As our son is swiftly approaching his first birthday, I am today joining with fellow members of the Multicultural Kid Blogs group who are co-hosting a blog hop about baby showers and becoming parents. Last week I blogged about the day that I learned I was going to become a dad, and this week I’ll be talking specifically about baby showers. If you have written any posts about similar themes, please feel free to link them up to the blog hop at the end of this e-mail.
I’ve generally seen baby showers as being a bit of North American thing, although I have seen articles in the UK press suggest that more and more baby showers are now taking place here in the UK. As it happens, my wife and I didn’t have a baby shower. We did, however, go for a nice weekend away to Liverpool a few months before our son’s arrival on what I believe is sometimes known as a ‘babymooon’. We stayed on the edge of the city centre and enjoyed eating tapas, going on a Beatles tour of the city, taking in a comedy night and eating one of the best ever vegetarian roast dinners we’ve ever had.
Rightly or wrongly, I normally see baby showers as being mainly mum orientated. However, it’s good to see that there is information out there about how to make baby showers more men-friendly. I think that it’s great to celebrate the impending arrival of a child with friends and think that it’s ever better when dads are either involved in this or find a way of marking this too. After all, if you’re going to bring up a child together then it makes sense to prepare for it and celebrate it together.
A Magical Mystery Tour: a good name for a Beatles tour of Liverpool and possibly a metaphor for becoming a parent?
While preparing this blog post, I asked some fellow dad bloggers what their views on baby showers were and found it fascinating to hear back from several who had either been to this sort of event or knew people who had. Several, such as Mike Crider (The Father of Twins), suggested that baby showers could and should be more inclusive. Australian dad blogger Darrell Milton (Modern Father Online) mentioned that he and his wife had a joint baby shower for their first baby that was based around a barbecue, and several others shared similar experiences.
Michael Bryant (The Purposeful Pappy) argued that as he and his wife do most things together, they decided that this should mean jointly hosting a baby shower. Michael mentioned that their baby shower was attended by both men and women, as did others such as Micah Adams (Big Boned Biker). Mark McNulty (The New American Dad) reported being the only man at the baby showers that were predominantly focused on his wife but that his work colleagues organised a baby shower specifically for him. Mark added that including a dad-to-be in a baby shower could make him ‘more excited or comfortable with the coming change in his life’ and also ‘have a positive impact on preparing him for his new role’.
Several dads talked about enjoying baby showers that were specifically for dads-to-be or that had been planned with dads in mind, and several of these seemed to have a lot in common with the sorts of Dadchelor Parties that have been discussed on the Life of Dad website and podcast. Brian Marks (Dashing Dad) talked about enjoying being able to hang out with male with friends while drinking beer and watching baseball, and Craig Fortner (The New Age Mister Mom) enjoyed a similar type of event that his sister organised for him. Chris Daddio (Buff Daddio) and Spike Zelenka (Double Trouble Daddy) shared similar stories. Just as dads value different aspects of baby showers, Jeff Tepper (Ay yo, be a father) pointed out that his wife hasn’t keen on having what he termed a ‘classic women’s only baby shower’ and that their event didn’t feature any baby games.
We may not have had a baby shower, but we wasted no time before getting a baby bath.
Reading these tales led me to wonder if I’d missed out on something by not having been involved in some sort of baby shower prior to my wife and I becoming parents. Although it’s hard to come up with a categorical answer, I think that it’s fair to say that we both benefited from discussing parenthood with friends who’d already had kids. Just as my wife found it useful to have talked things through with friends who were mums, I also feel that I really benefited from discussing all sorts of things to do with child birth and parenting with friends who had become dads shortly before I was due to become a parenting.
What I think this boils down to is the need for both mums and dads to be present in discussions about parenting so as to get an idea of what to expect and face up to concerns, challenges and whatever else together. As a blogger, I know that I’ve gained so much both from being in groups for dad bloggers and also from groups for parent bloggers than are made up of mums and dads.
What about you? Did you have a baby shower? What do you think of baby showers and whether they should be made more of an event for both mums-to-be and dads-to-be?
Please feel free to share your views in the comments section below or on the ‘Dad’s The Way I Like It’ pages on Facebook or Google+.
Remember that you can also subscribe to this blog by entering your e-mail address in the box on the right of the screen and also follow this blog via BlogLovin. There’s also now a Pinterest board for this blog as well, so please feel free to pin this post if you’ve enjoyed reading it.
The co-hosts of this blog hop, listed below, have each written posts related to baby showers or more generally about becoming parents, plus we’d love for you to link up yours below.
Also be sure to visit our Facebook page to leave your advice and well wishes for our guests of honour!
Co-hosts
Multicultural Kid Blogs
the piri-piri lexicon
Vibrant Wanderings
Creative World of Varya
La Cité des Vents
Spanish Playground
Dad’s the way I like it
Tiny Tapping Toes
All Done Monkey
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Dad's the way I like it 
Insights from an Adoptive Mom {Multicultural Kid Blogs Virtual Baby Shower} - Multicultural Kid Blogs
Apr 15, 2014 @ 08:28:10
Apr 15, 2014 @ 08:32:25
Apr 15, 2014 @ 16:58:48
I’m glad you decided to write on this topic. I definitely found talking through things with my husband, and with other parents prior to our first baby’s arrival was incredibly helpful, and both of us have sought out advice from parents who have been through the transition of adding a second and a third child. We’re expecting our third now, and my husband often shares tidbits with me that he gains when asking parents of three or more how they’ve managed.
