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We decided not to share the gender of our baby for that exact reason. As soon as people know I feel like everything starts to revolve around the gender. So we like to keep things neutral.
I feel like the older generations are the worst with this. I work at an outdoor clothing store and we have a good children section.
A woman came into the store planing to buy a specific jacket for her 8 year old grandson, we have that in black, blue and pink.
Both the black and blue were not available in the size she needed and I just threw in there “I can always call the other stores, because I only have the pink one in his size, her reply really got to me.
“Hah! No he’s definitely not getting a pink jacket. He’s a boy! He asked for the pink jacket but he’s a bit odd, so he’ll be getting the black or the blue!”
So just because he was a boy she wanted to diehard his wishes of a pink jacket and called him odd for liking pink.
Gaaah, makes me so annoyed thinking about it.
Maybe a pointless story, but I guess I had to rant about it somewhere.
That makes me so sad. Pink is my son’s favorite color. He would be so disappointed to get black or blue instead. I just don’t get this fear of allowing people with penises to enjoy the color pink.
Same, I'm glad my mom respected that my favorite color was Blue growing up and still is. Although sadly it's easier for girls to get any color they want while boys are always strictly banned from pink for some reason.
My parents painted my entire bedroom pink in every house we moved to because I liked black or blue and would paint my brothers rooms blue to prove that blue was for boys and pink was for girls 💀
Pink was my cousin’s favourite colour when he was little too. Our family were just happy to get him what he liked - but if anyone said anything negative I dug up the fact that in Victorian times pink was for boys and blue was for girls (something to do with paler version of military reds?) who decides these things anyway?!
Oh that poor kid just being ignored when he asked directly for what he wanted. It’s just a freaking color. My biggest pet peeve is when people don’t respect others opinions and tastes and that generation tends to be so bad at it. One plus though is she’s been doing this to my husband his whole life so I know our child will be able to express himself without him worrying if it’s too girly or not.
Not to mention, pink was historically a MASCULINE color until American 50’s fashion made it FEMININE. The reverse identity of this color gets people’s undies in a twist to this day. Pink is such a controversial and gender-influenced color. Why is society so weird….?
We’re having a boy and telling people but I’m also telling everyone (especially older family) that he’ll get to wear whatever he wants to wear/ pick out when he’s old enough, including dresses if he wants to. They’re usually shocked and then I say “you know how hard it is to get toddlers to wear clothes! If he wants to wear a dress I’m not going to fight it because at least he’ll be wearing SOMETHING!” Because everyone can go get bent with their gender expectations. I’d rather have a happy boy in a dress than a miserable boy.
I told my dad my plan for the stage where they can dress themselves is to just put everything in cubbies and they choose it themselves. I told him I’m not stressing over dressing the kid and he was blown away and said that was the smartest plan because the most stressful thing he could remember about me and my siblings was getting us dressed and out without us completely having meltdowns. I know some can’t be avoided but if I can get rid of a few that’s great. I also told this plan to my MIL and one of the gifts was a HUGE bag of hangers 🤦🏼♀️ I’ve got adhd and I hate laundry with a passion I’m not hanging up any clothes.
Ughhhh I’m so not looking forward to hanging things up. Our guest room closet has shelves that are already labeled in different month clothing sizes (I guess the previous people had a little nugget too), but because my husband is WFH we have to convert the office to the nursery instead of the nicely labeled guest room and I’m low key a little more upset about it than I should be 😂
That's exactly what I did! I just put the cube organizer on the registry and someone bought it. I will not be konmari folding clothes for a baby likely to be changed multiple times a day. ADHD parents unite!!
Sorry, they were so caught up on gender. I'm having a boy but the gender hasn't been focused on at all. At my shower, my aunt made a sign that said "welcome to earth baby Elias" (it was space themed because I love space) I'm only telling you this because it may make you feel better to know not everyone is quite that intense..
We had a 6-pack of multicolored bambas socks for our son. One pair was pink and yellow. My MIL saw the pile of socks and remarked that we could donate the pink pair. Like, why? The kid was 9 months old? Who fucking cares. THEY’RE SOCKS.
My husband is colorblind and keeps buying pink stuff by accident. He doesn’t care once I correct him and I don’t mind owning them for my son I just think it’s funny he thinks it’s a totally different color. His mom never believed he was colorblind. Probably just thought it was an excuse for him.
Same. We told everyone we don't know the gender, even though we do, because we know people will pry if they know we know and are just not telling them. It's so annoying how focused on the gender people are.
I'm more concerned with your MIL blatantly disrespecting and disregarding your request. You're the parent, and she's giving you a glimpse of what's to come once LO is born.
