High Security

Nobody gives you a baby gate at a baby shower. You get clothes and towels and and blankets and all of those things. We received a baby bathtub and a breast pump and some other really useful stuff. Relatives even sent us a rocking chair. But no baby gate. People even mentioned that we needed a changing table and outlet covers and some other stuff that we really didn't need. Nobody mentioned a baby gate. Perhaps they thought that we just knew? We knew about diapers and clothes and people still bought us those, so that can't be it. Perhaps people really don't like to talk about containment procedures for small children. They feel weird having conversations about how to turn your living room into a toddler jail. Well, not me. Baby containment was a vital part of my parenting strategy.

Hey Dad! What are you working on?

Sometimes in life you get lucky. When we bought our house, we got lucky for a variety of reasons, most of which weren't obvious at the time. One of those reasons was the single, normal width, doorway connecting our living room to the rest of the house. Not that there was much else to the house. It was the kitchen, a single bathroom, a single bedroom, and the living room which was half the square footage of the whole building. You could say that the house plan didn't flow very well, but when we bought it you could stand in one spot and reach your arm into each of the 4 rooms. Flow wasn't really necessary. The point is, that unless you wanted to go outside, there was only one way in and one way out of the living room, and you could stand in the kitchen or the bathroom and see in. This is an ideal arrangement for containing small children.
You can lock them out. You can prepare food without worrying about them trying to grab hot things or put their head in the oven. You can change the laundry around without anyone trying to climb in the dryer. You can pee without having a small child try to look into the bowl while you try to aim around them. That last one is particularity problematic. When we remodeled the house to add two more bedrooms we had to add another door to the living room. The very first thing we did was add a gate to keep small hands off of the power tools.
Not that gates are all good. Aside from the fact that people who visit think you're running a small scale prison, there are other issues. At 5' 10" I could stretch and just step over the gate, my wife had a harder time. I could step over empty handed but I was always just a little worried about slipping while holding a baby and it's hard to open the gate when you're holding an infant and a bottle and trying not to drop either one of them. The kids were not always happy to be on the other side and some epic screaming fits occurred. Nobody could open the gates the first time they visited. This resulted in my mother in law needing to ask me to open the gate so she could go pee. Awkward. Less awkward but still problematic was the fact that the gate separated the bathroom from potty training. Eventually the gate was moved to allow access to the bathroom so I didn't have to open and shut it every 45 seconds because everyone had to pee when I was stirring something on the stove or was up to my elbows in bread dough.
Overall though, the baby gate was one of the best pieces of parenting equipment ever. It simplified safe parenting and allowed me to get things done just out of the arms reach of tiny arms. I was still there, my kids could see me and I could see them due to the design of our house, nobody felt abandoned. I don't give away baby gates at baby showers even though I kind of want to. Not everyone thinks they want to confine their children (though they will, oh they will) or has a house that makes is convenient or even possible to do so. I do always mention to the parents to be, "You know, with a gate there and a gate there, you'd have this room sealed off". I often get weird looks, but if I visit their house when they have a two year old, I feel vindicated, because the gates are always there.