agonyaunt | Miss Manners: who can throw a shower?

I am posting this because I genuinely don't get it. When someone can give me a good, logical reason why legal relative throwing the shower is tacky, but someone like, say, the woman I call my sister because that's how we feel about each other is hunky-dorey, I will find a duck to give.

Of course, I also feel the same way about showers for seconed marriages and second babies. Someone's having a baby/getting married! Let's eat cake and buy adorable clothes! Who CARES who throws it? As long as there are no party games. Those are just evil.

I tend to be fairly anti-shower in general (baby or wedding). There's just something about parties for adults in which (1) presents are required, and (2) adults sit around and watch adults unwrap gifts, that skeezes me out. And then on top of that there's such a strong tradition of showers that sketch me out (highly gendered baby showers, lingerie bridal showers, etc).

Which might be why the relative prohibition, I guess? If the party is about getting stuff, family shouldn't throw it?

Traditional bridal showers just make me bored, usually. Baby showers have the benefit of cute presents.

It's possible that my family issues might be showing, here (in that I don't feel much like part of a unit with them, except maybe my mom). I mean, I haven't gotten so much as a Happy Birthday facebook message from anyone but my younger brother in decades.

So while I actually totally agree with you, I think for the people it matters for, it comes down to an implicit sense of the biological family as an economic - rather than emotional - unit.

Which is amusingly in contrast with the previous LW being an asshat, but: siblings and parents are, within this implicit cultural model*, obligated to help you financially, be it with actual money, with goods, or with actions that improve your economic standing (like free babysitting, etc). Nobody gets a choice about this; the flipside is you're also obligated to them, which is why the model is self-sustaining.

People are often very attached to this model because it makes for a safety-net that you can't lose by fucking up: your siblings don't have to like you, you don't have to be FRIENDS, but they and you are still obligated to mutual support.** They're your insurance policy against (in some cases literally) starving to death alone in the woods.

In contrast friends, no matter how close and deeply loved, are a free relationship, not an obligative one. A friend doesn't OWE you anything (and vice versa). Anything they do give you is a free and spontaneous act of grace.

This means that kind of close relative throwing a shower can end up with the subtext of demanding of the mother-to-be's (or bride-to-be's) friends "come and relieve me of my obligations": give my sibling or daughter stuff so I don't have to. This can feel like that relative is basically ripping the friends off. Conversely, a best friend organizing the group of friends to have a shower is in theory a bunch of the something-to-be's friends choosing freely to get together and ease that something-to-be's economic burden.

Very different subtext.

Of course, because we're human, that "freedom" becomes less free very quickly, in that once this ritual becomes the norm to not participate is to give over the subtext "we are not friends" in a way that rapidly becomes text, but in turn that only feeds into the sense that a family member throwing the shower is that family member being greedy: because you can't REALLY opt out of the shower-gift-giving ritual without completely rupturing the friendship, the family member throwing the shower is them making a demand of economic investment that you can't avoid without YOU looking bad.

And so it's rude and people resent it. Whereas if the friend throws the shower, you may still be trapped into that socially-demanded gift-giving, but the person demanding it of you isn't benefitting PERSONALLY - because they are not obligated to economically support the recipient, so they're not making THEIR lives easier by way of this party - so it's not an affront and isn't subtextually saying "you have to give me stuff I want".

I tend to find the cultural processes that lead to these kinds of things rapidly become emotionally pathological with a lot of really arcane rules that are fucking impossible to follow and totally am all about "yay person I love is having a huge stressful life-changing event that is nonetheless happy, I will give them a thing to lessen their stress! LET'S DRINK WINE (except for you mom-to-be hahah sorry drink herbal tea)". But I'm also stringently outright and upfront about "gifts are free actions and DO NOT IMPLY OBLIGATION if I gave you a thing it is because I decided it would be good for you to have the thing, and I will treat gifts to me in the same assumption and I REJECT ALL OF THIS CRAP" . . . .

. . . but I also am not living in subsistence-based society with no social safety net which means even if everyone decides they don't like me anymore, I'm not going to die alone in the forest.

