Let’s face facts: The only people who really enjoy
bridal, engagement, or baby showers are the ones getting the gifts. In fact, the
whole idea behind showers comes straight out of the dowry tradition. If a bride’s
family couldn’t put together the money for her to snag a mate, the woman’s
friends would scrape together the goods, and “shower” her with their
generosity. The sentiment has carried over to babies.
Gift-giving is all well and good, but somewhere along the line, shower parties
also picked up a wacky game tradition. Baby shower guests are often forced to
sniff mysterious brown substances in diapers (unpleasant even when you know it’s
mashed-up M&Ms!), or taste-test baby food. At bridal shower gatherings, guests
are required to make dresses for their friends using toilet paper. For generations,
women have suffered in silence, attending these parties only because they knew
someday the gift-laden tables would turn.
Happily, the pain is now being shared with men. Coed wedding and baby showers
are becoming more popular. The couples-oriented bridal showers are often called
Jack and Jill parties, not to be confused with Stag and Drag parties, which are
thrown specifically to raise money for a wedding or honeymoon and often include
a bar. Bridal and baby showers tend to be more sedate affairs – and guys
in general are not happy about having to attend them.
“A couple years ago, one of my best friends got married and asked me and
three or four other male friends – insisted, really – to attend her
bridal shower,” says Ben. (Note: Some names were changed or last names omitted
for this article.) “It was definitely a girl thing; while I was willing
to be there for my friend, it wasn’t the best gender mix.”
Maggie agrees, and pretty bluntly: “Can you imagine how boring it would
be for a guy to be surrounded by squealing hens who are excited over toilet paper
gowns and fancy wrapping paper? I’m a woman and I can barely stand [showers].”
Craig of Los Altos enjoyed the coed baby shower a friend threw for him and his
wife. “I was okay with it,” he says. “I saw it more as an opportunity
to hang out with my friends and have some fun. Some guys didn’t show up,
citing an uneven man-to-woman ratio. Frankly, part of the reason it wasn’t
as torturous as the classic perception suggests is we were allowed to be men,
have some beers, eat some food, and relax. There wasn’t any pressure to
dress in ‘proper attire’ or ‘behave.’”
But Craig admits, “I did have some guys openly mock
the idea. One quote that sticks in my mind is, ‘I’m going to kill
the guy who started this trend.’”
Jim, who lives in San Jose, also got a “little resistance” from his
guy friends when he and his wife threw a coed baby shower. “Some voiced
a little bitterness,” he says. “They called it ‘chick bullsh-t.’”
Jim and Craig both agreed that the first step to keeping guys comfortable at showers
is to cut down on the games. “The girls who organized our shower were acutely
aware that guys aren’t fired up about stuff like that,” says Jim,
“so they made a point of not doing a lot of it. We did have one contest
that involved seeing which of the guys could suck down half a baby bottle of beer
the fastest. It was a lot harder than you would think. But at least beer was involved.”
Booze appears to be the second necessity for male shower attendance. “If
there’s one thing that’s going to get guys to your shower, it’s
beer,” says Jim.
Stacy Caudill of San Jose has put together quite a few coed showers. “I
think with the right atmosphere, men are okay with going, although a little reluctantly!”
she says. “I think once they get there and see it’s just like any
other party, they are cool with it. I tried not to make the decorations too girly
or overwhelming, and I made sure the games were a little male friendly. The prizes
were different, too. At all-girl showers there are usually candles or bath stuff,
but I just gave out gift cards to Starbucks, Jamba Juice, Panera, stuff like that.”
Francine of San Francisco went to a baby shower where guests were asked to bring
a gift for the infant and a tasteful joke gift for the dad. “Dad received
some pretty cool things,” Francine says. “One thing I remember being
the best was someone had given him a T-shirt with teething rings, bibs, pacifier,
burp cloth, etc. attached to it. Some people can come up with some very original
ideas.”
Maybe the desegregation of showers will be good for both sexes in the end: less
games, free-flowing drinks, and better prizes. Men, start practicing your gift-wrapping
skills. *This Article appeared in Volume 7, Issue 10 of The Wave Magazine.
