Why are baby showers such utter hell? Is it the preciousness? Is it the ooh-ing? Is it the painstaking unwrapping of every single gift, including a rectal thermometer? What exactly is it that makes it such utter torture, and how can something that only lasts an hour be so awful? More importantly, why the hell haven’t we been making men do this for centuries already?
I’m not sure there’s a way to solve the problem of the boredom and oddly insufferable chatter of the baby shower. I loved getting the baby stuff when I was pregnant, but it was hard for me to have a shower, because I’m just not a shower person. I think the solution is to make everyone suffer together, or make it more fun for everyone and less hey, look, another onesie. Adding men helps. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and when you make that weak link a man, well, you at least have something to laugh at (JOKE).
Gender segregation has always been weird to me. As an adult female in the South, I discovered that people often seemed not only more than willing to separate by gender at get-togethers, but that it was simply What You Do, even enjoyable to “get away” from the opposite sex for a while and just be yourself again. The idea here is that the opposite sex requires us to act a part, and when they aren’t around we can finally be us. But, having grown up with all women, I had never gotten away from my own sex in the first place, so this escape theory never sat right.
When my friends and I got old enough to host adult-style dinners, dudes might sit on a porch yapping and being handed things, while the ladyfolk whipped up food and often cleaned up, too. I don’t know that it was a conscious decision so much as an inevitable continuation of everything we’d ever seen growing up. It was hard to get people to unpack it because it just seemed “right.” And it bugged the shit out of me. For one, the women were literally doing more work. For two, the women were doing literally more work. For three, hell, I wanted to sit around and shoot the shit and not scrub a fucking pan, too.
And, sorry to keep going on and on about it, but what’s with how women cook all the other food at get-togethers but men always get to cook the meat? Outside? On a grill? Because dicks and balls? I never figured that one out.
Then there’s the more subconscious way it perpetuates rigid gender roles: It makes it seem like there isn’t a natural interplay between men and women that isn’t sexual or romantic, as if our natural resting state is with our own kind, where we will be better understood. I’m not saying men and women can’t pair off however they want, or host gendered parties all damn day if that feels fun to everyone. I’m saying it’s worth looking at why we still do it in areas that we ostensibly claim should be equal.
And this conundrum is never more true than at the baby shower. In a piece I was reading about “My New Rules for Attending Bridal and Baby Showers,” the author laments the obligatory pressures of gift giving for every event a person can dream up, which I second, but she really hits the nail on the head with this sentiment:
What I find incredibly irksome is if it is a shower for a heterosexual couple, men never have to attend, but their female family members do. We live in a time when we want men to be equal parents and partners, but we leave them out of opportunities where they might gain understanding of everything they’ll need to know as parents or partners. We princess-erize the bride, mom, or baby. We reinforce gender stereotypes down to ensuring the party reflects the gender of the baby, or the design theme of the baby’s room.
It’s a salient point. If we are really talking about parents throwing all in as equals, why, in heterosexual couples, isn’t the father just as much a presence at the shower? In showers for gay men who’ve adopted or have a surrogate, aren’t both men present?
How could any aspect of celebrating new life be the domain of the woman alone? Isn’t the guy happy about the baby? Doesn’t he want the stuff too? Won’t he be changing clothes and diapers? Doesn’t he have a free hour on a Saturday to guess gross baby food flavors blindfolded while by being stuck with diaper pins or whatever?