially as graduating college or landing your 1st job.

Jen4948 · January 2014

PrettyGirlLost said:

NYCBruin said:

Ugh. Semi-related, this reminded me of this article. I think the author makes a really interesting point:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/valerie-alexander/lets-ban-weddings-and-baby-showers_b_4428778.html

Meh I dunno. I think the article was a little too cynical, and assumes that all women who are getting married or having kids are young, vapid, and materialistic.

If you raise your children to value the marriage over the party and showers, to respect the awesome responsibility of bringing a child into the world, then there is no problem with society celebrating marriage and parenthood via showers. These are important milestones and are just as important socially as graduating college or landing your 1st job.

I have to agree. This article was too over-the-top cynical. This is not to say that a lot of times expectations with regards to showers are overblown, but most of the time, those who throw them for brides or mothers-to-be are coming from a good place, and this article ignores that.

Graduating from college and landing your first job are things to celebrate too (well, graduating college-given how frequently most people change jobs, landing your first one, especially if it's just a stepping stone, might not be worth a big celebration), but that doesn't negate that getting married or becoming a mother for the first time is a big accomplishment too that deserve to be celebrated (at least if the bride or mother is a mature adult).

PrettyGirlLost · January 2014

Jen4948 said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

NYCBruin said:

Ugh. Semi-related, this reminded me of this article. I think the author makes a really interesting point:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/valerie-alexander/lets-ban-weddings-and-baby-showers_b_4428778.html

Meh I dunno. I think the article was a little too cynical, and assumes that all women who are getting married or having kids are young, vapid, and materialistic.

If you raise your children to value the marriage over the party and showers, to respect the awesome responsibility of bringing a child into the world, then there is no problem with society celebrating marriage and parenthood via showers. These are important milestones and are just as important socially as graduating college or landing your 1st job.

I have to agree. This article was too over-the-top cynical. This is not to say that a lot of times expectations with regards to showers are overblown, but most of the time, those who throw them for brides or mothers-to-be are coming from a good place, and this article ignores that.

Graduating from college and landing your first job are things to celebrate too (well, graduating college-given how frequently most people change jobs, landing your first one, especially if it's just a stepping stone, might not be worth a big celebration), but that doesn't negate that getting married or becoming a mother for the first time is a big accomplishment too that deserve to be celebrated (at least if the bride or mother is a mature adult).

Loved it, Jen.

ETA: Doh, forgot they are public now! smh

HisGirlFriday13 · January 2014

JCBride2014 said:

Nooooooooo.

You know who deserves "donations?" My coworker who was hit by a NYC bus while walking to his job as a public school special education teacher, and is now paralyzed from the neck down. HE deserved the party thrown in his honor and online donation site. These pregnant teenagers need to GTFO.

Nope nope nope. I need HisGirlFriday's hermit crab gif.

Ask and ye shall receive!

ETA: An extra octopus, just for good measure:

NYCBruin · January 2014

Jen4948 said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

NYCBruin said:

Ugh. Semi-related, this reminded me of this article. I think the author makes a really interesting point:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/valerie-alexander/lets-ban-weddings-and-baby-showers_b_4428778.html

Meh I dunno. I think the article was a little too cynical, and assumes that all women who are getting married or having kids are young, vapid, and materialistic.

If you raise your children to value the marriage over the party and showers, to respect the awesome responsibility of bringing a child into the world, then there is no problem with society celebrating marriage and parenthood via showers. These are important milestones and are just as important socially as graduating college or landing your 1st job.

I have to agree. This article was too over-the-top cynical. This is not to say that a lot of times expectations with regards to showers are overblown, but most of the time, those who throw them for brides or mothers-to-be are coming from a good place, and this article ignores that.

Graduating from college and landing your first job are things to celebrate too (well, graduating college-given how frequently most people change jobs, landing your first one, especially if it's just a stepping stone, might not be worth a big celebration), but that doesn't negate that getting married or becoming a mother for the first time is a big accomplishment too that deserve to be celebrated (at least if the bride or mother is a mature adult).

I agree with both of you!

I think the article was a bit too far in the other direction, but I think the author's main point that we over-glamorize/emphasize weddings and babies as though they are a woman's crowning achievement in life was a fair one. I don't think that they should be banned, but I do think decreasing the emphasis or shifting the emphasis (to the marriage over the wedding, to the transformation into motherhood rather than simply the "achievement" of getting pregnant/giving birth) would be a net positive.

ChemFanatic25 · January 2014

I just read the article and then looked at the comments. The article partially makes sense but the woman also sounds very bitter. I'm glad she's in a happy marriage though.

What really rubbed me wrong was one of the comments posted after the article.

"I think we should only throw baby showers for teen Moms. Nobody said we have to invite other teen girls. Why are we gifting already middle class and upper middle class women with more stuff they can accumulate on their own? Why not give a teen girl everything she's going to need to make a hard road a little less hard? And why not just invite other adult Moms? And instead of party games, how about lessons on baby baths and toddler discipline and managing a job and parenting or school and parenting? That seems like a shower worth attending."

Climbing onto my soapbox . . . what the ever loving hell?!? So my family was/is lower middle class. My fiance's family is from a lower middle class. We both saw that we did not like this live and wanted to achieve something better. We worked our butts off in school and got great jobs and now we are upper middle class. Yay for us! But this poster just told me, told all people who have made an effort to make a better life for themselves (not everyone can be born into money) to basically go screw themselves. All their hard work means nothing. If my friends want to throw me a party when I have a baby then you aren't going to tell them how to spend their money. They pay their taxes and reserve the right to spend their money however they want, as long as it isn't illegal. My friend is upper middle class and makes way more than me. When she has a kid you bet your butt I'll be the first one to spend a crap ton on that lady to congratulate her and her husband for starting a family. We chose to wait and not have children. I did all the research on my own and talked to my doctors and checked out insurances and other viable possibilities to make sure I took the proper precautions to not have a child.

Just like the teen mom, the middle class woman chose to have a child. Why is it wrong for her friends to want to congratulate her for making a responsible decision (not knocking the teen moms who really do want to have a child and make the conscious decision, not have a surprise that puts everything on hold) but not the teen mom?

Okay, I can now breath and realized I probably opened a whole can of worms. I'm all for helping the other person but to take away everything from one person because society labeled them as privileged and give to another person who probably never worked a day in his or her life is wrong. It should be a combined effort to help everyone, to make everyone's lives better. Not to tear one group down after another.

And off my soapbox I go . . .

Amyzen83 · January 2014

Totally agree with you! In my opinion your income shouldn't even be public knowledge so how much you make should be irrelevant to how generous your loved ones want to be also baby showers are not required anyway this article is too much for me.

NWR - A humdinger....

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