Weird title, I know. But I’ve recently found out that I’m pregnant with my first child. It’s an equal mix of anxiety, excitement, and anger at just how consumeristic having a goddamn baby is. So I’m curious how my fellow Solarpunks would handle the introduction of a new small mammal into their world.
My main concern revolves around Amazon and general gifting.
I live in the UK, but I’m from the US originally, and my family and most of my friends are back in the US. Their go-to for sending me anything is Amazon, because you can easily shop in the US and ship to my home in the UK. I’ve had mixed feelings about this for a long time, but now that my entire family is gonna want to Buy Something for Baby I’m especially cautious. I don’t want to tell them not to buy anything (Well I do, but more on that later). But I absolutely do not want to receive anything from Amazon. Environmental, economical, political, and ethical concerns aside, I don’t really trust items from Amazon to hold up like I’d want them to. Might not technically be an issue with baby clothes, since they’ll be worn for a day at most, but anything else I come into possession of needs to be sturdy enough to be safe, and to be able to be reused/passed down/given to other parents in the community when no longer needed.
I found a website called LittleList that’s a UK-based baby registry, which seems to allow people from anywhere to order anything to my door, and they even seem to have an emphasis on more eco friendly brands. My plan as a result is to tell people they can only order off of the LittleList registry, or they can just get a card for my family and/or baby. That said, I’ll take advice for either how to get people to actually listen to this request, or for other, better requests to make.
My other concern with getting gifts (and even buying stuff myself) is I don’t know what I’ll actually need and use, and I’d hate to buy or receive useless stuff just to clutter my house. Also, I’m in Scotland, so the government will send us a box full of baby necessities when baby is born. I hope I can use this little fact to convince people that really, I don’t need anything.
TL:DR; anyone have advice for how to keep people from inundating me and baby with cheap Amazon stuff?
I’m also wondering if there’d be interest in a solarpunk parenting community here, because god knows if I posted this on a generic parenting forum I’d get all kinds of people not getting it, and I know this won’t be the last weird question I have.
Personally I would just do a public list that they all can read to avoid buying unnecessary junk. Anyway, if they use Amazon you can do a proper wishlist and just share it with them. I know it would be nice to avoid amazon but, honestly, you are going to raise a child soon, better pick more important battles like his/her education!! Don’t worry too much about the rest, just go for a comfy middle ground and then use your energy for the child :)
Haha fair enough on picking battles… I’m already prepping for how the heck I’ll ensure they’re well educated. I work from home, and I work a 4 day week, but even then I think my dream of home education would end me.
This is so true. Get ready for compromises. I’m coming up on the 2 month date, and the number of times we’ve just been too tired to shop or reticent to interrupt naps for trips is more than I expected by far.
The “buy it for life” mentality only goes so far when they outgrow everything in a couple of months or you discover your kid just runs hot, so a bunch of clothes that were bought barely see use or they just don’t like the shape of one bottle nipple vs others etc.
I’m glad to have the convenience of generous return policies and not having to stand in a customer service line.
The Amazon registry did use really well, but we signed up a bunch of them to nab all the free stuff. I highly recommend the Enfamil gift box. It had some really good stuff in there!
They’re all just gonna sell your data anyways to advertise to you. You might as well sell it yourself and get the goods!