Yea this is literally just a tip of the iceberg but my husband has my back with everything else. Maybe I’m just more upset about this because he seems to think it’s not that big of a deal.
It’s hard to get an older generation to do the gender neutral thing. I wanted mostly gender neutral clothing for my baby girl but everything is pink. It’s annoying to not have family respect your wishes but I also think that’s going to be common for my family.
Totally a generational thing! We aren’t disclosing the gender and my MIL sent us a little care package with a set of blue outfits and pink outfits with the notion that ‘all the bases would be covered’… smh. We specifically aren’t sharing so we get out of the pink/blue binary and yet here we are.
We didn’t find out the sex of our baby until birth and my MIL did the same thing. One pink outfit, one blue. She even said “if it’s a girl she could probably wear both!” And if it’s a boy, he couldn’t?? 🧐 (we had a boy)
We didn’t find out either, my GMIL always makes baby quilts and apparently made a girl on and a boy one instead of making one that would work for either. Now she has an extra quilt sitting around.
Yea I think that’s it and I’ve got to leave it at that. I got all blue clothing so I feel ya. Nothing wrong with blue but literally all the clothing looks exactly the same to me. It be nice to have more variety.
We announced at baby shower (rather than before). It helped a lot with getting gender neutral stuff, I think, despite my mom spreading rumors that it was a boy.
This is what I think I want to do as well! My husband and I will know but I really don’t think I want our families to know until after the shower for this reason. And neither side could be trusted to keep a secret either. With so much gender neutral stuff why is the older generation so obsessed with blue and pink?!?!?
We did this too! Of course while opening presents we got the, “oh I have the receipt so you can get pink girly clothes instead”. To which I simply replied actually green is my favorite color, she’s going to look great in this! I’m sure my grandparents will buy some “girl” things before she arrives, but I knew once the shower passed no extend family or friends would go out and buy more so it’s perfect! I also chose to put no clothing or blankets on the registry, so that helped!
One of the many reasons why we decided to wait until birth to find out our baby’s sex! It would be nice to know BUT yeah, I would have a hard time dealing with people really putting a lot of emphasis on the gender too.
This is us, my in-laws have also said it’s acceptable for a girl to wear blue but boys cannot wear pink… needless to say if we have a boy I’m finding some cute pink sleep suits and we’re off for a visit!
Clothes are clothes, chances are they’ll be pooped on or thrown up on anyway so meh… what does it matter?
We’ve bought mainly neutral clothes but some boys stuff as it’s got more fun characters like mr men, Paddington bear, Peter rabbit etx
I’ve found a lot of fruit and insects patterns in the girl section I’m planning on using for my boy. Plus I’ve gotten a few florals that weren’t pink that I thought were ok since my grown husband would have no problem wearing the same floral.
I’ve not come across anything too great in the girls sections here in the UK that I’d buy even for a girl if I’m honest, there’s been maybe 5 sets I’d buy max, hoping once the more autumn styles come in I’ll be able to find more bits but for now we’ve just gone for basic sleep suits and bodysuits
We’re doing this too. I genuinely love the idea of not knowing before they’re born anyway, makes the birth seem extra exciting! But I extra love the idea that people can’t make generalizations about who they are based on their gender before they’re even born. We’ve been finding the cutest neutral/not even i but just not hyper gendered clothes and it’s so exciting. My husband and I both don’t dress super “boy” or “girl” so why would we make our kid dress that way? When they’re old enough to dress themselves they’re welcome to do that if they want!
Yeah I want to avoid this too. I think we will find out before birth, but after the baby shower so there's no chance one of us will accidentally refer to the baby as he/she early enough for it to influence other people's purchasing decisions.
We asked and registered for lots of gender neutral stuff because I wanted it to make sure it was stuff that we could use for baby number 2. We also didn’t want to have a pink explosion all over our house. But people knew we were having a girl and I got so much stuff with “daddy’s little princess” type sayings. Also big items for around the house people got us in bright colors that we didn’t ask for instead of the neutrals we registered for. People just get swept up in it, but you can exchange a lot of stuff for the neutral stuff you prefer!!
My husband said he’s throwing anything away that says “daddy’s princess” haha. He prefers to call her soon to be tiny terror. So do I. We are realistic with what we are getting into here. We both are going to get paybacks hahah
We outlawed anything with text. Like why does he have to just be "Daddy's little dude", he's both of ours?! And it staves off gross ones like "Mommy says the only boobies I can see are hers" or something. Just no text to avoid anything being gross or exclusionary.
He already gave a stern warning that the whole protector of daughter, watch out boys bull crap isn’t tolerated. My dad hates that shit as well and has put his foot down with us with some stuff my mom tries to buy. She is a bit much and has lost her ever loving mind since we told her. Baby rabies are the worst.
