I’ve been trying for years to disabuse expectant couples of the purportedly bonding, but plainly emasculating, affectation of saying, “We’re pregnant.” (Saying this would only be appropriate if the couple were lesbians … and they were both pregnant!)
I am an avowed feminist. But close (female) friends will attest to my long-standing belief that the conscription of men into the process of childbirth is an unfortunate development of the feminist movement. Nothing betrays this misguided and unnatural foray quite like feminized men proclaiming with ambivalent pride, “We’re pregnant.”
More to the point, my innate sense has always led me to suspect that witnessing my wife give birth would turn me off from seeing her (in the same way) as my lover ever again. Yet this same sense has always led me to suspect that watching my wife cradle our newborn child would probably stir feelings of unparalleled love.
Clearly it’s an understatement to say that the psycho-sexual dynamics at play here are … complicated. But considering I have never been conscripted, I do not feel qualified to comment any further.
(“Women, To Save Your Sex Life, If Not Your Marriage, Don’t Let Your Man See You Give Birth,” The iPINIONS Journal, November 2, 2012)
This is why I was so heartened on Tuesday when pregnant actress Mila Kunis delivered the following message on a special edition of Jimmy Kimmel Live:
Hello, I’m Mila Kunis with a very special message for all you soon-to-be fathers: stop saying, ‘We’re pregnant.’ You’re not pregnant! When you wake up and throw up is it because you’re nurturing a human life? No. It’s because you had too many shots of tequila….
(ABC News, June 10, 2014)
Unfortunately, she overlooked the fact that women in heterosexual relationships say, “We’re pregnant,” too. Clearly the only appropriate thing for them to say is, “I’m pregnant.”
On the other hand, if these women are so determined to emasculate their men, in this context, they could say, “I’m pregnant, but my hubby is becoming a really good midwife.”
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