F Baby Showers
I am so frustrated with baby showers. EDIT: being only for women. I am so frustrated with being a woman who is expected to subsidize the cost of children I didn’t have. Why are ONLY WOMEN expected to attend and buy gifts? Why are ONLY WOMEN expected to support children?
For the record, I spend my professional life supporting children, and I have for a couple of decades. I have a masters degree, and I spend 40 hours a week (minimum) working with or for children. I am THRILLED to buy literally anything for my friends who are pregnant. I have made and bought gifts for countless women who I love and support.
I don’t have children. I don’t think women should be expected to work with children the way that I do.
WHY, when my male partner has a distant relative with a baby shower, am I alone invited to attend and give gifts? Why am I expected to spend my time and money for someone I don’t even know? Why does having a vagina make me financially responsible for penis wielding people who have relationships with individuals who are pregnant??
Why is it always the job of women to support children, even when we spend our entire lives doing just that? Even when we decide to avoid parenthood?
EDIT: WELL this has already become more than I anticipated.
For the record: if I don’t want to go, I don’t. It also seems that it’s regional that women only are invited to baby showers, which I think is fantastic. In my area, I’m frequently invited to baby showers for people I do not know well because my partner was close with the family growing up.
My frustration is not with being invited, it’s with being invited despite my male partner who actually knows the people involved. This has nothing to do with whether or not he would pay for a gift, it’s that there seems to be a societal obligation for women to attend and contribute even in support of women they don’t know.
No, I’m not going to them. I just find the concept in and of itself disturbing and wildly patriarchal. I’m glad not everyone has the same experience!
MORE edit: I am not a wife, I am a girlfriend. This isn’t my husband’s family or family friends, it’s my literal BOYFRIEND’S “family friends”. We are not married. I have met the multiple pregnant people once each max, and they are my BOYFRIEND’S family friends’ SIBLINGS and COUSINS from childhood.