The Kickoff

Been over this before. Book reviews and obituaries. Each can be counted on for some cleverness.

Take today's book review in the Wall Street Journal: Make Room for Daddy, by Judith Walzer Leavitt. (Yes, there's a sub-title: The Journey from Waiting Room to Birthing Room.)

The review is entertainingly written by Jonathan V. Last, so there is some male balance to a book about how men and their participation in, presence at, childbirth has evolved over the years. And how women's acceptance, even insistence of their involvement has changed.

The cleverness comes when the reviewer points out:

Fathers today are stepped in the fine points of birth coaching and Lamaze, but once upon a time they had literally nothing to do with the event other than participating in the kickoff nine months earlier.

I'm old fashioned. It's nice to be acknowledged. I'm not sure I can ever hear the term "kickoff meeting" at work again without trying to suppress some sort of smile.

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