Also autistic. >.>

*If you do not ascribe to this cultural model, this will not apply, and nothing will really make it apply, so. However, if someone is operating from this model behaviours that violate the norms really, really look like other people being almost abusive assholes.
**There are all sorts of obvious ways this model can get coercive and abusive in both directions. On the other hand there are also a lot of ways in which, in a context with NO abstract governmental security net - like most of our cultures were at one formative point - people don't find themselves suddenly without any support or protection.

Edited (oops missed a word, and a thought) 2016-04-04 06:00 (UTC)

You should send this to Miss Manners (with a bill). It's an excellent explanation (of weird societal rules).

I think, in the model of "you don't throw a shower for your relative, because that's asking other people to support your family," your sister by choice would count, just as a biological, adoptive, or step-sibling would. If I were trying to decide about appropriateness within this model, the question would be, does the rest of the family accept her as kin when there are family events or she needs help with something?

I think it all comes back to family-as-unit and the shower being less a party and more about setting up for a new baby.

If the close relative throws the shower that's a little too close to 'give us stuff' but if a friend does it, that's more 'hey, Laura's gonna need stuff for the baby and we should chip in and help her and Tom out' and so on.

An old cultural taboo that you don't ask for stuff but being given it is okay.

Huh. I've never heard of such a rule and I'm pretty sure all the baby showers I've been to were organised by family members of the expectant mother...

In fairness, Miss Manners also disapproved of family members throwing each other birthday parties last I checked, and at this point is as much a humourist as an advisor. Humourous resignation to folks ignoring her advice that underlines the futility of resistance to shifting social conventions is about what I'd expect from her. (I've always had a soft spot and a fascination for the weirdo.)

Edited 2016-04-04 06:22 (UTC)

She should try Australia. She'd be horrified: we throw birthday parties (and baby showers) for ourselves. (Our parties are never very present-heavy, and we tend to see the birthday-person as being obliged to shout* their friends a party to enjoy, to make up for all the parties we've been invited to.)

*Australianism: To buy a round (of beer, typically) for everyone present.

I think she has no problem with family members throwing one another (or themselves) birthday parties, as long as people aren't being invited to spend money on the guest of honor. That is, if the party is everyone getting together to have dinner and cover the birthday person's bill, the host should not be the birthday person or a family member. (In fact if someone is the "host" that person should probably be buying everyone's dinner; otherwise they're just the "organizer.") Which is the same idea as the shower thing; MM believes it is wrong (well - tacky) to invite people to enrich your family.

Oh, for fuck's sake, WHO CARES if a mother wants to throw a baby shower for her daughter? I've never understood that particular one.

THIS.

I was blessed enough to have four baby showers, between friends, my family, husband's family, and work. The family ones were "officially" hosted by my mom's best friend (while a good portion of the effort was done by my mom) and my mother-in-law, but the attendance overlapped between all of them aside from the work one. I just appreciated parties where I could show up and see people, and not have to arrange the gatherings myself.

Following "understood" society rules requires some weird contortions sometimes.

Seriously, I had...four? Peter's work didn't invite me and just gave us a wad of cash (no lie; we used it to buy our video camera).

And what gets me about all these rules is that they actually make life harder on guests and/or people who want to do nice things for others. I'm actually a big supporter of registry notes in wedding invitations. Don't make me call all over creation, including people I don't know to buy you a gift on a gift-giving occasion. If for whatever reason I'm NOT buying you a gift, that little card isn't going to change my feelings about it. Certainly as a recipient I'm all about "it's the thought that counts," but as a giver, I want to give something that will be used, not put away in a drawer forever.

Ahem. I may have feelings about this.

Again I totally agree, but a lot of the conventions also started when as the gift-giver the most you had to do is tag your other friends and say "are you buying them $Thing That Every Single NewlyWeds/NewParents Ever Will Need", because you could reasonably assume that they had absolutely nothing except handmedowns to start a new house or care for a new baby with.

It falls apart in modern Western culture because we tend to have already established independent households, stuff is way more disposable and at the same time often less expensive, etc. So then you have to run around trying to figure out wtf someone wants and doesn't have and won't buy for THEMSELVES between now and the event and AUGH.

Miss Manners: who can throw a shower?

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