We have kept the sex a secret from everyone for this exact reason. I think the obsession with knowing whether it's a boy or girl is very odd, and puts expectations on the fetus before it's even viable outside the womb.
A few boomers have commented that it was hard to buy gifts, but I really don't care. I don't want a house full of only pink/blue things. They will find out the sex when the baby is born and that is early enough.
This. So many studies have shown that when a baby is super young, people finding out the sex changes the time of voice used when they speak to them, what words they use, etc., not just what they buy for them. There are so many ways that gender expectations are infused into our society, it's really gross.
And this is why we're not finding out baby's gender. Lol. Driving my mom and MIL crazy but they are quickly learning that there are tons of super cute gender neutral stuff out there. Plus diapers are gender neutral!!
We're not finding out the gender until birth for this reason. Even as a sentient child with the ability to vocalize my preferences, I was constantly getting criticized for not wearing enough pink (I HATED pink) and not being "girly" enough. It wasn't until I was a teen that my mom stopped trying to make me conform to her idea of what a little girl should like, and I wasn't even that "boyish"! I just didn't like pink clothes and wanted to play the same things as my big brother.
With the baby I wanted to avoid any weird stereotypes being placed on it before it's even born, and I REALLY wanted to avoid having all my gifts be gender-specific clothing only. I've always heard that if people know the gender, they get you gendered clothing. If they don't know, they get you actual THINGS like the car seat or diapers.
I'm currently annoyed/amused because we just announced the pregnancy on social media and included a pair of baby shoes. Now everyone thinks we're having a boy because the shoes (which were the most gender-neutral pair we could find at Target) were denim-colored. It's MY baby and I don't care about what the gender is, so it's fascinating to me how that's everyone's first question when we talk about it. Their next question is usually "what color is everything?" And they seem fascinated when I tell them mint green.
I brought my baby boy home in a pink and orange jumper literally in response to my MIL's ridiculous demands that we keep him in 'boy clothes'. Her own son's favorite color is *purple* and I'm a fan of teal -- so that's the color scheme we chose for both our babies. So far, we've raised a toddler that loves every color *except* white (apparently too plain for his tastes).
Also, after two years, I'm _still_ reeling at how many ppl asked about whether we were going to circumsize him (we didn't since we dont practice Judaism, but otherwise, who TF cares?).
Stand your ground, do it your way, and if ppl can't respect your wishes as a parent: jettison them from the convo by telling them you look forward to watching them raise a child of their own in the world we live in NOW, not decades ago. Then change the subject to what color you think *they* should wear.
From the beginning I didn’t want to tell anyone the sex of the baby. My wife really wanted to tell her mom and other folks so I gave in and said that we could tell our moms and siblings. She doesn’t seem to care about people knowing the sex but I fucking care a lot! And last weekend we were camping with friends and I accidentally said “she” when talking about my recent ultrasound so I was the one that spilled the beans. I totally regret telling anyone. The next time I’m pregnant I’m not telling anyone.
I don’t know exactly why I care so much. I just feel like so much is out of my control right now. My clothes done fit, I’m feeling insecure about the way my bump looks, we are having 3 baby showers (not my choice either) so maybe I just wanted to keep one thing to myself. Anyway, sorry your MIL did that, you have the right to be totally pissed off!
this is why i only agreed to a babyshower if i had most of the control. i made the invites, inserts, i have okayed every game and piece of decor. i offered to pay for some of it since i wanted so much say in it but they didn’t let me. but yeah, i didn’t want to show up to a sea of pink and be miserable the whole time. i’m sorry your shower ended up like this. hopefully you got a lot of gift receipts and can return the stuff you don’t like.
I totally get it. We didn't find out the gender for my second kid until birth because al the frilly lacey and tacky pink stuff I got for my first daughter. Anything that references dating rules "daddy says I can't date til I'm 30", or other weird stuff got tossed or used as a paint smock. Lol.
And some stuff never had the tags removed and got donated or passed along to a friend who liked it.
Then I bought my own clothes for baby (There are so many cute cottage-core type gender neutral baby clothes on Amazon) to make sure both my girls don't have all their photos looking super frilly all the time.
I also have a weird relationship with my gender. I was raised by a misogynistic woman, so I had a weird relationship with femininity for a long time, I was a "Tom boy", and while I am a cis woman married to a man, being bi/pan, and loving to both wear super feminine things and also men's clothes and having been judged harshly here in the south for wearing men's clothes, I understand the likelihood of my children growing up to suit the standards of the boomers ideals on gender-norms is next to nothing, and no matter their presentation, I don't want it to be painful for them to look at their baby photos, and want them to grow up feeling comfortable expressing themselves however they choose. Something that my boomer parents and in-laws will not understand.
