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- Newsgroups: soc.motss
- Path: sparky!uunet!walter!mobydick!tam
- From: tam@mobydick.leis.bellcore.com (Tom Merkel )
- Subject: Re: Congratulating (het) parents on their new baby
- Message-ID: <1992Dec24.134511.1528@walter.bellcore.com>
- Followup-To: soc.motss
- Sender: news@walter.bellcore.com
- Nntp-Posting-Host: 128.96.148.235
- Reply-To: tam@westmark.com (Tom Merkel )
- Organization: Bellcore
- References: <Bzo2DH.DFx@cs.columbia.edu>
- Date: Thu, 24 Dec 92 13:45:11 GMT
- Lines: 25
-
- 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.
- |>
- |> So here are my questions:
- |>
- |> 1. Is it a het thing, and I just don't understand?
-
- In my experience, it is all the friends and relatives who make
- a big deal of a birth. With respect to the swelling nuclear family
- it is more likely that the proud father is home sleeping after being
- awake for 30 hours, that the radiant mom is actually stoned on
- demerol and won't rejoin us for a day, and all the relatives are
- pushing and shoving at the viewing room window. The newborn child is
- oblivious to all of this.
-
- Having been through this process twice myself, I say let them enjoy
- whatever little pleasures they can, because they have *years* of toil
- and sleepless nights ahead of them...
-
- --Tom Merkel tam@westmark.com
-