The Best Baby Shower Gift You Can Give Is Not Asking For Photographic Evidence of the Newborn With Your Present
It's been years since my baby shower, and even now, if I happen to pull a particular onesie out of the drawer or a stuffed animal from the bottom of a toy bin, I'll feel a sudden wave of anxiety wash over me. Sometimes it'll take a moment to realize why, but in most cases, it's immediate: the person who gave this to me demanded a photo that I never sent.
"Asking for documentation of a Thomas the Tank Engine crib blanket that we knew we'd never use just makes us feel unnecessarily guilty."
I've been assured that I'm not alone in feeling this way. I've been a guest at enough baby showers to witness first-hand how all the young moms in the room squirm in their seats when a woman interjects the gift-opening procession to say something to the effect of, "You must send me a photo of him wearing it!" or "I can't wait to see her playing with this!" I have even coached a friend through an awkward text exchange with a mother-in-law who demanded photos of her grandbaby in a onesie that she'd returned for store credit months earlier.
You — or, more likely, your mom, aunt, great-aunt, or second-cousin-once-removed — might be reading this and thinking, "What's the big deal?! How hard is it to take a picture of a baby in a cute bonnet? This person went out of their way to give you a gift and the least you could do is show them this small courtesy."
I understand how it might seem like such a simple request, but let me offer you a few reasons why it's actually one of the most frustrating aspects of baby-related gifts.
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We don't have the time.
Sure, snapping a photo takes seconds, but adjusting your schedule to do something that's not in your routine is hard on new moms. A relative pestered me on and off those first few months of my daughter's life for a photo of her in the newborn-sized sparkly tulle dress she'd bought her. The passive-aggressive requests came often enough that it was actually an item on my to-do list. But my baby lived in cotton sleepers, and I was so exhausted from sleepless nights that playing dress-up wasn't a priority over, say, disputing a $2,000 bill from the hospital. By the time I got around to it, my growing baby couldn't fit into it.
It's hard to remember who gave what.
Although we may have taken diligent notes on who gave what for thank you cards, once those envelopes went in the mail, there's a good chance the intel was forever out of our brains. I was in a total mental fog when a friend asked to send a video of my daughter playing with the toy she got her, but I blanked. Baby toys are all somewhat similar, and my "sorting toy" note in my "baby gift" spreadsheet narrowed it down to all of three possibilities. At that point, it seemed almost worse to showcase the wrong present than none at all.
We may not have kept it.
Like my friend who'd returned the onesie from her mother-in-law, we've all exchanged our fair share of gifts we didn't quite need in exchange for things we did (ahem, diapers). And if, bless your heart, you stuck to the registry and gave us that trusty diaper pail, you know how much we appreciate it without needing photographic proof. So asking for documentation of a Thomas the Tank Engine crib blanket that we knew we'd never use just makes us feel unnecessarily guilty.
Our partners never seem to be tasked with this.
It irritated me to no end that I was the exclusive recipient of these photographic requests. My husband just so happened to have a camera on his smart phone, too, yet no one — not even his own relatives — came to him over me.
Gifts shouldn't come with fine print.
Bottom line: if you are truly giving a gift, you shouldn't ask for anything in return. I've found that those truly thoughtful gifts — a funny baby shirt that perfectly speaks to your sense of humor or a toy you'd really, really wanted in your nursery — are easily remembered and always, always appreciated. And from personal experience, they are the gifts I end up snapping a dozen photos of and sharing with anyone who'll look.