Legitimate Question: Why Are Men Invited To Baby Showers?

I honestly could not tell you the answer.

I guess you have a couple of terms at play here, best I understand it. There is the conventional “shower,” which is typically a female-driven affair spearheaded by the mom of the expectant, or maybe the aunt/grandma, and usually it consists of girlfriends of the woman expecting. Cool. I think that’s the standard model and it probably accounts for 70% or more of these entities. Usually — or so it seems to me — families only do one shower, for first child, although there’s a thing apparently called a “sprinkle,” which is a “lesser shower,” that you do for other children down the line. This is interesting to me, because it seems very performative, and if your children are same-gender, am I expected to buy a gift for the second child when you could just hand down some of the first child’s clothing and possessions? These are questions that I think literally everyone in their 30s with six or more friends grapples with, but it’s hard to discuss openly, because it feels like you’re violating a woman’s pregnancy or something.

The third tier seems to be the “couples shower,” of which I have been to five-six in my life. The couples shower is a middle school dance on steroids. All the guys stand in one area, near a beer source, and discuss generic things like the…