Miss Manners: who can throw a shower?

[cereta]

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My niece has asked me for ideas for a baby shower she wants to give for her expecting daughter. I don't know how to respond without hurting her feelings. How can I gently tell her it's not proper for a mother to give a shower for her own daughter?

GENTLE READER: When you find out, please tell Miss Manners. She has been pointing this out for years, and it doesn't seem to help.

Comments

[cereta]

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.

[jadelennox]

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?

[cereta]

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.

[recessional]

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.

[minoanmiss]

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

[redbird]

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?