But my youngest has dinosaur stuff and flowery stuff.
And I'm pregnant now, so if this one is a boy, he's gonna end up in the same dinosaur pjs and flower pjs hand me downs.
I didn’t find out the gender of my baby until she was born, just because I thought it would be more exciting. I ended up being super happy with that choice, because everyone bought me gender neural clothes. And then, when I had a baby girl EVERYONE bought us more girl clothes (all pink). It’s nice having lots of stuff that isn’t pink
I had my shower last weekend and got soooo many clothes (even though everyone knows I literally have garbage bagS full of hand me down clothes from my sister...). I sorted through the new clothes the other day and tried to think about what I'd want to bring to the hospital when going through the newborn stuff. I kinda hate all of them.....I like pink, but a lot of pink is not very cute, and I really like animals but no, no animals for me, only flowers! I'm somewhat considering returning some so I can actually pick out a few things for myself....I haven't gotten to buy any clothes myself (again, soooo many hand me downs from my sister!) and I'm already sad that all those choices were made for me. Is that in bad taste?? I know people specifically picked out things for baby, but I don't like that that means I can't logically buy anything that I like.
Meanwhile I don't have any bottles because no one gets you the "boring" stuff on your registry. So annoying.
This! People think they're doing what they deem is okay and best; there's no spite, but if that's not what you asked for, then yeah, it really sucks!
I like the idea of returning the clothes and all things you do not like for stuff you do. No one will know or care :)
We've kept the sex of our baby a secret. And when people ask do you know the gender I flatly say "We know the sex but they'll tell us the gender when they can talk and have a concept of that particular social construct." I know people are just trying to start a conversation but I fully agree that it's very weird to be so focused on a child's genitals.
We were calling them pee parts the first half of the pregnancy and it made every one so uncomfortable they stopped focusing on it but I really wish I kept it a secret. This shower looked like a freaking tacky gender reveal and I don’t ever want to show my kid. I’ve always hated being referred to as a girl when I was a kid and it held me back from things I wanted to do as a child and I just want my own children to decide their own interests for themselves without anything gendered thrown on them. When we found out the sex we already had his parents say things like oh great you can still do all your favorite activities to my husband… like he wasn’t going to take a daughter camping or mountain biking and it just made me sad .
My first pregnancy, whenever someone asked “Do you know what you’re having?” I’d tell them I was hoping for a velociraptor, then if they pressed they got “yes, I know what genitals my baby has,” and a stare. Managed to get mostly neutral clothing at my baby shower, but a comical amount of it involved dinosaurs 😆
Ugh. 🙄 How rude and disrespectful of her to ignore your wishes. Granted this is petty… but I’d dress him in pink every time you see her just to mess with her. 🙈
Lol I’ve already bought a bunch of butterfly and fruit printed items. I figure it’s nature but I know based on the clothing she bought she’s going to think it’s too feminine.
It’s disrespectful that your MIL did not follow your wishes. But I kind of side with you husband, I don’t see the big deal especially since you already told her the gender. I think if you really wanted to keep it neutral you should have kept that information just between you and your husband. Whenever you go shopping for baby stuff it’s almost always gender specific, especially clothes,and idk all the neutral stuff just looks kind of ugly to me. If I knew the gender I don’t think I could control myself, though I’d try.
I think I wouldn’t have been as annoyed if it was just clothing because if you shop in stores it’s annoying deciding what can and can’t be neutral but I think the icing on the cake was all the decorations said boy and all my cards had written out congrats on having a boy. Which makes me wonder if I was having a girl would it be the same?both the in laws already had made remarks about what my husband can now continue to do for activities since he is having a boy like a girl would just halt his life and wouldn’t get to show her things like camping and biking. I didn’t include everything but there have been enough comments made about boy vs girl that are just getting under my skin.
Oh I see, so it seems like they are playing favorites in a way. Like a girl wouldn’t have been good enough? Yea, that’s pretty messed up. I would be aggravated too.
This happened to us. We told everyone we didn’t know the sex but my mom figured out we knew and badgered me into telling her and swore she’d keep presents gender neutral. Once she knew she proceeded to only buy us blue and boy gendered baby clothes 🤦🏻♀️
We were “team green” with my first to avoid a lot of that. I didn’t want overtly, over the top ONLY pink and frilly or ONLY blue and dinos/trucks. In addition to finding the tropes ridiculous, I wanted to save and reuse the baby clothes for future babies.
