- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
Multiples
We are not here to entertain you!
My SIL is pg and due mid-Dec. She chose not to have a shower so we had a mother blessing instead. At the blessing she has handouts on the table with a list of 'rules' & a sign-up slip for when you come over to visit/help with the baby when it is born. I found it very tacky to ask for help that way. Anyhow fast forward to my shower on Saturday.....she reminds the family members that are there of the number one rule on the list that her and the baby are not there to entertain you when you visit and that you are expected to help out in some way (do the dishes, cook, hold the baby so she can shower, throw in a load of laundry). She also does not plan to leave the house for at least 2 weeks after the baby is born. Is it me or does this sound crazy??
This discussion has been closed.
Re: We are not here to entertain you!
LOL! I kinda wish I had the balls to do that (I never would though because my Mom did not raise me like that)!
How did other people at the blessing/shower react to this invitation/announcement?
So many women get so controlling when they bear children. As if they have this one moment in their life to feel important...and they run with it.
Meh, bad karma.
I do think she has a point to an extent (though I'm thinking more as a first-time mom and MOM)--I really hope people don't expect me to entertain them if they come by when the babies are a week old and I'm exhausted and constantly BFing (a little harder to do discreetly with two than one, so I'm told
). But I think it was a tacky, aggressive way for her to address it. As in, I think if family do want to come visit, they should offer to help out and not have high expectations for mom's hostessing skills or house cleanliness in those first few weeks. But again, the way she addressed it was tacky and aggressive; it might have been better if she simply discouraged visitors the first few weeks rather than saying they HAVE to help out if they haven't offered.
I see nothing wrong with not leaving the house for two weeks after the baby's born though; that's really not that long. Whatever she's comfortable with. (I have Chinese friends who swear by their custom of the mother totally taking it easy the whole first month--within pretty strict guidelines, really--but I have a Chinese-American friend who said she did it the American way her first two pregnancies and the Chinese way for her third and it made a HUGE difference in her postpartum recovery.)
I think that she is right that visitors shouldn't expect to be entertained by the mother and baby and should help out, but boy-oh-boy it's tacky to put it in a handout for your relatives. Putting it like that means that you assume that they are so thoughtless that they wouldn't have offered to help unless you told them too. It's like giving out a handout at a bridal shower telling guests not to wear white dreses with trains at the wedding, it's an assumption that your friends and family are classless.