"Push presents"
Jill found a disturbing "trend" piece in the New York Times about how new moms are supposedly demanding post-partum jewelery kickbacks. The headline reads: "A Bundle of Joy Isn't Enough?"
We're told that these bits of baby bling are known as "push presents."
In general, women enlighten their men about push presents, not the other way around. Chris Beggini, a 43-year-old mutual fund manager in Radnor, Pa., didn’t know about the practice until his wife, Jennifer, straightened him out. “We talked about how she had nine months of difficulty, and ‘Aren’t I the good soldier?’ blah blah blah,” he recalled.
So when the Begginis begat Abigail in 1999, Ellie in 2002, and Julia last year, Mr. Beggini responded with earrings, a bracelet and what he jokingly calls a “suffer ring.”
“You have to keep mama happy,” he said. [NYT]
This article is an attempt to recast a private expression of love as a guilt for everyone else. You see, it wouldn't be news to learn that some fathers give gifts to the mothers of their children. You won't see a trend piece about these commonplace gestures, even if they are becoming more common. A) They're not new, shocking, or counterintuitive, B) They don't move product.
A truly grandiose mult-carat tribute might be fodder for the human interest section, but a New York Times trend piece needs at least one guilt trip.
Assuming the story has a basis in fact, the lede could just as easily have been that more grateful fathers are giving gifts. Instead it's about how greedy moms are exploiting childbirth to cadge jewelry out of their husbands. That's always news.
The latest New York Times piece is just rehashing FOX News' seminal "Push Present" piece of 2003, which probably sprang full born from some marketing press release:
"I'd been told by so many people that you're supposed to get one that I just assumed it was the norm," said Leitner. But many men are clueless about the concept. Some aren't even very involved in buying the actual present.
"My husband does not believe in jewelry, so I saw it as the perfect opportunity to cash in on the whole societal pressure thing," laughed Seattle mom Julie Leitner, 32, who got a white gold and diamond bracelet in the $800-$1,500 price range when her daughter was born.
Push presents, which are usually jewelry but don't have to be, have gained popularity in the last few years. Once one new mother gets such a gift, her friends embrace the trend and pass the word on to their hubbies.
"I wouldn't necessarily say the gift was from me," said Bruce Owen, 35, of Oakland, Calif. "[My wife] picked it out. She bought it. It was more as if I didn't have a choice." [Fox]
The "greedy mommies" narrative is targeting new dads. It's all part of a time-tested marketing strategy: Make the customer feel like the purchase is expected of him. Present the product as the solution to the shame he now feels for not knowing the drill in the first place. It may also help to acknowledge the feelings of helplessness and resentment your pitch has evoked in the customer.
"We know it's a drag, bud, but what are you gonna do? If the little woman has her heart set on something, and you don't cough it up, you'll never hear the end of it."
On a scale of smarminess, the jewelry trade is right up there with the the funeral industry:
"We've done a lot of research on birth of a child gifts," says Emmy Kondo, senior strategic planner at J. Walter Thompson. "The idea comes from the culture. Basically, consumers respond in two ways when you ask them about it. Half say, ‘Of course, everyone does this.' The other half say, ‘I wish I knew about this.' It's an important gift of love occasion and easy fruit for jewelers to pluck."
[...]
Because the birth of a child is such an emotional time, consumers are very responsive to suggestions that pluck their heart strings. Most consumers see the gift as recognition of a new life stage similar to marriage. [Modern Jeweler, 2006]
Gross. Not the actual gift-giving, but the baggage heaped upon it by marketers and the media.
The "emerging trend" of the "push present" is the kind the manufactured conventional wisdom that convinces people they need expensive stuff they don't even want.
Yet somehow the toptext casts new moms as the villains, as opposed to the professional manipulators.
Lol.
I take it Lindsay that you're in the family subgroup who is gifted with more than just a Cheerios necklace upon the onslaught of motherhood... :-)
You make me smile when you take such offense like that. I suspect in flyover country, and in the true middle class and down where these practices are not so prevalent, the the Times is exploiting interest. Eh. It's your staunch defense that gives me pause -- they're only thinking ratings, I suspect, and if some women do this and call it a push present, they're just exploiting the trend. The Haves, and Have Nots are as old as Hatfields and McCoys and everybody makes babies so there's a common denomination.
Basically the story's a good one nowadays if people read it.
Posted by: Mary | December 08, 2007 at 04:57 AM
Assuming the story has a basis in fact, the lede could just as easily have been about grateful fathers giving gifts. Instead it's about how greedy moms are exploiting childbirth to cadge jewelry out of their husbands. That's always news.