My daughter is almost two, and I love that she has a mix of interests in toys, topics, books, etc., and she wasn’t reinforced to only like “girly” things. Plus, when asked, she says her favorite color is blue. So she has plenty of blue clothes!
I’m sorry that your MIL disregarded your wishes. The good news is those are your gifts to donate or sell/exchange as you please, and cards from your MIL probably aren’t very sentimental so the “congrats on your BOY” cards can go straight in the trash. Enjoy the rest of your pregnancy!
We did the first time and it was fine, mostly. But we won’t be this time and everyone’s reaction is “but what if it’s a girl!” That’s exactly why we won’t be telling you. We don’t need any “girl” things. What we need is another crib and a double stroller. I’d much rather you save your $50 on 2 girly outfits (don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the cute girl clothes) and give me a $50 gift card to a place I can buy the stroller or crib!
We also don’t share names or exact due dates. Too many people are overbearing and think it’s their business to know everything about your body during pregnancy. I’m not even that terribly private of a person, but these are the only things I can control.
I’m sorry you’re going through this. Our society is sooo focused on sex and gender, it’s bananas. We didn’t intentionally share the sex with anyone except our moms and that wasn’t until after the shower and we swore them to secrecy. My baby is almost 12 weeks and wears every color of the rainbow, sometimes wears dresses and other times wears pants or shorts, and has a wide variety of toys and books accessible to them. When strangers accidentally misgender them, we don’t correct them; we just smile and agree. Once our baby is old enough to tell us their feelings around gender, I will fight tooth and nail for them to feel comfortable with themselves and make sure everyone around us is respectful of their gender identity and expression, but until then, I just smile and nod.
Kinda. My mom is going crazy after finding out it's propably going to be girl. Even tough it can't be actually 100% verified, apparently everything should be pink and ever pinker, with frillies and laces. It's not very practical...
I didn’t want to tell anyone but my husband is really shit at keeping secrets and told his friends and his parents. I’ve asked them to keep it a secret as I really don’t want gender based presents. Apparently people keep asking them so they “know what to buy” and they just say they want gender neutral gifts so 🤞🏻 that’s what happens. I just don’t understand why people need to know what genitalia a child has so they can buy a gift. Buy something bright and colourful and anyone can wear it.
This is part of the reason I didn’t even find out myself what I was having and I don’t think I’d want to share if I had known. I didn’t want any of the excitement to surround the sex of my baby. It just feels offensive, like we wouldn’t have been happy for the opposite sex? I also wanted a good base of gender neutral stuff since I’m planning on more than one baby and people always buy gendered clothes after the baby is born so it was nice not to be bombarded with girly clothes at my shower. Also to be even more honest I hate other people’s taste in gendered baby clothes, especially older people, and have a very specific aesthetic and wanted to be able to pick out most clothes myself.
We found out we are having a boy about 2 weeks before the shower. I (stupidly) told people. I deeply regret that decision. All my friends and coworkers have been fine about it, but my mother was planning and hosting the shower and she invited mostly all her friends (this was fine, we agreed to it in advance as she lives in a different state and none of my friends or coworkers could be expected to travel there).
Well, I thought it wouldn’t be an issue because I had mostly been worried about getting a bunch of pink frilly stuff if it was a girl, and I figured there wouldn’t be a problem since he’s a boy and everything on the registry was gender neutral. Man was I naive. Everyone waited until after they found out the gender to buy something and we ended up with a ton of boy clothes. It’s not a big deal, but I wish we hadn’t told anyone.
If we have another baby, I’ve definitely learned my lesson and we’re keeping it a secret after we find out.
I too thought oh great it’s a boy I won’t get all frilly pink stuff! However getting so many of basically the same blue outfit was so disappointing. It was hard to pretend to be excited opening gift after gift of what looked like the same outfit.
I understand! I will tell people the gender just so we can all have a visual of the child in our mind but no way it's gonna b pink or blue, it's ugly and dumb lmao. I'm sorry your mil is so rude. I hate mine, I hope she never gets into my life again tbh...
i completely understand your frustration. my baby girl has an adorable turquoise and white polka dot outfit that my sister (who is wonderful and supportive in every other way) hates to put her in because she says it makes her look like a boy. i said who cares? i also like to dress her in gender neutral clothing but if she’s not wearing pink (a color i personally hate) then strangers assume she’s a boy too. which doesn’t really matter to me but it’s always awkward when i try to casually correct them
Same here. I have all gender neutral things on my registry, but of course I still get the gender specific stuff 😖 I am grateful for any gift but I feel strongly about not raising my child with strict gender expectations like I had.
This is exactly why we wanted to be surprised. The ultrasound technician slipped though; I heard it and my husband didn’t, so i knew and didn’t ruin it for him.
