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SALT LAKE CITY — Dads, as a rule, don’t do baby showers. They aren’t invited to attend them, they don’t take notice of them and they don’t expect a debriefing regarding them after the fact.
Such things just aren’t shared between the sexes.
Even a man’s curiosity about a BS (baby shower) is almost nonexistent. It’s like gutting the kill after the hunt; wives don’t ask what happened to the guts when we drag in a wheelbarrow of freshly packaged meat for the family freezer. They let us handle it.
“So where did you go this afternoon, honey?”
“To a baby shower.”
“How nice. Pass the potatoes” — that would be a normal conversation regarding a baby shower and its impact on mankind.
Asking my guy friends for advice about how to have a BS was a vain and foolish errand from the start. ...Frankly, I expected more from enlightened, forward-looking, churchgoing men.
So asking my guy friends for advice about how to have a BS was a vain and foolish errand from the start. After cornering three or five of them in the hall at church, I became quickly weary of investing a half hour of my time explaining what I needed, only to have them spend less than three seconds telling me to “just let the wife do it.”
Frankly, I expected more from enlightened, forward-looking, churchgoing men.
“Let my wife do it” gives me pause. Is that what we progressive males have developed into? After years of church meetings about how to be a sensitive and kind husband, father and caregiver, I am supposed to revert to bad pop lyrics for my wisdom?
When the going gets tough, the tough call in the wife.
This gave me pause from my pause. Pause squared. In my hiatus from reality, I deliberated over the real reason why I am having a BS for my daughter, whom I shall call Myelda. My wife, looking over my shoulder as I write, has quickly informed me that I am not “having a” but “throwing a” shower, and that this is an important differentiation that readers would expect.
I don’t know my reasoning for shower throwing. I don’t think it’s due to an obstinate streak or a defying-authority gene kicking in like a 35-week-old-not-born-yet. It's not even an abundance of creativity that is normally filled by repainting the living room.
I don't know my reasoning for shower throwing. I don't think it's due to an obstinate streak or a defying-authority gene kicking in like a 35-week-old-not-born-yet. It's not even an abundance of creativity that is normally filled by repainting the living room.
Maybe it’s the proverbial principle of the thing: “Guys don’t do baby showers.” Or maybe "letting the wife do it" is admission of defeat. Letting my wife do something is usually a statement of defeat that the task is too sensitive or too menial or not important enough for me to spend my precious time on.
I don’t know why it is important to me to throw this shindig, but my not knowing that will have to be good enough for now.
I will deal with the deep psychological reasons for my BS throwing later. My purpose is to create an acceptable baby shower for my daughter.
My reasoning that got me here at the start was twofold: one, I think most of her friends are nincompoops who wouldn't follow through with any activity that focuses on my daughter; and two, I have decided to treat this BS like business — an investment in my daughter's baby’s welfare (read: if my daughter gets enough diapers, then I won’t have to buy them myself).
And no, I am not concerned with Myelda's friends reading this. ‘Nuf said.
The Internet has many ideas for the perfect baby shower, so I will spend the next few days' time finding a theme, as well as colors and a mascot. Monkeys seem to be the rage, and giraffes come up on websites when monkeys don’t.
And frankly, all of this planning does nothing but lightly camouflage that I am way over my head. But I have been over my head before and lived to tell the tale. Getting married was one of these instances. Leaving the house of my youth in Idaho was another. If I had known what I know now, I would have dug a fort and stayed in Firth.
So, the new post decision — take a breath — is to “throw” a baby shower for my daughter and have no one grimace.
By the way, concerning paragraph two, I have never in my life hunted for my family’s meat. But I bet you got the reference right off.
Stay tuned for part two of "Dad's BS" to see how this all turns out. Davidson Cheney writes, often humorously, at davisoncheneymegadad.blogspot.com.