That is exactly what irritated me when I read the article. The obnoxious "women sure are uppity these days" tone really bothered me. I sort of frown on the materialist aspect, but appreciation of childbearing is a nice thing.
Posted by: BeaTricks | December 08, 2007 at 06:10 AM
The paternalistic tone of the article is lame. Jewelry itself is mostly pretty lame. One very rarely sees jewelry that is even interesting, much less art. Crumble a mountain to leach with cyanide or mercury to get a little gold to make a bauble. More so all the time.
Some years ago the DeBeers folks managed to convince the Japanese that they needed diamond wedding rings which had never been a part of Japanese culture before. Now hitched Japanese sport matrimonial bling just like us, and more big, useless holes are dug in the ground.
Posted by: cfrost | December 08, 2007 at 08:11 AM
Sorry this is off-topic -- couldn't find an email link:
NYC window washer dead after fall
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110ap_scaffold_accident.html
NEW YORK -- Their job was one of routine peril - washing windows on Manhattan skyscrapers. The danger proved deadly for Edgar Moreno and nearly so for his brother. Their work platform gave way as they stepped onto it Friday from the roof of a 47-story Upper East Side apartment building, sending them on a horrifying plunge to a plaza below. "They apparently fell all the way from the top," said Fire Department spokesman John Mulligan.
...
Authorities were investigating the accident, but a buildings official said the workers apparently were not wearing safety harnesses when they fell. "That appears not to have happened here," city Buildings Department Deputy Commissioner Robert LiMandri told reporters.
Posted by: Dan | December 08, 2007 at 08:18 AM
Seems like an inopportune time to be adding to your credit card debt, but hey, that's capitalism.
"One rarely sees jewelry that is even interesting, much less art."
Very true, and one of the reasons I often wish Alexander Calder had been my brother. As far as gemstones are concerned, I've always found turquoise, lapis and moonstone much more interesting than emeralds or diamonds, and let's face it, how many of you can tell the difference between a garnet and a ruby? I'm always afraid, though, to find out what the mining/manufacturing processes of just about anything I consider buying (outside of a Fair Trade store) consist of now; there's seems to be a potential horror story attached to everything in the general marketplace these days.
Posted by: Cass | December 08, 2007 at 09:09 AM
I don't understand the obsession with jewelry. It's an addiction with no redeeming value and most of it is not attractive.
Imagine if all the energy put into making the jewelry industry what it is was put into something like environmental engineering, energy or even high tech.
Why are women seduced by baubbles? Why?
Posted by: DefJef | December 08, 2007 at 09:47 AM
The professional manipulators are indeed bad guys ( like the credit card guys! ), but at some point people have to take some small level of responsibility for what they buy or what they ask for, do they not?
If you're seriously rich, then buy all of this expensive and wasteful trash that you want. No problem.
But for the average family, buying jewelry at the time a new baby arrives is about the most irresponsible thing that could be done. This is the time more than any other to be smart about what you spend your money on. Any father stupid enough to buy jewelry at a time like this and any mother who moron enough to want it are by definition unfit to be parents.
In all such instances, I'd recommend that the newborn be picked up by Child Protection Services and given to the Icelandics who can raise it properly.
Posted by: The Phantom | December 08, 2007 at 09:54 AM
"I don't understand the obsession with jewelry. Its an addiction with no redeeming value and most of it is not attractive."
Well, brother, it would seem to have something to do with aesthetics. Calder's jewelry, for instance, is no more or less "useful" in this sense than his mobiles or sculpture. And the fact that most jewelry is not terribly interesting is no more of an argument against jewelry per se than Thomas Kincade is an argument against painting.
Saying that jewelry is an "addiction" is, needless to say, nonsensical. Personal aesthetics can become an addiction like anything else, but so what?
And please don't start any discussion on how we should all be living under identical concrete domes; we covered that territory, and settled that issue, early on in the modernist era.
Posted by: Cass | December 08, 2007 at 10:29 AM
Yeah, gold is great. Just fucking great
Posted by: The Phantom | December 08, 2007 at 10:36 AM
Jewelry is art.
Fuck off.
Posted by: mudkitty | December 08, 2007 at 10:37 AM
Jewelry is wasteful, expensive, and often environmentally destructive trash.
It's garbage.
Posted by: The Phantom | December 08, 2007 at 10:43 AM
To anyone with half a brain; not all jewelry is expensive, not all jewelry is wasteful, and not all jewelry is environmentally destructive.
Posted by: mudkitty | December 08, 2007 at 11:13 AM
Read about the incredible environmental and political harm caused by the mining of gold and silver, which of course is present in an awful lot of jewelry.
