From: smezias@rnd.GBA.NYU.EDU (Stephen J. Mezias)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Congratulating (het) parents on their new baby
Date: 22 Dec 92 16:37:00 GMT
Organization: NYU Stern School of Business

In article <Bzo2DH.DFx@cs.columbia.edu> ji@cs.columbia.edu (John
Ioannidis) writes: 

>Every once in a while I'll read on the local bboards in the places I
>have accounts at, that Mr&Mrs so-and-so had a brand new baby, vital
>statistics of the baby follow, and the message ends with how the
>father is proud and the mother is resting at the hospital. The message
>is invariably congratulatory.

Given how these messages seem to bother you, maybe you should avoid
reading them.

>So here are my questions:
>
>1. Is it a het thing, and I just don't understand?

What is not to understand here?  I don't know that I would describe it
as a `het' thing although one would presume that the message is the
generally the result of previous heterosexual behavior.  This is just
one of those social traditions, like the tooth fairy or the Easter
bunny.  Does one understand the Easter bunny or the tooth fairy?  It
may be that the social values consonant with this type of announcement
have relatively little overlap with the social values expressed in
many soc.motss posts, but I don't know.  Either way, as long as the
`proud parents' aren't posting with the intent of communicating
something specific to glb persons, I fail to understand the motss
relevance of these posts in other locations.

>2. Is there something intrinsic to be proud of on the part of the
>father? The only thing he has proven so far is that he has a working
>reproductive system.

When my son was born, neither my wife nor I made any such
announcement.  I certainly felt many emotions during pregnancy, labor,
and birth.  The social convention is to label these emotions as pride.
I don't think it had much to do with my ability to get an erection and
engage in heterosexual sex.  It had much more to do with constructing
appropriate labels for an intense emotional experience to make it
easier to deal with.

>3. WRT #2 above, is the father being congratulated on his bedroom
>prowess, and the mother on being fertile? (Of course, it could be
>congratulating the father for putting up with his wife, and the mother
>for actually going through the trouble of having a baby, but I somehow
>doubt that this is the case).

It is all of these things and much more.  The message encapsulates a
series of social myths about appropriate responses to the traumatic
experiences of labor, child birth, and beginning to live with a new
person, who is quite helpless and requires much attention.

>4. Why do we never see such messages by same-sex couples? Or single
>parents? Or adoptive parents? 

I have certainly seen messages of this nature from adoptive parents.
It may be that single parents and same-sex parents generally do not
wish to publicize their situations.  I honestly do not know.

>5. Am I the only one with the (suppresed) urge to post followups along
>the lines of "who cares?" or "only 10 pounds? You can hardly make a
>pot roast out of that!"

Do you also want to follow-up every post about emotional experiences
in a glb person's life with similarly insensitive remarks?

>6. Should I really be working on finishing my thesis and not bothering
>soc.motss with my morning (very late night, actually) bitchiness?

My guess would be yes.  Why are you bothered by harmless propogation
of collective strategies to deal with intense life transitions?  If I
were you, I would my energy for fighting bigotry and intolerance.
While this social tradition celebrates a life experience that glb
persons may be somewhat less likely to have than hets, I think it is
relatively harmless compared with other het traditions regarding sex
and reproduction.

SJM
Newsgroups: soc.motss