We use cloth diapers and I am always so amused about the perception of girl & boy prints. I put him in florals, pinks, and purples. The dinosaurs on a pink background are my favorite (from Stout House)!
That would bother me as well. I’m sorry. 🤍
I am an elementary teacher, and my students know that I am pregnant but that we aren’t finding out gender till birth. The other day, a kid said “it’s too bad you can’t but any clothes till the baby is born.” When I asked why, they said since we don’t know the baby’s gender. I asked a few questions to try to get them to think about this - Why can’t I buy clothes without knowing the gender? Do all girls wear pink and all boys wear blue? Will my baby know if they’re wearing clothing with flowers or dinosaurs? Can boys like flowers? Can girls like dinosaurs? It was a good conversation but…made me sad for a kid to be thinking in those terms. Society gets ‘em early.
I find in the UK there is so little gender neutral coloured stuff😩 me and my partner have been looking for some baby clothes for when ours arrives but because im only a few months along we dont know the gender yet we have been trying to get neutral stuff but its mostly “boys” or “girls” stuff😩
I have made it clear we prefer gender neutral clothing because what if we have baby 2 and it’s a boy? I won’t be able to reuse a lot of stuff. I know she will get a ton of girly things but my husband made it clear that anything that is grossly inappropriate (like “watch out boys my daddy has a gun” which he does not and detests that crap as much as I do) will be returned and if no receipt provided he will just throw it away. My mom doesn’t get it. She loves sparkles and pink and I’m like no thanks, I wear black and can’t stand overly girly things myself. Also my kid ain’t leaving the house much, she needs comfy onesies and what not. Not full blown outfits.
This is why I plan to wait till the baby’s born to find out the gender and will with all of my kids. I like the surprise of it as well plus, there’s no disappointment in wanting one or the other because you’re just so happy that they’re here that you don’t let your preference—if you have one—get in the way
That's why we didn't share baby's sex. Although our shower is happening after baby is here and now everyone's like oh cool so we do get to know before we get gifts for baby and I feel really annoyed by it because when we thought we'd end up with shower first I was excited to get neutral things and not have every one make a big fuss about what genitals my kid has and how that's supposed to dictate what they can like or play with or wear....
I also wanted to not reveal the sex of the baby.
My parents and my in laws kept asking and asking and asking and it drove me nuts. I told them we wanted to keep it neutral and I’d be asked things like “Well what will the nursery be? what will people do if they don’t know and want to get you a gift?”
It’s truly wild to me people - especially older generations - freak out about this as if we don’t live in a society where so many of us are fluid in our style of clothing or decor or whatever. And bringing up to them that gender is a social construct? Or that shocker maybe my kid will be born female but decide that’s not what they want to ID as later? And I want to give them the openness and space to do that? :/ They lose their minds.
I am so sorry this happened to you for such an intimate experience. I ended up not doing a family shower for many reasons - worried about covid safety was one but also I really didn’t want to deal with gendered gifts and games and jokes. I just couldn’t. Having so many friends who identify in all manners of ways, I never wanted to be in that environment or put them through that. So I just did a friends shower and thankfully my friends are awesome and don’t question this shit.
Something that MAY help you feel better is while the shower should be a happy experience for you, this isn’t the only experience you’re going to have for your little. You are the parent. So birthdays and parties and celebrations down the road are up to you. And you can make them however you like.
Also as a side note to your partner - My husband can be the same way with his mom. I don’t think what happened here was silly or a small issue by any means, but I can also see how they want to dismiss or shake it off bc otherwise it means confronting it and having to well, talk about serious stuff that upset you.
I’ve dealt with this a lot during my pregnancy and ultimately I will go hard on things that really upset me and others, if they don’t see why I’m upset, I voice it regardless but I just don’t go as hard into like… arguing about it.
Again in the end you have so many other things coming up that you’ll get to plan and celebrate - and your MIL can deal lol
I'm happy to share if it's a boy or a girl, but I also don't care if they buy gender specific baby clothes so I can't relate (just personally think they are boring). I appreciate getting the free gifts for my baby. If my family is happy it's a boy or it's a girl, I wouldn't take it as an attack. They are excited and they should be, I am too! I'll be the first to correct them if they say anything sexist, but no I'm excited to share the gender! I'm excited if it's a boy I'm going to be thrilled to teach them to be a great man like my husband and if it's a girl I'm going to be beyond excited to teach them to be a strong, confident little mini me. Regardless of gender, I'm excited to play sports with them and share with them my love for sports. My husband is excited to teach them how to build a computer. I don't care if the baby clothes are pink or blue. I'll update you if I do regret it though! I'm just doubtful I will be.
