"mama's baby, papa's maybe" meaning in English

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase",
        "head": "mama's baby, papa's maybe"
      },
      "expansion": "mama's baby, papa's maybe",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2009, Deborah Gray White, Telling Histories: Black Women Historians in the Ivory Tower, →ISBN:",
          "text": "“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.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Eva Nagorski, The Down and Dirty Dish on Revenge, →ISBN:",
          "text": "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.”",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010 November 2, Cameroun Douala, “The Cultural Unity of Black Africa?”, in Real News Network:",
          "text": "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\".",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015 December 25, Valerie Tarico, “Is Jesus' birth worth celebrating? The dark subtext of the nativity scene”, in Salon:",
          "text": "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.”",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016 December 17, Amy Akon, “Little gifts to girlfriend show how thoughtful you are”, in Poughkeepsie Journal:",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "It is easy to know the biological mother of a child, but difficult to be sure who the biological father is."
      ],
      "id": "en-mama's_baby,_papa's_maybe-en-phrase-2vs2I0op",
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "Mama's baby, Papa's maybe"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "mama's baby, papa's maybe"
}

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase",
        "head": "mama's baby, papa's maybe"
      },
      "expansion": "mama's baby, papa's maybe",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrases",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2009, Deborah Gray White, Telling Histories: Black Women Historians in the Ivory Tower, →ISBN:",
          "text": "“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.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010, Eva Nagorski, The Down and Dirty Dish on Revenge, →ISBN:",
          "text": "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.”",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010 November 2, Cameroun Douala, “The Cultural Unity of Black Africa?”, in Real News Network:",
          "text": "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\".",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015 December 25, Valerie Tarico, “Is Jesus' birth worth celebrating? The dark subtext of the nativity scene”, in Salon:",
          "text": "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.”",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016 December 17, Amy Akon, “Little gifts to girlfriend show how thoughtful you are”, in Poughkeepsie Journal:",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "It is easy to know the biological mother of a child, but difficult to be sure who the biological father is."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "Mama's baby, Papa's maybe"
    }
  ],
  "word": "mama's baby, papa's maybe"
}