The March/April '07 issue of Cookie Magazine features a hilarious rant by Sally Schultheiss, a mom who implores parents to stop "itemizing the kids" on the outgoing answering message. She writes:
When did this trend of reciting the entire family tree start? I had to petition my parents just to get mentioned on the answering machine when I was in high school...Have I really "reached" Skylar? I'm sure her APGAR scores were off the charts, but chances are no one is getting through to the lump in the bassinet anytime soon—she has no neck control let alone the ability to get back to me as soon as she can.
We never bothering answering our house phone. We have cell phones, and
the people that love us and/or pay us know the number, so our voicemail
is configured with the standard outgoing greeting that came with it. Family? Individual? We
are telephonically invisible to outside callers. Even if we did
change it, I don't think I'd want creepy telemarketers and people
trying to collect our money to know our kids' names.
Why do people do this? Schultheiss postulates that maybe it has to do with passive-aggressiveness ("We have kids, would it kill you to ask about them?") or "perfect-family smugness" (an audio Christmas letter) or that it's a big "F You" to the childless. I think a more accurate reason is that people are just so gosh-darn proud
of being family that they want the whole world to know about it. Ain't nothing wrong with that.
