Appalling new trend: Push Presents

Sometimes, I just want to say STOP IT. Stop. It. Stop making beautiful, meaningful, life-changing events into material THINGS. Things like jewellery and parties and…..wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. Two very famous and wealthy women have had babies recently.

Both have publicly revealed that their husbands gave them ‘Push Presents’ – wildly expensive bits of jewellery as gifts for having said babies.

WTF. Does nothing count anymore unless it comes with diamonds and a giftbag? Or a big party and public acclaim and attention?

Both Rachel Zoe and Mariah Carey chose to announce to announce to the world VIA THEIR JEWELLERS, the details of their Push Presents. It’s enough to make you want to abandon the first world and go and live in a Mogolian Yurt until everyone gets their priorities the fuck straight.

I’ve written about push presents before on this post. Here is a recap:

“Having long excelled at making a party out of molehill, some women have a new item to add to their list of Things I Must Have. Push Presents. These are pieces of expensive jewellery –  diamonds are usually involved – that men give to women for having a baby. And because diamonds don’t discriminate, you’re eligible even if, technically, you didn’t push. Caesareans also qualify. The point is you gave birth and that apparently requires something sparkly. Because the healthy baby isn’t enough. You need a bonus. With carats.”

This, from People Magazine:

“New mom Mariah Carey didn’t have to wait long to celebrate her first Mother’s Day. Just days after welcoming twins Monroe and Moroccanon April 30, the singer toasted her new life as a mom with a very special present from Nick Cannon: a 4-carat diamond and sapphire necklace from Jason of Beverly Hills.

The sparkling piece, which also incorporates 14-karat white and rose gold, is valued at $12,000. Cannon, a longtime customer of Jason, was excited about his big surprise. “Nick came in and met with Jason on the Friday after his twins were born,” a source tells PEOPLE. “He was bleary eyed, looking so tired but so happy — all smiles, saying he wanted to design something special for Mariah’s first Mother’s day. He couldn’t wait to surprise her on Sunday.”

Vanessa Raphaely from Hurricane Vanessa writes about Rachel Zoe’s push present:

Surely the following should hold true. In a sane and sensible world: Birthday presents? Fine.

A bunch of flowers on Valentines’ Day? If your heart so desires.

A thoughtful, modest gesture just for the love of the recipient?

Of course.

But the pressure of making a new tradition, setting up a new expectation, out of the purchase of yet another massive ticket purchase, to celebrate the birth of a child?

Oh God, please, only if you absolutely have to.

And if you must, I hope, like the virus of unnecessary extravagance and show-offery that they are, that “Push presents” do not spread to the general populace.

Here’s what I think: Donate some money to a child who has nothing, instead.

Then carry that gift around in your heart.

Silently.

 

Sing it sister. ENOUGH with the ostentatious presents and parties and renewal of vows. How about the BABY being enough of a gift and, as Vanessa so ingeniously suggested, if you are seized by the compulsion to spend money to celebrate your baby’s birth, donate it to a child or mother who has nothing. So she can buy food or medicine or education for her child……

Am I over-reacting? I guess I’m just so exasperated by this constant need to celebrate things with gifts. Like the couples (Seal & Heidi Klum for example) who constantly renew their vows. Oh, Mariah and Nick did that too in the hospital when she gave birth!

How about just BEING MARRIED instead of constantly needing to turn it into a big material fuss? And where is this pressure coming from – is it the women guilting men into buying them jewellery? Is it the diamond industry trying to create a new market?

What do you think?