Speaker 1: While we're celebrating Christmas with our families, we bring you
Speaker 1: this relic of Christmas past. I believe this is the
Speaker 1: only original podcast episode we put out on Christmas Day
Speaker 1: way back in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Round three of the Parenting Roundabout podcast for
Speaker 2: the week of December twenty third. I'm Catherine Aleco and
Speaker 2: I'm here with Terry Morrow Hello, and Nicole Eerdix.
Speaker 3: Hello.
Speaker 2: We're moms of teens and young adults, and when it
Speaker 2: comes to parenting, we've been there, done that, bought the
Speaker 2: T shirt. But we're still waiting for that day when
Speaker 2: we'll reach the finish line and have no further need
Speaker 2: to lay down in a dark room with a wet
Speaker 2: rag over our eyes worrying about something or other. So
Speaker 2: Wednesday is complaint Day here on Parenting Roundabout, and we
Speaker 2: do not even take time off from complaining for Christmas.
Speaker 2: We today are going to talk about a recent article
Speaker 2: in the Washington Post that talked about the need to
Speaker 2: update the baby Shower. It says new parents need childcare help,
Speaker 2: meals and groceries, therapy, social support. Steer your friends and
Speaker 2: family toward helping with support costs instead of shelling out
Speaker 2: money for top of the line new stuff like baby stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so in this season of gift giving, is this a
Speaker 2: good idea? Like do we just want to hand over
Speaker 2: a little onesie and be done with it or as
Speaker 2: we do? Yeah, I mean as a as a giver,
Speaker 2: I probably would, but as a new parent, I definitely
Speaker 2: would have. I mean, you do need stuff, you absolutely
Speaker 2: write stuff. But yeah, getting help is really important too.
Speaker 2: Like one thing that they talked about in this article,
Speaker 2: like right at the baby shower set up the like
Speaker 2: meal train for bringing food when the baby comes, which
Speaker 2: I think is pretty think that's a good idea because
Speaker 2: anybody who brought me food when I had babies, I
Speaker 2: was extremely grateful.
Speaker 1: My question with that is who is coming to this
Speaker 1: baby shower, because I've recently been to a baby shower
Speaker 1: for somebody who doesn't live near me. She's a daughter
Speaker 1: of one of my husband's cousins. I see her only
Speaker 1: at weddings and showers. I don't even know where she lives,
Speaker 1: but I'm pretty sure it's not in meal toating distance movie,
Speaker 1: and I don't know that she would want a meal
Speaker 1: from me random relative she barely knows. So this assumes
Speaker 1: that you have a warm, personal baby shower with your
Speaker 1: immediate friends and relatives, and then it's fine, but I
Speaker 1: don't want to just I mean, I guess if they said, here,
Speaker 1: go to this GoFundMe page and chip in for a
Speaker 1: lactation consultant, okay, be easier than getting a gift card
Speaker 1: for a baby place, which I probably we would be doing.
Speaker 1: But at least here in New Jersey, baby showers have
Speaker 1: a sort of a broader guest list, you know, than
Speaker 1: what they seem to be talking about here. And also,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure now I've never I had an adoption shower,
Speaker 1: but I never had a baby shower. How much do you,
Speaker 1: as a young person having your first baby, say, know
Speaker 1: what you're gonna need in the way of support. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, some people might need a lactation consultant, some
Speaker 1: people might not, Some people might need a night nurse,
Speaker 1: some people might not want it.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It seems like what it's gonna be is some older
Speaker 1: relatives saying, now, honey, you're gonna need this and this
Speaker 1: and this. You don't need that fancy baby stroller that
Speaker 1: you want. You don't need all those clothes, you need
Speaker 1: this and this and this and it's like, what fun
Speaker 1: is that? You know, A for some lit lashy presence.
Speaker 1: I think this woman was talking about her shower from
Speaker 1: the perspective of being a mom and knowing what she
Speaker 1: would have needed, but when she was actually having that,
Speaker 1: if she would have been psyched to get this stuff,
Speaker 1: I don't know, right.
Speaker 3: Well, I really liked what my son's friends did for
Speaker 3: their wedding this past summer, and they they did a combination.
