A pregnant woman is due in September and her sister-in-law wants to make a diaper cake for the baby shower. The pregnant woman is hesitant because she and her husband are undecided on whether to use disposable or cloth diapers, and she prefers to keep diapers in the box for ease of storage and transportation. The sister-in-law becomes angry and calls her ungrateful for rejecting the traditional gift. The pregnant woman wonders if she is in the wrong for declining the gift because of its impracticality.
Source: Reddit
I (30f) am pregnant with my first (most likely only) child, due in September. My husband’s sister (37f) is very excited and informed me that she will be making a diaper cake for the baby shower. I thought this would be a cake shaped like a diaper but after chatting with her, I learned that it is actually a number of disposable diapers, rolled up and tied together to vaguely resemble a tiered cake. I guess it is supposed to be used as a baby shower decoration. She showed me pictures on Pinterest of several tall, awkwardly shaped towers of diapers, sometimes with decorations pinned or glued to the outside, which I’m pretty sure would make some of the outside diapers unusable.
I told her that I appreciated the sentiment and that I loved that she already wanted to do something for a baby shower that is months away, but
1) My husband and I are undecided on the disposable vs cloth question, and
2) If I’m going to have disposable diapers, I would rather keep them in the box, where they’ll be easier to store and move.
My SIL got angry and yelled at me that diaper cakes are traditional (Are they? I’ve never been to a baby shower), called me ungrateful and said that I’d be sorry when I have a baby and have no baby stuff because I rejected all my shower gifts. Obviously, that last part was just her going over the top because she was mad, but what about the rest of it?
Am I a jerk for essentially turning down a gift because of how it’s presented? I would be happy with a gift of diapers, but this cake thing just seems like a lot of effort to take something practical and turn it into something completely impractical.
**Update: My husband told his sister she can make the diaper cake so I guess I’m getting a diaper cake. He’s the one who wants an actual baby shower anyway (I wanted a small backyard barbecue where I wouldn’t have to be the center of attention). SIL texted me and promised she will only hot glue the diapers on the outside. She loves her glue gun.
Here are a few comments on the story where it was originally posted:
