I run a department (in Jakarta) consisting of me and four younger women: three Indonesians (all three married, one with a child and two who don’t have kids yet) and an Indian. To everyone’s delight, the Indian woman is now about 4 months pregnant with her first child.
It dawns on me that, as the head of the department, I should probably make sure we take care of any culturally appropriate actions to celebrate this exciting event before she leaves on maternity leave.
It’s easy enough for me to sort out what the Indonesians think about this kind of situation - but what would be the expected behavior from office mates from an Indian cultural standpoint?
Insights into Indian cultural expectations welcome - thank you in advance. I’m thinking we’ll do some sort of shower/take her to lunch a while before her due date (that’s my American cultural response), but I’d like to finesse this in an appropriate way for both Indian and Indonesian culture. As an older, more established person, I have no objection to footing the bill if we need to do a nice lunch/group gift/whatever and it doesn’t work for the younger folks to chip in much. I’d just like to be sure I understand her possible expectations, as an Indian, before I proceed. Thanks.
Prefaced by the disclaimer that there is no real one size fits all answer for any question about Indian culture, since there are so many!
Typically in Indian society (AFAIK) people tend to ignore pregnancies. Maybe it has to do with how Indian culture is hidebound about sex, but I suspect it may also have to do with how Infant mortality rates till recently were high. Long story short, I don’t know of a baby shower equivalent, at least not until the kid is born. Then there are a couple of festivals that are celebrated with especial pomp by families with a new kid.
Essentially, you’re not really working under the weight of any expectations. Use your knowledge of the individual! I’m sure a “This is how we celebrate pregnancies in America, let me take you out for lunch” or “Here’s a cute/useful present for the kid” would go down just dandy.
Second - just ask her. Say you’d like to do something nice for her because she is pregnant and explain what you’d normally do as an American. I only say this because India has so many different traditions and cultures. In some cultures, it’s considered bad luck to have a baby shower (like a jinx) before the baby is born.
So just ask. She’ll be tickled. And if she demurs, just throw her the American style one. Still, try to do what she wants. Or combine both ideas.
Ask her what she’d like. My experience of Indians living here in the US is that they really enjoy traditional baby showers. The one I’ve been to was at an Indian restaurant. We ate good food, played charades, and watched her open gifts.
ETA: there were only about three non-Indians there, and the party was thrown by an Indian sister of the mother-to-be, so it wasn’t just about trying to “fit in” or whatever. It’s what she wanted.