A Man's Guide to Baby Showers

One of the main advantages of being born a male, (besides being able to spit in public without society looking down upon us), has to be the fact that as guys, we do not have to go to baby showers.

I say this because my wife has been going to a lot of baby showers lately. And when I say, “a lot” I mean it’s to the point where on next year’s tax returns, under the heading, “Occupation,” she will fill in: “Baby Shower Participant.” (We will get to deduct the cost of the shower gifts that way).

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, a baby shower is when women, (most of whom are in their 20's and 30's), gather to spend a playful and carefree Sunday afternoon dressing up in sexy lingerie and having pillow fights. At least that’s how I imagined it. My wife, however, told me it was nothing like this. (I guess they skip the pillow fights).

Actually, a baby shower is a special event where female friends and family members alike celebrate the magic that is maternity by getting together with the expectant mother and whispering cruel things about her behind her back -things like how the expectant mother looks bigger than a Ford Expedition. It’s also a party that lasts a fairly long time, which means that us lonely men won’t get to see our wives for several hours on the weekend. Do you ladies have any idea how that makes us men feel?

It makes us feel great!

These parties give us guys a chance to finally check off some of those handy-man items on our “To Do” list - important items like:

1) Watching March Madness in our underwear.
2) Drinking beer.
3) Teasing the dog.

Baby shower time is also that rare opportunity for a guy to go an entire two or three hours without being yelled at - unless of course, his mother-in-law decides to call him.

And while the men stay busy finishing off their “To Do” list, (Item #17: Google “Pamela Anderson”), their wives are at the baby shower, playing games, eating, catching up on all the latest gossip, and keeping each other up-to-date on all of the exciting developments in their kids’ lives. Naturally, with all of these mothers around, maternal pride kicks in and the discussion soon turns into a bragfest, with each mother feeling the pressure to highlight her child’s greatness:

Mother 1: “My little Jordan is starting to walk, and she is only 13 months old! And she is so smart for her age.”

Mother 2: “Oh, that’s nothing. You should see Jacob. He’s barely 2, and he’s already speaking complete sentences!”

Mother 3: “Oh yeah? Well my little Tyler is 20 months old, and he’s already solving complex non-linear third order mathematical equations.”

Unfortunately for my wife, we do not presently have any tax deductions in the form of children, so she kind of feels left out in these discussions. Invariably, about 100 or so women at the baby shower will ask her: “When are YOU guys going to have kids?” This question used to make her uncomfortable, so I helped Marie come up with a standard reply to use:

“My husband used to work at a chemical processing facility, where he was involved in a freak industrial accident that has rendered him impotent.”

This isn’t true, but it sure gets the conversation changed in a hurry! Oftentimes the questioner will mumble some sort of apology then quickly excuse herself and head towards the punch bowl.

At some point during the baby shower, the expectant mother will plop herself down on a chair start to unwrap all of the gifts. This is a tough job, because although she is physically uncomfortable, she has to sit there in front of a crowd and put on a fake smile and act as about excited as if she won the lottery when unwrapping a package of new diapers. All the while her hormones are wanting to make her cry for no reason at all, not to mention the fact that she has to go to the bathroom approximately every 57 seconds. All of this pain, however, is wiped out by the joy and pleasure the mom-to-be feels when she unwraps a gift and sees....is it?.. could it be?....Yes it is!..Oh thank you!...ANOTHER pacifier.

All in all, I’d have to say that being an expectant mother is tough. Most women say that a man couldn’t handle it, but I don’t know. If it came right down to it, I bet that men could “buck up” and learn to face the mood swings, the morning sickness, the cravings, the general uncomfortableness, and the pain of labor. Yes, it is a huge mental and physical sacrifice to have a baby, but I’m confident that men could take this challenge head on. There is however, one aspect of maternity that men would clearly have a hard time with- one extremely tough aspect of motherhood, of womanhood, that men, as a whole, would just never be able to handle:

Not getting to spit in public.