This is the worst of being a new mother. It all influences us all … But nobody ever talks about it: Kara Kennedy

I was only four months pregnant when the requests of friends started. At first I had no idea what they meant. Even after further explanation, I was stunned – and secretly more than a bit shocked.

I had heard of making a gift list prior to the marriage, but a ‘baby register’ before birth?

This is a new craze for sending a bedrist to your nearest and sweetest of all the baby-related gifts you want.

Can’t you afford the newest ‘It Pram’? Everything and diverse to pitch in it. Hanking after the latest designer Bassinet? Just ask in the rather anonymous way to add it to your baby register. After more and more people started agitating for my list, a friend shared hers as a template. And yes, it was a stunning catalog of nonsense of a total of more than £ 7,000.

My introduction came to the baby register after I moved Virginia In the US the year before, after a meeting and falling for my husband. But beware, just like baby showers and gender-reveal parties, this OH-Zo rental soldier new craze is fast.

In fact, these Instagram-Perfect baby wish lists already infiltrate in Great Britain via social media.

It is enough to fully reproduce. Or, at least, very determined to prevent friends-registration-hiding friends.

Because a baby gift should be a well -considered surprise, no fact. Do you remember that people went to real stores, real shelves were mixed up, selected beautiful things with their own hands, they wrapped and presented at the right parties?

Kara Kennedy had never heard of a register of a baby gift before she was pregnant

There was real anticipation, real surprise. If you have received duplicates or something absolutely horrible, you would calm it down and never breathe in a word.

Today’s baby register is emailed to friends, family and sometimes merely acquaintances, as a digital link – usually, depressing, to Amazon.

The ‘Babybjorn Bounceabout’ is next to the ‘Graco Pack’ N Play ‘and something that is called a’ boppy ‘. The ‘gift’ that you buy may never be recognized as yours. It arrives at the door of the recipient in Amazon’s characteristic brown packaging, as anonymous as Junkmail. Charming.

These future parents do not really know what they ask-they ticks simply subjects in front plots of which some algorithm has established that they need, thoughtfulness and creativity.

When I confessed that I would not prepare such a tasteless list and that the gifts that I would receive very gratefully (if present) would be hand-me-downs of their toddlers, the answer was multiple.

The people who listened to my request came to my house with BIN bags full of old clothes and diapers that they would never use. It was great. After their initial shame, the mothers admitted that most items from their registers were unopened in their cellars.

It took not long after the birth of my baby before the registers start to swarm again.

When I tried to buy a beautiful collection of poetry for the new baby of a writer friend – something personal, meaningful, sustainable – when I tried to buy a beautiful collection. My friend loved it, but it was clear that it was different from everything they received.

Kara, depicted with her baby, asked friends who wanted to give gifts to donate hand-me-downs of their toddlers instead

And the system fights back with increasing aggression. Recent registers have landed in my inbox with strict warnings printed in fat -printed capitals: ‘Please do not buy anything on the list’. Some even contain notes about the fact that returns are ‘difficult’ for time new parents.

The economy is equally absurd. Because friend groups tend to reproduce in clusters, the same people buy each other in endless cycles of mutual consumption. Cathy spends £ 130 on Emma’s ‘Miracle Sleep Machine’ in February and then receives a £ 120 ‘Wonder Bounce System’ from Emma in June.

Most people try to find out how much has been issued on them by how much they spend on others on the pound. So essentially you even break and you don’t have to bother at all.

Trying to navigate by these registers offers the final insult. By the time you go in to open them – usually after receiving multiple e -mails – all sensible items have been claimed by faster family members, so that you can buy more and more bizarre offers.

I once only bought the handle of a portable way table for £ 10. I was so stunned by this absurd transaction that I sent it anonymously, who defeated the purpose of giving gifts.

The tragedy is not that giving Americans wanted to make as a gift more convenient. It is that in their pursuit of efficiency they have eliminated everything that has made meaningful gifts.

Traditionally after a birth, families gave silver spoons that were passed on last life, baptismal dresses by generations, or savings that grow up when the child turns 18. These are connections over time, investments in relationships.

Receiving the strange eccentricity that we want to hide is a small price to pay for life in a world that people actually think about things, instead of just clicking on ‘Add to Basket’ on the algorithmic -generated wish list of someone else.

Great -Britain, don’t say I haven’t warned you.