I've only once had an ultrasound, for a suspected kidney infection, not a pregnancy. Because of this lack of experience, I concede that I may not be qualified to say that I am certain I would never invite my friends and family around to my home to view my child-in-progress live on a screen. But what I can say with confidence is that it's not something that I would like to witness in some other expectant mother's living room.
Unfortunate news, then, that a recent fashion for non-medical ultrasound shindigs means that this is a scenario in which many of us may one day be invited to participate. More and more American mothers-to-be are taking advantage of opportunities to showcase their unborn children at specially arranged, at-home, imaging festivities, perhaps thinking that if it takes a village to raise a child, the village might as well get intimately involved in the pregnancy too. It's all thanks to enterprising imaging technicians who are taking their scanners on the road, offering these house-call examinations (apparently this is not a compromise of medical ethics) for a price that's competitive with what it costs to hire other, very good, party entertainment, like clowns or magicians or those butlers who don't wear any pants.
"Only in America!" you might be thinking and not without reason. When healthcare is already something many people have to pay for out of their own pockets, the idea of being able to demand it at a time and place convenient to you and 25 of your friends and family is perhaps less weird than, say, piling them in to your GP's surgery to bear witness to your second scan (even if it was possible, the NHS-catered snacks would be so disappointing). But much as this new craze may be born of the peculiar economics of American healthcare, I believe it also illustrates a broader trend in troubling behaviour. I'm not talking about the act of oversharing; rather, this feels like a fresh and dispiriting low when it comes to the degree to which we are willing to bear witness to oversharing without objection.
Yes, I'm pointing the finger at you, fellow detractors of oversharers: sure, we're smug, saying that we'd never give up our privacy like they do. But each time we discuss our disgust in low murmurs, but are too polite to stop people from telling and showing us too much, we are contributing as much to this culture as the sharers themselves. Every time we've said "no, of course, go on" when someone has begun to offer graphic details of a romantic encounter because we are too polite to tell them that they're disgusting and would prefer they chat about the weather. Each "Like" we've clicked on Facebook because we feel the pressure of social expectation to acknowledge that we've viewed 95 identical photos of a new puppy, or a moody shot of a freshly stitched appendectomy scar. What will it take to make us finally admit that we're uncomfortable? An invitation to witness a pregnancy's conception?
Some of us feel we can battle oversharing by being paragons of privacy. But this isn't very compelling when it's in direct competition for attention with other people's broadcast secrets. Direct action is what's needed. Next time someone posts something in your Facebook feed that should never have been uttered beyond the bounds of their bedroom? Tell them that in a pithy comment ("if I could Dislike this, I totes would") and then unfriend them. Witness an excessive public display of affection? Consider spraying the delinquent couple with a bottle of water that you carry, just in case. Invited to view the contents of someone's womb? Tell them that you're not coming not because you have an imaginary cold, but because you'd rather wait to meet the baby post, rather than pre, birth.
Will you insult the oversharers? It's possible. Will they feel less inclined to broadcast the details of their lives if they think that they don't have a receptive audience? We can live in hope.
