A little-recognized aspect of the rising number of women in the work force is the–ta-da!–presentation of the baby. This is when a knot of people suddenly forms in a corner of the office, and behind all those fellow office workers, mostly females, you see a grinning woman who took maternity leave some weeks ago.
You assume that there is a war wagon of a carriage in there somewhere with–ta-da!–the baby.
This appearance in the office is understandable. The new mom has been cooped up with this tiny ball of human potential and desperately needs to go somewhere, anywhere, so why not the office? The tavern isn’t a good idea, unless the new mom works there. But that situation would fall under the presentation-of-the-baby rule.
Anyway, I’m assuming that a desire to get out is the real reason for the presentation. It might masquerade as a pride thing, but I don’t understand that. The baby has a very short list of accomplishments. Honestly, even if it’s a Mozart, we’ll have to wait six years for something significant.
And it’s not as though the parents actually made the baby. Yeah, sure, they may have done the biological equivalent of popping a TV dinner in the microwave, but they weren’t responsible for the real meat and potatoes.
OK, so the knot seems to be edging your way. If you’re decent, you at some point make a pre-emptive strike and approach the knot: “Glad to see you! Cute baby. Thank God she didn’t take after Ed!”
Done. Back to work.
But here’s another part I don’t understand. Half an hour later, you’ll look over and see the same people in the baby knot. Can’t they think of a gracious exit strategy? Don’t they have work to do? What are they talking about? Was the baby actually delivered by a large bird? Does it do math?
There’s a lot of redundancy in things baby. I’m sure that if I listened closely to the baby knot, I would hear the mother actually saying, “Yada, yada, yada.” Then everybody would laugh at the uniqueness of this particular parent’s experience.
Even in the Christmas story, I figure that the three wise men said, “Cute baby,” handed over the frankincense, then left to go unpack the camels. Total visit? Maybe 10 minutes. And that wasn’t even at work.
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Sometimes you’ll see the father in tow because when the mother brought up the subject of the baby presentation, he wasn’t quick enough to say he thought he should get to the emergency room to check into those chest pains.
One male co-worker accused me of “knot envy.” After getting over the feeling of hurt, I thought that maybe he’s right. My kids are grown. I have no baby to present.
So I’d like to suggest that we should not discourage the baby presentation in the office. We should build on it.
Bring in elderly Uncle Ned, go desk to desk and explain how you hope he’ll be out of diapers soon.
Or bring in that 7-pound smallmouth you caught on 2-pound test line. Now that is an accomplishment.
I just pray that when I have my coronary, the last thing I hear before going under for my bypass isn’t, “Look! Gretchen just came in with her new baby!”
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