Mom-to-be receives best baby shower gift of all time: No 'thank you' notes
A mother-to-be from California has sparked a Twitter debate after revealing that one of her baby shower guests has given her the relief of not having to write out personal "thank you" cards.
Laura Turner, 32, a San Francisco-based writer, told ABC News that two baby showers were thrown in her honor. During the party on April 14, her mother's friend, Amy Arnold, 52, announced that she and the group of 30 women should offer her the gift of no "thank you" notes.
"At first everyone was kind of stunned," said Turner, who is expecting her first child June 3. "Pretty quickly it turned from a sense of surprise, to a sense of excitement at this new and relieving idea."
Turner tweeted about the gesture on April 15. Her tweet received nearly 2,000 shares and was liked over 21,000 times.
"At my baby shower yesterday, 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.
While many users praised the idea, others disapproved.
One man tweeted, "As someone who normally LOVES hand-written thank yous (and also as the rare husband who helped with the baby-shower thank yous), I absolutely love this idea. Moms deal with enough."
Another wrote, "I don’t believe losing our grace is a gift. Writing thoughtful (not perfunctory) notes of gratitude is a gift both for the author and the recipient."
Arnold told ABC News she thought of her no "thank you" cards idea on a whim.
"There is so much pressure on new moms to sort of perform and meet everybody else's expectations," Arnold said. "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."
Turner said she appreciated the gesture, especially since she's had a tough pregnancy.
"While I like writing thank you notes, to remove the obligation felt like such a relief to me," she said.
As for her buzzed-about tweet, Turner said that many responses came from women who admitted feeling guilty when they're not able to send out hand-written "thank yous" in a timely manner.
"Life is really busy and hectic preparing to have a baby," Turner added. "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."
Turner said she won't be fully giving up the practice of sending "thank you" cards.