Speaker 3: There's a site, I think it's I don't know, Tie
Speaker 3: the Knot or something, but where they can put down,
Speaker 3: you know, physical items that they want and experiences or
Speaker 3: services that they want. So and I like that option
Speaker 3: by registry basically yeah, yeah, it was like a registry
Speaker 3: yeah and so, and you could just like donate money
Speaker 3: online and they would get the money and somehow. But see,
Speaker 3: for me personally, like I would prefer to outsource and
Speaker 3: have the you know, like say, for example, an Uber
Speaker 3: eats gift card or because I feel like, well, there's
Speaker 3: definitely a trend that's moving away from collecting stuff and
Speaker 3: there's kind of like that whole reuse, recycle, upcycled kind
Speaker 3: of stuff, which in some cases is good and not
Speaker 3: so good. But I feel like when it comes to
Speaker 3: these personal items, like, yeah, we there's a registry, but
Speaker 3: then you know, like I feel like new parents want
Speaker 3: to choose exactly what they want, right, So I would
Speaker 3: like to have the option of getting services and yeah,
Speaker 3: because I think that has like just as much value.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if it can be done in a really sort
Speaker 1: of generalized way. But it's like, you know, you may
Speaker 1: what did they I'm not sure what they mean by
Speaker 1: like experiences, but like for some families, it might be
Speaker 1: cool to have, you know, a membership to a museum
Speaker 1: or a trip to Disney or whatever. But then you
Speaker 1: have your baby and it's premature or it's got special
Speaker 1: needs or whatever, and then you need a whole other
Speaker 1: set of experiences. Where's my gift card for a speech therapy?
Speaker 1: Can I have a gift card for you know, a
Speaker 1: uber you know uber to the hospital and back to
Speaker 1: visit my kid in the NICU. It's it seems like,
Speaker 1: if you're going to do it this way, maybe what
Speaker 1: you want to do is have the shower after the
Speaker 1: baby is born, when you know specifically what you wish
Speaker 1: you had, give the new parents a month and then
Speaker 1: throw them a party.
Speaker 3: That's what we did. I had. I had my baby
Speaker 3: shower when some was a month old. Yeah, and then.
Speaker 2: That's also a better way to do a shower or
Speaker 2: a celebration for a second or third kid.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, because then you do by then you
Speaker 4: do know, you do know, and you don't have a
Speaker 4: lot of stuff. Yeah, you know, you don't really need stuff.
Speaker 4: But if people brought you like frozen.
Speaker 5: Meals and you know, diapers, and yeah, here's all the
Speaker 5: days that I can take your older child to the
Speaker 5: park or whatever like that sort of stuff is I
Speaker 5: think even more when it's subsequent child.
Speaker 3: Definitely. I had Actually, after my daughter was born, I
Speaker 3: had a I hired a doula, like a postpartum doula.
Speaker 3: Oh my god. That was the best thing. One of
Speaker 3: the best things about having a child was being But
Speaker 3: it was expensive and I couldn't afford to have her
Speaker 3: all the time. But it was so nice to have
Speaker 3: just somebody come in and yeah, you know, fulsome clothes,
Speaker 3: or help me with you know, something that was going on,
Speaker 3: you know, change a diaper. I don't know. It was
Speaker 3: just a really nice kind of a support service kind
Speaker 3: of thing that was recommended to me.
Speaker 2: So kind of the type of thing that like a
Speaker 2: family member might have done if you had one nearby,
Speaker 2: you know, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. So I like the option of having and
Speaker 3: it being socially okay to give alternate forms of gifts,
Speaker 3: right because I think we just get stuck in this
Speaker 3: traditional Oh yeah, I got to give a baby blanket.
Speaker 1: But where else would you like that to expand to?
Speaker 1: Could we do that with like Christmas gifts? All the
Speaker 1: things that are under trees. As people are listening to
Speaker 1: this podcast, are they looking at them and going, what
Speaker 1: are really rather had, you know, a trip somewhere, or
Speaker 1: if we could take all the money from this stuff
Speaker 1: that people gave me that I didn't want and they
Speaker 1: could have just bought me a maid, Yeah, I would like,
Speaker 1: you know, or or a day at something or a
Speaker 1: you know, path.
Speaker 3: I kind of charges this year. I was like, We're
Speaker 3: going to take the money that we spend on your
Speaker 3: gifts and put it towards a family experience because I
Speaker 3: I am so over buying them stuff that they can
Speaker 3: typically get themselves that we could get for them, or.