I do wish he could have participated in a celebration before any or all of our babies, too – I suppose I should have thought to plan an inclusive one, but I was just grateful for the ladies only events friends planned for me. Now I’m thinking I may encourage him to go off with some male friends before our new arrival next month.
Apr 17, 2014 @ 13:19:07
Thank you for commenting, Melissa. It’s great to hear that you and your husband both learned things from each other when it came to preparing for the birth of your children.
Apr 15, 2014 @ 20:55:05
Agreed. I wish everyone would hear from others what it means to become a parent before they even decide to go on that road. I am glad you had a chance to hear other people’s opinions.
-Thereza Howling
Apr 17, 2014 @ 13:20:05
I agree with what you’ve said here, Theresa. It’s so beneficial to hear from other parents about what pregnancy, birth and parenthood were like for them.
Apr 16, 2014 @ 04:13:54
Great article and love the bits from other dads that chimed in. I saw your question about this on Facebook but was too late to add my thoughts. Mine are pretty much the same as others though. I attended two baby showers with my wife but was the only guy there and it was more geared towards her.
I didn’t mind at all, but think having something for dads is a great idea and is very helpful to speak with other fathers for good advice.
Either way, to your point, communication is key and we can all benefit from it!
Apr 17, 2014 @ 19:57:41
Thank you for sharing your experience. I think it’d be good for it to become more normal for dads-to-be and dads to get together to talk about fatherhood in the same way that a lot of mums-to-be do with friends who are mums.
Apr 16, 2014 @ 19:56:44
I didn’t have a baby shower for my children… but I hope that when we will plan the third one, my friends will pull up a party. I’m not sure my husband would like to attend but I would certainly propose him to come.
Thanks for this article. And I really like your writing style (and the legends under the photos…)
Apr 17, 2014 @ 19:58:28
Thank you so much for sharing your experience and your kind words!
Apr 17, 2014 @ 17:30:15
Great topic!
Thanks for sharing at the Thoughtful Spot Weekly blog hop!
Apr 19, 2014 @ 15:02:56
Thank you, I always love checking out the posts in Thoughtful Spot.
Apr 18, 2014 @ 11:29:30
I never had baby shower. I was a bit of a loner when my son was in my tummy and im blaming hormones. I dont want to mingle. Awesome post touching on things that are a bit taboo/s in parenting.
On the lighter note, I love that photo of your baby in that big bucket! #pocolo
Apr 19, 2014 @ 15:02:36
Thanks for your comments, really interesting to hear your take on baby showers.
That plastic bucket was great for giving our son baths in his first few months as it helped to keep him upright. I’d never have known that something that looks so simple could be be so useful.
Apr 18, 2014 @ 12:19:05
The baby shower is not a mandatory party, so in my opinion, to think there should be more dad-friendly ones isn’t even an argument worth having. If you’re lucky enough to have friends and family throw a shower for your wife, then that’s amazing. Most likely your female friends and family decided to spoil your wife, and give a day to her for going through what she is going through to bring a life into this world. With that, they shower you her and the baby with gifts. If friends and family decide the shower should include the husband, then even “luckier” you. I don’t think the parents should really have any say in this. The family and friends decide how to shower the new family with baby gifts, and I’d continue to let them do so.
Also, to each their own. For me, I’d happily not go to any baby showers. 😛
Apr 18, 2014 @ 19:03:30
Thank you for sharing your views, Christopher. I can see that baby showers are not mandatory. It’s great that they involve mums-to-be being celebrated by their female friends (in most cases). However, I was saying that it’s a shame that there aren’t more pre-birth events where dads-to-be get involved with things. These could be separate dads-to-be and male friend events or joint baby showers (i.e. for the mum-to-be and dad-to-be along with male and female friends). Just as becoming a mum is something to celebrate, I think that the same could be said about becoming a father.
Apr 20, 2014 @ 15:35:33
I have to say that I did not have a baby shower and I personally find that this is an American tradition, not a British one. I would feel embarrassed if I had one! I think a babymoon is far more important 🙂 Thank you for linking to PoCoLo 🙂
Apr 22, 2014 @ 20:33:28
Great article, Jonathan! I had the “traditional mom-to-be” baby shower, but looking back, I would have liked my husband to be included. I love the idea of a couples shower. The line you wrote, “After all, if you’re going to bring up a child together then it makes sense to prepare for it and celebrate it together.” is so true… welcoming a baby, starting a family together is such a joyous event and it almost feels wrong not to include the daddy-to-be. After all, he is expected to go to parenting classes… so why leave him out of the fun stuff?!
Thanks so much for sharing this on Makeovers & Motherhood’s Welcome Party Wednesday Link-Up!
Apr 24, 2014 @ 19:55:45
Thank you for your kind words. Writing this post and reading comments on it has been really interesting for me as people have brought up so many interesting points about how they see baby showers and how their own baby showers were.
Apr 24, 2014 @ 18:23:23
My first 2 were girls only, and for my third we had a mixed shower. It was a baseball theme for my son, so we played softball there too. Got the men more involved. 🙂
Apr 24, 2014 @ 19:51:09
Thanks for commenting, really interesting to hear about your experience of baby showers. Great to know that they went well!
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