Observations from a Baby Shower

I had a glimpse in to I guess what one could call the mainstream culture of babies and motherhood this weekend.   I was invited to my first baby shower and, despite hearing about all the inane games that can be played at baby showers, I was excited to go and celebrate the growing family of a woman I’ve gotten to know over the past few years.   I was one of the youngest guests (I’m 22), and most guests were married with children.  While I was thankful that the shower was free from the chocolate diaper game, I was disturbed at how gender stereotypes permeated the conversation and at how unsettled guests seemed to be at not knowing the baby’s gender.  Each gift was assigned a gender, and at the end of the gift opening one guest, who had tallied the number of boy gifts and the number of girl gifts, announced that, according to the gifts given, the baby would be a boy.   Over the course of an hour or two, I heard the following: 

Girls like pink, sheep are for boys, the plastic cell phone is so girl, girls don’t like lizards, I would never dress my little girl in a lizard onesie, girls cant wear blue, that [travel baby toiletries set] is so boy, boys are more on-the-go, boys are more adventurous, teddy bears are for boys, a girl couldn’t wear that sailor outfit, boys don’t like pink, why would you dress a boy in pink?, how could pink be boy? we need another boy in the neighborhood.

I found it interesting that the gender stereotypes seemed to come most from the women who did not have any children.   I don’t really know what to make of that (maybe that children challenge mothers to see past gender stereotypes?) but it also may have been coincidence.

Anyway, this whole experience reaffirmed what I already knew about myself: that I am definitely not ready for motherhood and I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for the type of motherhood that is praised in mainstream culture. But, this experience also underscored the importance of getting advice from and asking questions about motherhood to feminists. How do you challenge or avoid the mainstream culture of babies and motherhood? How have you carved out a space that allows you to raise your children with the values you hold? How have your alternative choices surrounding children and motherhood impacted your relationships with other parents? What elements of mainstream motherhood/ baby culture have you decided to go along with and how did you decide?   How do you operate within the mainstream culture of children and motherhood?