Speaker 2: If they're my husband, that they just buy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they just gone by and it doesn't and whatever
Speaker 3: I get my husband, he doesn't want anyway, so right,
Speaker 3: so we I just said, yeah, we're going to take
Speaker 3: that money and put it towards something as a family.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's what we're doing. A good idea this year.
Speaker 3: I always have so much trouble with Christmas. Yeah, they're older.
Speaker 3: That helps also, you know with Christmas presents. And then
Speaker 3: my husband's birthday is in January, my son's birthday is
Speaker 3: in March, and my daughter's birthday is in April. So
Speaker 3: it's a lot in a short period of time. And
Speaker 3: my son, as I've said before, often can't decide what
Speaker 3: he wants, and so then I'm getting him like double
Speaker 3: at his birthday.
Speaker 1: Because I can. So this year, we're going to try
Speaker 1: something new, which is just we're each member of the
Speaker 1: four of us is going to buy the other three
Speaker 1: something with a maximum price of ten dollars. So we're
Speaker 1: just going to have a very small, little fun from
Speaker 1: the heart sort of a gift exchange on the day,
Speaker 1: and then you know, anything that I had thought I
Speaker 1: would get them for Christmas, I can get them for
Speaker 1: their birthdays because it's coming right up afterwards. So I
Speaker 1: don't feel like anybody's getting slided that much, and they
Speaker 1: don't really, it's not like there's a ton of stuff.
Speaker 1: They're not little kids with their eyes full of toys.
Speaker 1: It's like sometimes pulling teeth to get something to do. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're all just going to go to this one place
Speaker 1: that has you know, stuff, and we're just all going
Speaker 1: to you know, buy some little trinket for each other.
Speaker 1: We'll see how that goes. It may be maybe next
Speaker 1: year we'll do something some sort of experience or buy
Speaker 1: some streaming service for everybody and that'll be that. But
Speaker 1: it does, you know, the gift giving, especially with the
Speaker 1: older kids, it does get kind of diminishing returns. Mm hmmm.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, I my daughter this year with her skating team,
Speaker 2: has so many expenses, Like there's all this clothing and
Speaker 2: just supplies and you know, a special backpack like all
Speaker 2: this stuff that we have to buy, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: can I please just put that under the Christmas tree
Speaker 2: because mine is ending a lot. Yes, So I just yeah,
Speaker 2: and she gets it, like she would be fine with that.
Speaker 2: But a lot of it, you know, I didn't necessarily
Speaker 2: have by Christmas, or I had it way before and
Speaker 2: you know, or her coach distributed it like, yeah, you
Speaker 2: know when they got it, and so it wasn't working
Speaker 2: that well.
Speaker 1: But you just write it all out on a card.
Speaker 1: You put a bow on the card and put it
Speaker 1: under the tree and say, look at all the stuff
Speaker 1: I got for you. Pretty much, Well, there should be
Speaker 1: a better way. And certainly I think everybody who goes
Speaker 1: to showers and everybody who gives gifts for anything else
Speaker 1: wants the thing to be as useful as possible, you know,
Speaker 1: not and fairly easy also, but not something that's going
Speaker 1: to turn out to be an unnecessary expenditure of funds.
Speaker 1: So maybe this sort of trend will be helpful eventually.
Speaker 1: But I'm still not going to cook meals for somebody
Speaker 1: I see twice. I I don't think they would, while
Speaker 1: I wouldn't cook the meals my husband meals. But interesting ideas.
Speaker 2: Happy holidays, and we'll be back tomorrow with our discussion
Speaker 2: of shrinking Last Drink, which is season two, episode eight,
Speaker 2: and as Terry mentioned yesterday, it will make you cry yes.
Speaker 1: Or possibly drink yes unless you are Paul. Thank you
Speaker 1: for listening. You can find all our episodes on spreaker,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: You can find recaps, links and an opportunity to comment
Speaker 1: on our website at parentingroundabout dot com.
Speaker 2: You can also talk to us on our Facebook page,
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Speaker 2: roundabout Chat. And please visit our Amazon shop at Amazon
Speaker 2: dot com slash Shop slash Mamitude, but you can find
Speaker 2: links to a lot of the things we've talked about
Speaker 2: over the years.