New Year Baby Contest v Publisher's Clearing House

The thrill of participation in any event that awards prizes for minimal effort or achievement is exhilarating; that’s why my family loves contests. Mammy's favorite is the Publisher Clearing House Sweepstakes contest which she enters yearly. Every January, Mammy Trout will wait by the door hoping to greet Ed McMahon and grab the $10 million check. To no avail McMahon never appears and Mammy gets the blues.

Once the doorbell rang and Mammy transformed herself into Blanche DuBois from "A Streetcar Named Desire", muttering, with that gazed look, as she opened the door,

“Whoever you are—I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

The beginning of April is the best time to enter the newspaper’s New Year Baby contest. You have a chance of winning many attractive prizes; Turtle Wax just for starters. OK, so it is not on the scale of Ed McMahon’s Clearing House extravaganza, but it is still a contest meant to be won. Mammy says that contest is just for kids and we should stick to the Publisher’s Clearing House one.
(AP Photo/Publishers Clearing House, Diane Bondareff)

She reminds me that nearly every year some teenage girl wins. You rarely see a teenage boy in the photograph with the winning baby, even though I think they get more practice time. By the time the winner is announced, many of the boys are out of the picture hooked up with someone else.
The paper insists that this isn’t just a contest just for teens, but odds do favor them. Mammy argues that it is not fair. She said she is too old and cannot compete in the contest anymore. Having an education or being in school doesn’t appear to give any contestant any advantage. Not many of the county champions had received their diploma. Mammy said she is sick of the New Year Baby Contest and will stick to the Publisher Clearing House contest. She feels lucky this year, that is why we have subscribed to dozens of magazines. Schuylkill Living, Guns and Ammo, Oprah, Wrestling World. You name it, and we get it.

If winning the New Year Baby Contest doesn’t require any intellectual ability, then what about physical ability? For the most part, the contest does appear to require some physical stamina. It is not an athletic endurance test although some have described it as such. There is no clock, time outs or uniforms to wear (or take off). Most of the contestants do practice together before the contest starts but that is optional. Some have won on the first try; sort of like those half-time hockey challenges where a member of the audience gets a chance to score to win a big prize.
If you are interested in entering the baby contest, then the beginning of April is the time to enter as New Year’s Day is less than nine months away. The paper’s rules state that you can play just about anywhere within Schuylkill County, inside or outside. Some contestants use their cars; maybe that is why they want that Turtle Wax! However a car or a driver’s license is unnecessary. In fact most of the winners would say they participated after school at home while the parents are out. Having a parent at home is sort of like a sand trap on a golf course. Mammy says that she is too tired to enter this contest. Her friends claim that it is difficult to get a partner interested anymore and it is no fun entering alone. I guess it is like football and pole vaulting, just for youngsters. Not many boomers play football or pole vault anymore. They just like to sit on their lazy boys and watch television.
Mammy refers to the contest as a Salute to Teen Pregnancy. She says that that it glamorizes teen pregnancy while downplaying its dangers, such as, low birth weight and prematurity, growing up without a father, a future in poverty, poor school performance, and possible abuse and neglect. I tell Mammy that she is just a sore loser. These so-called “dangers” have a silver lining. For starters, they increase the employment rate for social workers and help create a need for more public housing. I say that these young mothers and their kids are meal tickets for many seeking jobs around here. I say they deserve these accolades.

I say, “Let the games begin!”

But wait, I hear the doorbell. I gotta go. This time it really may be Ed McMahon with Mammy’s ten million dollar check.