Source: JGI/Jamie Grill / Getty
Thursday morning I noticed a Twitter alert on my phone regarding a tweet that went viral. The message came from a man by the name of Rashad and it read:
“She pushed my baby out so I pushed my a** to Lenox.”
Along with the tweet, Rashad included two pictures of his partner in her hospital room at the maternity ward of Northside Hospital Women’s Center in Georgia alongside all of the designer items he had just gifted her. I smiled as I thought that it was an extremely sweet gesture considering how tough childbirth can be, especially for black women. Then, I exited the tweet and went about my day. No less than an hour later, a screenshot of the tweet popped up in my Facebook feed and the comments were quite troubling.
As I scrolled through hundreds of comments, it was bothersome to see all of the negative assumptions that people were making about this young family. Some shamed Rashad for being “materialistic.” Some questioned his competence as a father and pondered whether or not this new dad had made sure his newborn daughter had a car seat to ride home in. One person quipped that they would regret spending all of that money when the hospital bill arrives. And those comments were just scratching the surface.
I couldn’t fathom how gifting your partner with a present after she gave birth to your child could attract so much negativity. Further, I couldn’t understand how people could draw such extreme conclusions about this couple based on two photos. Having caught wind of the criticism, Rashad responded to commenters, writing:
“My daughter is well taken care of lol for everybody so worried. The post was regarding my girl not my daughter. That’s a different story for a different day. Y’all broke boys couldn’t even imagine.”
The reality is that we know nothing about these people’s lives, financial situation, or parenting abilities. It’s okay to let people enjoy things.
