Baby Showers for Men, a Musing
Recently a question popped into my head. Usually I ignore them but this one I thought I would try and answer. The question is this, “If a soon to be mother can have a baby shower why can't a soon to be father?”
Before I get myself in trouble with all the soon to be mothers out there, remember I am only answering a question,even if it is my question.
I haven't had the joy of being the husband of an expectant wife for quite some years now so I am not up on the current customs and practices for expectant couples. I remember the birthing classes, the weight gains, the anxiety over being a parent, all the weird foods and that was only me. My wife she was even worse.
I really don't know how my wife made it through those nine months. The first time my wife was pregnant with our daughter I actually went to a baby shower. What a strange happening. The expectant mother gets a prominent spot where she can be seen by all the other woman in the room.
The other mothers in the room chat about what it was like when they had their first child. The other woman who do not have children sit there with horrified looks on their faces all the while muttering about how, “they are not going to have children, only dogs or cats.” Of course there is some husband banter going on mostly talk about how the husband never helps, yadda yadda, yadda.
After a while the talking starts to die down and moves onto present opening time. As each gift is opened there are a lot of oohs and aahs and lines like, “I wish would have had that for my baby.” After what seems like hours the presents are done and it is time to turn to the food, unless the food was eaten before the present opening ceremony.
Once the food is done the rest of the day consists of baby pictures and more talk about, “how I wish I were going to be a mother,” or, “how much child birth hurts,” to which all eyes turn to the soon to be father. After some severe brow beating by the woman of the soon to be father all eyes turn away and the revelry continues for what seems to me to be forever.
It is this time of celebration which sparked my question in the first place. Guys need to have guy time to celebrate. So, there is no reason a soon to be father should not celebrate with his friends the soon to be birth of their child.
There are some things to remember while you're celebrating though. The first is while the father is involved with the conception of the child the mother does all the work of carrying the child, delivering the child and in the first year or so is the chief one who gets up each night to feed the child. Second, she is also the one it seems who ends up changing most of the diapers and the list goes on and on.
In the end at any celebration raise a toast for the mother of your child and also take the time to help her, with the changing of the diapers, giving the baby bottles, or just holding the baby while she gets some time to herself.