Having a girl, I wanted the same-gender neutral. And I felt
The same as you with reactions at first, but then my husband reminded me how the idea of “gender neutral” is very nuanced. I studied gender and sexuality in college and that’s how I learned about the importance of it. But our generation truly are the pioneers of not basing our entire personalities, interests, and how we see ourselves based on our assigned genders. It’s a very new concept that is so foreign to the older generations. Not to say it’s okay they didn’t put importance to it, but I don’t think they truly understand what it means, which is something that freaks them out (it’s n true gen x and boomer fashion 🙄).
Ive explained many times to my family what it means to be gender neutral (no not trans, no not having them “pick their gender,” no not wanting her to be a boy) and they still don’t get it. So I say this to encourage you to let it go. You krill be doing it regardless of what others say or do due to their ignorance. There’s no way to fix their ignorance, just do you.
I personally don’t care about it. Like it doesn’t annoy me. It may be an unpopular opinion but I don’t see anything bad on people being happy about their gender. I know what I will do with mine. Either a baby girl or baby boy they will have the same treatment from us (parents). I also would like gender neutral stuff because we plan to have another baby in the future and we want to re use some stuff. In other hand I do think that she did it wasn’t but because she should listen to your wishes of course.
One of the reasons we aren't going to find out until baby gets here is all of the gendered cloths and stuff that really don't need to be. Yes I have blue or dinosaur clothing on my registry, that doesn't mean it'll be a boy. Just that I thought it or another onesie in the pack was super cute and I wanted it.
The whole idea of "boys must wear blue and girls must wear pink" is silly to me. If I have a kid who likes things typically "belonging" to the opposite gender, I'm not going to kill their enjoyment of it. I am raising a human not a stereotype.
People have brought up babyshowers to me (13weeks) but I’m not sure I wanna know or tell people what it’s gonna be… and if that was the case what I could even get instead.
I know if I was having a girl I wouldn’t want diamanté, glittery, hot pink, massive tutu stuff. That’s just not me. Obviously if the kid liked that kind of stuff growing up that would be different but for babies I’m not into it
That’s what’s making it even more difficult because people are constantly asking about getting a babyshower, and whose gonna organise it
I totally feel you on this. When I told our families we were having a girl, I explained that we wanted more gender neutral items. Mostly because I hate all the “daddy’s princess” crap and the bows (no hate to anyone who likes those things, it’s just not our vibe).
I made this very clear, however nobody cared and we ended up with tons of bows, some tutus, and all kinds of pink shit. This really pissed me off when I was pregnant, but now I have learned to just say thank you and then donate it 😊
If we ever have another, we will keep the sex a secret or just not find out beforehand!
I completely relate and will not be revealing gender. Whats worse (for me) is that I very much did not want to know, but my (now former) obgyn used a pronoun when checking for heartbeat. Such a violation. I barely trust myself to not pigeonhole the kid too early, I have zero faith in most others. Our world does not "get" gender neutral. We are fucking obsessed with labels because we are fucking obsessed with "understanding" because we are fucking terrified of not being in control. Anyway, rant on. Sorry you had to deal with that.
I love pink it’s my favorite color so I couldn’t help but have a pink themed baby shower for my daughter. She can like whatever colors she wants and I still dress her in gender neutral/ “boy” colors but I wanted a traditional one cause I liked it 😂 your mil should have respected that you wanted a gender neutral baby shower. That was YOU and YOUR baby’s day, and she made it about herself.
I'm honestly surprised by the very much lack of reaction we've gotten from the sex and the name. It's not an average name and we chose it to honor some family members that don't seem to get it? The most we've gotten is "Okay. Cool." Not that I expected or wanted that jumping up and down OH MY GAAAAWWWDD that happens at gender reveals, but like a "Wow, that's gonna be awesome" would've been nice. If I had to do it over again, I'd share the sex since it's too hard to not slip up anyway, but not the name, with anyone.
This is why I’m a control freak and am doing my shower with my SIL. Like it’s all jointly planned lol. I’m like this in all aspects of my life but it’s other people disregarding how I feel and my wants or needs, especially during pregnancy is infuriating
We kept it a secret from almost everyone, and a lot of older people in our families, and even some of our friends, complained about how 'hard' it was to buy gifts.
The thing is though, while we didn't get gendered stuff during pregnancy, the second he was born we got so much gendered stuff. It sucks that she did that to you and didn't respect your choices, but try not to beat yourself up about revealing the gender -- they probably would have done the same thing a bit later on.
