This may exceed my grouchy quota for the day

I went to a double baby shower last weekend. It was decent. Not too frilly and not too cutesy. The moms-to-be gave one another a variety of cloth diapers, and although both are expecting boys, it wasn’t overtly boyboytruckboytrainboybulldozerboy. This was nice. The one less-nice thing about it was a letter from a woman who doesn’t really know either of the moms-to-be. It was read aloud because this woman likes to write letters and have them read aloud. She didn’t actually attend, and given B’s response to the letter, that’s for the best.

This letter was framed as advice from one mom to new moms, but it didn’t quite end up that way. This mom recommended one book and said that no other baby book was worth reading. She insisted that it was a mother’s job to be with her child, not realizing (or caring?) that one mom would return to work full time within the months after her son’s birth. She commented more than once about the inherent delightfulness of the Little Pink Baby™, not knowing either couple well enough to know that one’s child will be biracial. (As Brooke put it, “Little Pink Baby™. What if K’s baby is just a little bit brown?”) Rather than advising harried moms to shower while their partners can watch the babe, she suggested a shower sling. She gave little mention to the bonding between the non-birth parent (although she used the word “husband” so many times, I though I might be straight when she was done) and the child, and she never once mentioned ways in which the co-parent might help pick up the slack. Both of these moms-to-be have very involved spouses, and neither would stand for her spouse not putting as much work into childrearing as she does. She gave them each a subscription to a parenting magazine that advocates against immunizations even though one is a public health researcher.

I’m not pregnant. I’m not a parent. I’m just really, really annoyed.