Postcard pre-birth note impersonal

Dear Miss Manners: My family received in the mail a pre-printed postcard announcement of the impending birth of the first child of a cousin. We live in the same city and see them several times a year.

While pleased about their expected first child, I find the announcement of a baby through a pre-printed postcard to be rude, impersonal and tacky. They couldn’t take five minutes to pick up the phone and tell us? My husband’s view is “at least they told us,” and he thinks I’m making too big a deal out of the postcard announcement.

Is this a new trend among young people? (The couple are in their early 20s.)

Gentle Reader: Let us hope not. An “impending birth” is, indeed, an event to be confided to relatives and friends, although not necessarily the moment after it becomes known. But Miss Manners hates to think of where making the stages of pre-birth into a formal announcement could be going.

She trusts, however, that you will be the one to pick up the telephone and give your good wishes as heartily as if the couple had blushingly told the news – or waited to make an announcement until they actually had a baby to announce.