I realize that I run the risk of offending people with this particular post, however, it’s a risk I’m willing to take today.
I have been frequenting a few pregnancy forums throughout this pregnancy. I’m a glutton for punishment. Although I’m always looking for reassurance, I always find a million posts about things that can go wrong, thus feeding my ever-present, though well-concealed to the public, anxiety.
There are also a lot of posts that are pregnancy-related, yet not health-related. Many times these posts make me giggle or roll my eyes, but I’ve recently come across a bunch of posts that have made me strangely irate.
It started out innocently enough.
Someone wrote an initial post asking what people were hoping to get for their push present.
I had no idea what they were talking about, so I kept reading.
Apparently, there is a relatively new phenomenon where women expect to get presents for giving birth.
Huh?
As they discussed past push presents they had received for older children, I was stunned.
Diamond earrings.
New television sets.
Tickets to a broadway show.
A few even mentioned getting a new car.
Again, I say, huh?
Then, of course, there were the threads discussing whether women who wind up having c-sections deserve a push present because they didn’t actually “do any work.”
Seriously?
I’ll share my c-section with no anesthesia story and you tell me me if I didn’t do any work.
And even still, after all of that, Monkey Girl was the absolutely best gift I could have ever imagined and I would have gone through that a million, gajillion times again if it meant that the end result would be her.
Someone actually mentioned that the baby was their push present and I rejoiced and then watched this woman get blasted left and right as these other women said that they had “suffered” through nine months and then had to give birth and they deserved a gift. They said that a baby wasn’t a gift.
WHAT???
I don’t know.
I honestly cannot wrap my brain around the idea that women feel they deserve a gift for giving birth.
You want a child?
You give birth to the child, if you are able.
There are a lot of women in the world who would take the “suffering” of pregnancy and childbirth in a heartbeat so that they might be able to have a child.
And you want a gift for a natural human process that you are lucky enough to be able to carry out?
Gimme a break.
When did we become such selfish, self-involved people that we can’t see the brand new human we are holding in our arms as the gift?
The greatest gift of all, truth be told.
The New York Times actually wrote an article about push presents if you want to read a little more about it.
Here endeth the lesson.
