Giving the mother of your child a birth present - new trend from men breaks out (guys can be real nice, really)

The family jewels
Childbirth has become an occasion for men - in a trend unprompted by marketers - to give their mates a "push present."
By Tanya Barrientos/Philadelphia Inquirer

It would be easy to think this is a story strictly for women, since it's about diamonds and babies and sapphires and babies and rings and bracelets. And babies.

But it's really a story for men. Fathers-to-be. Their pals. And any other guy feeling clueless about which life occasions require jewelry for their sweethearts.

Already on the list: engagements, weddings, major birthdays, major anniversaries, Christmas and Valentine's Day. But what about the birth of a child?

Used to be that labor-room daddies got brownie points for simply being present at the blessed event. If they brought flowers, chocolates or balloons, it was a plus.

No more, Pop.

There's a new trend afoot. Increasingly, dads are bestowing a little bling after a birth - some call it a "push present," others call it a "baby bauble" - to thank the new mother for her hard work, and to commemorate the newest addition to the family.

Blue sapphires for boys. Pink sapphires for girls. Diamonds for bundles of either gender. Mommies today are receiving necklaces, stacking rings, tennis bracelets, earrings and charms for their labor.

"I don't want to say it's a mandatory thing, but from what I've seen with push presents, it's almost like it's becoming expected," said David Rosnov, owner of Rosnov Jewelers in Jenkintown, which happens to be just down the street from Abington Memorial Hospital.

"A lot of women come in with their husband while they're pregnant and look around," Rosnov said. "Then the man will come back and say, 'Put it away, I'll come back the day the baby is born.'... Even with adoptions it happens, by the way."

It's not clear precisely when the trend took off, said Helena Krodel, spokeswoman for the Jewelry Information Center, a trade association based in New York.

"It's a common practice in different cultures," she explained. "The English have been doing this for many, many years. In India, the exchange of gold jewelry is customary. A husband bestows gold on his wife."

What's unusual about this particular trend, however, is that it has bubbled up from consumers, instead of being created by jewelry marketers.

"It's kind of a grassroots phenomenon," said Cheryl Kremkow, editor-in-chief of Modern Jeweler magazine. "It's rare for a tradition to come out of the culture like this. It seems that this has something to do with the empowerment of women... . They came up with this idea on their own."

Which isn't to say marketers haven't noticed.

"It's something we've been watching closely," said Carson Glover, spokesman for the Diamond Information Center, the public relations firm for the diamond industry.

He said research shows that 37 percent of "affluent" Americans (incomes of $100,000 or higher) have heard of push presents, and 86 percent said they'd be interested in receiving a diamond to celebrate the birth of a child.

Interviews with women in their late 20s and 30s at JFK Plaza and Liberty Place mirrored the statistics.

"I just got one, but I didn't know that's what it was called," said 29-year-old Angela Caliendo, a lawyer who lives in Hatboro. Her daughter, Madelyn, was born in May. On Caliendo's ring finger is a brand-new diamond-and-emerald band. Madelyn is her second baby. For her first, a boy named Kyle, her husband, Craig, gave her a diamonds-by-the-yard bracelet, she said.

"I have a friend who demanded a tennis bracelet for having her baby," said Colleen Cottone, 32, of Pine Hill. "I guess that's a push present. She did push for it."

Maria LaRosa, the weekend evening meteorologist at CBS3, said that when her son, Michael, was born just more than a year ago, her husband, Mariusz Kolakowski, surprised her with a silver-and-diamond watch. It was, she said, a combination birth (the baby's) and birthday (her 30th) present.

"He came into the hospital room with it," she recalled. "It was so nice. And I didn't give him anything, except his first human baby."

Tina Tang, a jewelry designer in New York, said she had seen such a growing demand for push presents at her two Manhattan stores that in September she introduced a line of gold charms and pendants specifically for births.

"We had so many fathers coming in looking for something for their wives, and we try to keep things within reason," she said. Her $550 gold pendants have birthstones in the center of a gold circle, and the gold charms - priced from $99 to $115 - are heart-shaped, with the baby's birth month or initial embossed in the middle.

Some call the trinkets materialistic. Some call them unnecessary. But women who have received push presents call them a welcome token of appreciation after nine months of swollen ankles, indigestion, fatigue, weight gain and nausea.

"If you ask me, each month should translate into a carat," joked Jaimi Gordon, 37, a self-employed publicist who lives near Ambler with her two children and her husband, Michael.

"I told my husband exactly what I wanted, a double strand of pearls with a diamond clasp," she said. "In the delivery room, I was like, 'It hurts! It hurts! Let me see the box.' I sat in my hospital gown all disgusting, but I was wearing that strand of pearls."

Gordon admits her story is an exaggeration, but not much of one.

"I'm telling you," she said, "if the situation were reversed, men would be registered for push presents in every golf store in the country."

Some jewelers believe designer Aaron Basha germinated the trend 10 years ago with a new line of jewel-encrusted, enameled baby-shoe charms. They became so popular that now similar charms are available at various price points. For example, a Basha original can cost from $2,000 to $6,000, while the most recent Lillian Vernon catalog featured sterling silver baby-shoe charms for $24.98.

Audrey Levin, a Maple Glen stay-at-home mother of three, said her husband, Barry, gave her an enameled shoe charm after each of her deliveries. A periodontist in Elkins Park, Barry said he didn't know push presents even existed, but felt the need to give Audrey something special to commemorate the event.

"I think it should be an individual thing, not something that is expected," he said. "I wouldn't want it to become something men get judged on."

Greg Allen, author of a parenting blog called Daddytypes.com, agrees. "My first reaction when I heard about push presents is that it was an absolutely freaky concept."

Men, he said, should be told if they are expected to cough up push presents, otherwise "it's something that to us is like the talk that goes on in the women's room... . There's no empirical way to test if it's real."

Oh, it's real all right, said Colleen McCleery of OBGYN Care of Southern New Jersey in Lindenwold, who delivers about 250 babies a year.

"Sometimes I even suggest it to the fathers," she said. "I sort of tease them about it, but I do suggest it."

Allen, who has a 2-year-old daughter and splits his time between Washington and New York, said he sees jewelry as "an expensive but useless product." But, he added, "at the same time, it's hard to dismiss it entirely if there's a lot of sincere sentiment and meaning behind it."

Plus, he said, "I certainly don't want to be the guy walking down a Toys R Us aisle and have some mom say, 'Hey, there's the guy who's against push presents.' "

(Contact staff writer Tanya Barrientos at tbarrientos@phillynews.com or 215-854-5728.)