mama's baby, papa's maybe

alternative Mama's baby, Papa's maybe

1. It is easy to know the biological mother of a child, but difficult to be sure who the biological father is.

   As David Buss states in his book The Dangerous Passion, there's an African phrase that captures this male fear: “Mama's baby, papa's maybe.”

   2010, Eva Nagorski, The Down and Dirty Dish on Revenge, →ISBN

   4 more examples

   “Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe” is how the black feminist critic Hortense Spillers describes the reproductive burdens of black women, and her words certainly seem to apply to Sally Hemings's experience.

   2009, Deborah Gray White, Telling Histories: Black Women Historians in the Ivory Tower, →ISBN

   His approach to unity is based on the theses of a Swiss lawyer-macrohistorian, Johan Bachofen, a US anthropologist, Lewis M. Morgan, a German macrohistorian, Friedrich Engels, and deep knowledge of Greek drama. Why the latter? Because it reflects the matriarchy-patriarchy contradiction after the first form recognized by Bachofen, promiscuity. They are all variations on the perennial theme "mama's baby, papa's maybe".

   2010 November 2, Cameroun Douala, “The Cultural Unity of Black Africa?”, in Real News Network

   The enormous value that patriarchal cultures and religions place on female virginity has roots in biology. We’ve all heard the saying, “Mama’s baby, Papa’s maybe.”

   2015 December 25, Valerie Tarico, “Is Jesus' birth worth celebrating? The dark subtext of the nativity scene”, in Salon

   Because men experience "paternity uncertainty" ("Mama's baby, Papa's maybe"), they're more distressed by sexual infidelity, which could chump them into raising a kid who'll pass on some other dude's genes.

   2016 December 17, Amy Akon, “Little gifts to girlfriend show how thoughtful you are”, in Poughkeepsie Journal

1. Alternative letter-case form of mama's baby, papa's maybe.

   What the guys all say? Mama’s baby, Papa’s maybe. Nah—I seen that nose, and she mine.

   1994, Susan Straight, “Confinement”, in Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights, New York, N.Y.: Hyperion, →ISBN, page 96

   2 more examples

   “[…] Your name is Chiquita?” […] “That’s Spanish for petite or small. You part Mexican?” / I laughed. “Not that I know of, but you never know. Mama’s baby, Papa’s maybe.”

   1996, Eric Jerome Dickey, “Chiquita”, in Sister, Sister, New York, N.Y.: Signet, published December 1997, →ISBN, page 229

   As far as the request for a DNA test I was sort of taken aback. The old but familiar saying, ‘Mama’s baby, Papa’s maybe’ jumped into my head.

   2016, Empress Simone [pseudonym], chapter 6, in In These Streets: Koi’s Saga, [Bronx, N.Y.]: Empressed For Life Presents, →ISBN, page 94