Pregnant Woman Says Her Mother-in-Law’s Friend Planned a “Grandma Baby Shower” — Then Expected Her To Bring a Gift

A pregnant woman says she was thrown off after learning her mother-in-law’s friend was planning a full “grandma baby shower” for the mother-in-law — and somehow, the actual mom-to-be was expected to attend and bring a present.

The 30-year-old woman shared the situation in a Reddit post, explaining that she is pregnant with her and her husband’s first child. Then she found out her mother-in-law’s best friend had mailed out real baby shower invitations to the mother-in-law’s friends for what was apparently a “surprise shower for the grandma to be.”

That alone would have been strange enough for the poster, but the details made it worse. The shower was being hosted at the best friend’s house. The invite list was made up of the mother-in-law’s friends. The poster’s own mom was not invited. And even though the party was for the grandmother, the pregnant woman said she was expected to come and bring a gift.

The poster said she felt “absolutely put off” by the whole thing. To her, it did not make sense for her mother-in-law to be treated like the guest of honor at a baby shower when she was not the one pregnant, not the baby’s parent and not the person preparing to bring a newborn home. She said she had never heard of anything like it and felt like the whole thing was weird because she was the one having the baby and making her mother-in-law a grandmother.

The gift part seemed to be what really pushed people over the edge in the comments. Several commenters said it was odd enough for a friend group to celebrate someone becoming a grandma, but expecting the actual pregnant woman to show up with a present made the whole thing feel backwards. One commenter asked whether the gifts were supposed to be for the baby or the grandmother, while another said the idea sounded like the mother-in-law expected to stock her own house with baby items.

A lot of people told the poster not to go. Some said if the mother-in-law’s friends wanted to take her to brunch or give her small “grandma” gifts among themselves, that was one thing. But turning it into a shower, sending invitations, excluding the pregnant woman’s own mother and then expecting the mom-to-be to participate made it feel like the spotlight had shifted away from the parents before the baby was even born.

Others said the issue was not only the party. It was what the party might suggest about expectations after the baby arrives. Several commenters wondered whether the mother-in-law was assuming the baby would spend a lot of time at her house. One person warned that if the mother-in-law was already being treated like she needed her own baby supplies, the poster may want to have clear boundaries before the baby is born.

There were a few people who thought the poster might be reading too much into it. Some commenters said they had seen similar “grandma showers” before, especially when friends wanted to celebrate a first grandchild or help a future grandmother prepare her home for visits. One commenter said more people celebrating a baby was not automatically a bad thing, and that the poster could simply decline if she did not want to attend.

But even some of the more forgiving comments still agreed the poster’s own mom being left off the guest list made the situation worse. If the event was supposedly about celebrating the new baby and the growing family, excluding the other grandmother while inviting the pregnant woman to bring a gift made the whole thing feel lopsided.

The comments kept circling back to the same point: the mother-in-law is becoming a grandmother, but the poster is becoming a mother. Those are not the same role, and a shower built around the grandmother can start to feel uncomfortable when the actual parent is treated like a guest at someone else’s baby event.

By the end of the thread, most people seemed to think the poster was not overreacting. They told her she did not have to attend, did not have to bring a gift and did not have to pretend the whole thing felt normal just because her mother-in-law’s friend group decided to mail invitations.

The poster may not be able to stop the party from happening, but commenters made one thing pretty clear: she can control whether she shows up for it. And if the shower is really about grandma getting baby gear for a child she is not raising, that may be the first boundary worth setting before the baby even gets here.

The original Reddit post is here.