Thought for Food

What the?

I just got an email from a friend who was a driving force behind the rebuilding of the Lower Ninth Ward after Katrina. (He drove me thru the neighborhood when there was still a 5 pm curfew, the entire square mile was deserted, there was houses in the middle of streets, and the Red Cross was refusing to enter. Brad Pitt didn’t show up for another 12 months, long after my friend’s organization had been instrumental in literally clearing the way and showing others that there was a will and a way to rebuild the wasteland.)

Ok, that was not the point. The point was this: the email was to announce his new baby daughter. What?? I didn’t know he was expecting! I didn’t know he had a regular woman! (He kind of dated various young idealistic things that passed through NOLA. I was a bit smitten for a time, too. There is nothing like gritty activism and a noble cause….)

We saw each other in my last trip to NOLA, March 07. Plenty enough time to make a baby, but he didn’t mention a pregnancy in susequent emails.

And then I realized that this is probably wholly unexpected news to most people on his mailing list.

The telltale sign? He named the mother. As in “[Baby’s] mother, [Name].”

Has this sort of thing ever happened to you?

It raises questions about how a man announces an unplanned pregnancy, especially when the couple are not together, or are tenuously together.