mama's baby, papa's maybe
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.34 in modern English
41
Scrabble Score
19
Letters
5
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
phrase
It is easy to know the biological mother of a child, but difficult to be sure who the biological father is.
phrase
Alternative letter-case form of mama's baby, papa's maybe.
Example Sentences
- "“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."
- "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.”"
- "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"."
- "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.”"
- "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."
- "What the guys all say? Mama’s baby, Papa’s maybe. Nah—I seen that nose, and she mine."