It's a major stress reliever for busy expecting moms.
For an expecting mom, baby showers are a great way to receive well wishes and support from your loved ones—not to mention all the generous gifts and essential you get to stockpile before the baby arrives. It is, without a doubt, important to thank to all of your guests for attending, but an online debate is raising an important question: do we really need to send everybody a hand-written thank-you note?
Laura Turner, a writer from San Francisco, recently had her baby shower and one of her guests surprised her with an unexpected proposition. “One woman said, before I started opening gifts, 'Can we give you the gift of no thank-you notes?’ And everyone gasped and I DIED and now I’m going to be that lady at every shower I go to,” she wrote on Twitter.
While this is certainly unorthodox, Lauren’s 30 attendees were actually giving her the greatest gift of all for a busy working mom: time. She would be free to skip the painstaking process of writing out individual notes and then having to mail them all out. Because—let’s be honest—wouldn’t we all just rather to express our gratitude face-to-face?
According to Lauren, she didn’t know what to think at first, but quickly warmed up to the idea. "At first everyone was kind of stunned," she said in an interview with ABC News. "Pretty quickly it turned from a sense of surprise, to a sense of excitement at this new and relieving idea."
Her original tweet soon went viral with almost 2,000 retweets and over 21,000 likes. Many people replied to support the idea of a thank-you-note-free shower.
However, there are still some people who are firmly pro-note.
Amy Arnold, the friend who told Lauren she could skip the notes, said she wanted the expecting mom to relax in the final days of her pregnancy.
"There is so much pressure on new moms to sort of perform and meet everybody else's expectations," Amy explained. "I believe that everybody wanted to communicate to Laura that we were there for her and all we really wanted her to do is enjoy her pregnancy, spend time with her baby and not be writing thank-you notes."
Lauren mentioned she actually enjoys writing notes, but she appreciated the gesture.
"Life is really busy and hectic preparing to have a baby," she said. "To feel the guilt piled up because people haven't received the thank-you notes, it weighs on people. And so, the gift Amy gave was the gift of no shame or guilt moving forward and that's pretty huge."
Regardless of where you fall in the thank-you note debate, we can all agree the most important thing is for the mom-to-be not to feel unnecessary pressure or stress leading up to giving birth. So maybe at the next shower you attend, you can be the one to let the guest of honor know she can skip them if she chooses. Judgement free.
Written by Nicole Sheinzok for Working Mother and legally licensed through the Matcha publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@getmatcha.com.