And the environmental and political damage caused by much (not all) of the mining for diamonds and the rest of this bullshit.
Posted by: The Phantom | December 08, 2007 at 11:20 AM
Lindsey: Nice post. I always appreciate your insight.
"a New York Times trend piece needs at least one guilt trip."
May I quote you (with cite and link) on my LJ?
Thanks!
Posted by: Brian B | December 08, 2007 at 11:58 AM
I first heard about this concept three years ago when the Czech wife of friend who lives in Prague had a baby. She got a TAH Heuer. He did not know about it either at first. I thought it was a European thing.
Posted by: Davis | December 08, 2007 at 01:43 PM
So now you want to start a war on Push Presents... What's next, Christmas!?
Posted by: john in california | December 08, 2007 at 02:51 PM
When my daughter was born, jewelry was the last thing on my mind.
Posted by: janet | December 08, 2007 at 04:17 PM
That's why you investigate and buy green metals, and jewelry.
Diamonds happen to be plentiful, btw. It's a myth that they are rare.
Posted by: mudkitty | December 08, 2007 at 04:18 PM
I don't understand the obsession with jewelry. It's an addiction with no redeeming value and most of it is not attractive.
You know, there was a time when married women couldn't own property of their own, though they could receive (and keep) gifts of jewelry. Which were often quite helpful should they find themselves abandoned or widowed. You might not get to keep the house, but your wedding ring was yours and could be hocked if need be.
Precious stones are also small and portable and easy to conceal, which was of great help to the Jews as they got routed out of various places in Europe and had to move quickly.
DeBeers has done its level best to create a sense of obligation to gift diamonds (which are inflated in price at the jeweler's -- better off going to a pawn shop and buying loose stones), which in turn has spawned the idea that women are greedy and frivolous. But see above -- it has not been so very long, within the memories of some older people, since couverture laws were used to keep women economically dependent on men.
Posted by: zuzu | December 08, 2007 at 04:19 PM
You know, there was a time when married women couldn't own property of their own, though they could receive (and keep) gifts of jewelry. Which were often quite helpful should they find themselves abandoned or widowed. You might not get to keep the house, but your wedding ring was yours and could be hocked if need be.
I should add: jewelry could also be passed from mother to daughter, so that the daughter had a little insurance should *her* husband die or leave her.
Posted by: zuzu | December 08, 2007 at 04:24 PM
Thanks, Brian. You're more than welcome to cite the quote.
It's a marketing triumph that the concept of jewelry is so tightly associated with gems and precious metals. Jewelry is actually notable among crafts for drawing on such a broad range of raw materials, some environmentally friendly, some not. Metal, plastic, paper, amber, wood, bone, resin, shell, enamel, jade, ceramics, glass, and on, and on... If you like jewelry, you've got a lot of environmentally friendly options.
But the marketing juggernaut that is the jewelery industry makes huge profits off the distinction between "serious" (i.e. expensive and fashioned from gems and rare metals) jewelry and everything else. They portray diamonds as a kind of universal solvent. In the twisted world of DeBeers, all women find diamonds intrinsically desirable.
Posted by: Lindsay Beyerstein | December 08, 2007 at 04:38 PM
Hadn’t given the idea of jewelry as fungible security for women any thought. There’s your limited male perspective. An apartment neighbor of ours in Germany had a harrowing escape from Prussia in the spring of 1945 with her sister and mother, barely a step ahead of the Soviet army, carrying nothing but the clothes on their backs and little bags containing jewelry and some gold bullion that they kept hidden inside their clothes.
Posted by: cfrost | December 08, 2007 at 04:53 PM
If you're thinking ahead, these type of decisions end up getting made for other reasons. You just don't spend a lot of money on much of anything after you have kids, becuause the cost of raising them over time is staggering.
Posted by: aflounder | December 08, 2007 at 05:27 PM
Re: the actual worth of diamonds. They're a byproduct of the industrial abrasives industry for chrissakes. Big, gem-quality diamonds are rare, but the worth of what one sees on ordinary rings is an artificial construct of the diamond marketers.
If you want really, truly rare diamonds, look for the ones falling from the sky.
Posted by: cfrost | December 08, 2007 at 05:28 PM
My second favorite ring is a very sleek, modernist piece consisting of stainless steel and concrete. Not quite the traditional materials Lindsay refers to, but very evocative of my world, and minimally damaging to the organic part of it.
I also make my own sometimes, out of the kind of materials you'd expect from someone who draws a paycheck from a nonprofit.
Posted by: Cass | December 08, 2007 at 06:05 PM