'I don't have time to home-make gifts for your baby.'

On the list of things that I don’t have time to do, making thoughtful, hand-crafted presents is pretty high.

I have a feeling I am not alone in that, judging by the reaction to the mother who posted this message in the parenting forum Mumsnet.

Christening next week for 6mo. Parents have requested handmade gifts for their daughter.

Clearly they want lots of unique and personalised gifts for their daughter, which is lovely. But I’m shit at crafts and also find the request a bit

. If I was to go for it, I really would turn up with something monumentally sh*t that would get chucked away, and would be a waste of my time and effort.

I suggested to the baby’s mother, my friend, that I bring something else and she choked through the words ‘something shop bought is fine’ and ‘precious daughter has everything she needs’. Clearly it’s not.
Am I Being Unreasonable to think cheeky, ungrateful f**kers?!

Popular answer: NO.

Listen to Holly and Andrew Daddo talk it out on This Glorious Mess, here:

The thing is, we all like to rail against teaching our kids to love expensive STUFF.

But deep down, buying STUFF is often a more realistic option than having to put hours of thought and effort into a gift.

Because how many hours do we have? Not enough.

So I tried to make a doll; I guess the cat has a new toy now… #crafts #DIY #doll #babydoll #simpledoll #sew #sewing #sewingmachine #bernina #noinstructions #notutorial #noclue #badjob #botched #fail #DIYfail #sewingfail #thisdoesntlookright #failgram #instafail #kittie #cattoy

A photo posted by isa (@theoneandonlyisaontheway) on Apr 4, 2016 at 12:44pm PDT

There are people for whom knocking up a photo collage in a seashell frame, putting together a Pinterest-worthy memory book or a crafting a hand-sewn patchwork quilt, is as effortless as inhaling a wheel of brie.

They’ll fit it in – without an emotional breakdown – between their Class Parent duties, making the paper mache eggplant suit for Fruit and Veggie Week and rolling their own gnocchi.

And then there’s the rest of us. The commenter, above, is one of the rest of us.

Can anyone figure out why we should not #Craft while #Sick ???? so glad I had spare everything haha ???? #CraftFail @ariana.burton, I debated giving you guys this one & letting it be a running joke haha ???? then I remade it

A photo posted by Stacy???? (@sburton10) on Jun 9, 2016 at 5:23am PDT

The rest of us never have quite the right crafting supplies to do the job properly. There’s no double-sided sticky tape in our lives, not enough stiff cardboard lying around. We can’t sew because we can never, ever find a needle and we’ll carry the memory stick around for eight weeks swearing each day that we will get those photos printed for the album.

The Rest Of Us think that hand-made-gift-requesting-mum is The Devil.

Where do you stand? 

You can listen to the whole episode of This Glorious Mess, here, or download it in iTunes, or the Mamamia Podcast app.