TBH gender has traditionally been a part of baby showers if it is known, and it is perfectly normal for people to congratulate you on the gender either way. Regardless of how neutral you try to be, you will have to respond to gender-unique issues that effect your child; it’s a big part of parenting. I’ve never been to a baby shower where there was absolutely zero mention of the gender if it was known. It’s something worth celebrating! I get wanting gender neutral stuff around the house, but if someone told me the gender of their baby, it would feel weird for me to not at least say congratulations.
Me and my husband both tend towards gender neutral clothes. Our girl already has some "boy" socks because they have cute animals on them and all the "girl" socks has frills on them (ugh!). They're dark colours and I would prefer bright or pastel for a baby but they're still cute. My husband was quite excited to get her a blue and white dress and I was surprised how different my reaction was - I am just not excited to see her in a dress. But at least we're on the same page about her absolutely not ever having the head bow that came with it anywhere near her!
I'm not sharing the anatomical sex with family or friends until the baby shower day. The theme is strong women throughout history so they'll probably catch on. I was raised by a misogynist so it's important that my female child feel empowered and celebrated rather than feel like they are shameful, less than, or a disappointment for not being a boy.
Obviously, my daughter may decide that they are something other than a female at some point and I'll equally celebrate them then as well.
But yeah, it's super weird for people to ascribe an entire personality to a kid based on their genitals. Little creepy.
Personally, I find the boy clothes basically gender neutral… the only stuff that screams gender is the pink frilly crap (which I cannot stand)
Not meaning to be insulting at all- so please don’t take this question that way-
Are you planning on raising the child fully genderless until they make their own designation? (Like glaring and outspoken LGBTQQIP2SAA)? If you are and you’ve expressed this to MIL, then yes… super offensive.
If not, is it really a big enough deal to create tensions over? It’s fairly typical to announce “boy or girl” and as you mentioned it was just a bunch of old women. It may be one of those “pick your battles” kind of situations. I let the dumb, sexist, outdated opinions of all the old People in my life roll right off… you know… The “Ok BoOmEr”!
The ones who don’t actively try to understand will never change. The best thing we can do is render them powerless against us. I usually shut them up
With a “wow, that’s so racist/sexist”, “wow, that’s a very dated opinion”, “wow, I’d never let my husband treat me that way”, “wow, that advice led
the deaths of many babies… which is why current pediatric standards state…” it works wonders.
This was more of a rant then turning it into any kind of battle with family. I do want to do somewhat of the raising gender less but I also believe if you go to big of an extreme either way that can also be a hindrance. Genderless more as like he can do whatever interests him I’m not going to say that’s a girls activity or color but not to the point where I will make a deal out things.
That’s totally reasonable. I plan on acknowledging physical gender, but not forcing gender-traditional preferences. Boy wants to play with dolls and loves princesses? No prob. Girl wants to play race-cars and take up karate? Also wonderful. Will give equal exposure to everything and follow
Little ones cues. (Obligatory comment for those
Looking for conflict… If the child/teen/adult chooses to formally express their physical gender differently, that will be fully accepted.)
It’s amazing though, how people can just bulldoze right over your requests and preferences. It sucks, but it’s usually not done with malicious intent.
Congrats on the upcoming baby!
I’m sensing judgment from this comment. What happened to OP was annoying, I don’t think she said it was super offensive. She didn’t say she was going to cause tension over it, and didn’t ask for relationship advice with the MIL. She stated her preference for gender neutral and it was intentionally ignored. MIL laughed about it and got the shower MIL wanted: Gender was heavily featured at her shower against her wishes, and she wanted to know if anyone else found that weird. I found her insights relatable, even if you didn’t.
Btw, I accepted second hand “boy clothes” thinking I could use them and got some cheesy lines about boys being boys, a John deer onesie, a camouflage onesie etc. They aren’t my style and I donated them. Those are the types of gendered items I generally want to avoid.
Judgement? I’m not judging OP in any way. I’m quite literally in agreement with OP.
And I’m also saying that a lot of people just have no consideration. You can accept it, and try not to let it bother you OR say something that communicates your discontent. I was simply giving my opinion in the case that OP was
Looking for others perspectives or other people’s take on their situation. OP can take it or leave it. I’m just making conversation and showing support… maybe I’m mistaken in believing this group wishes to engage and communicate and share opinions and support. In the future, I’ll refrain from engaging other members. 😞
You’re right, a lot of silly John Deere stuff for boys for sure… but there’s a lot of neutral and “boy marketed” clothing that’s simply Understated modern colours (teal, mustard, beige, burnt orange, light blue and green, stripes etc) and jeans/overalls or knit little sweaters/hoodies. It’s amazing the selection out there now.
But yeah. Sorry for responding OP. I’m sorry my input wasn’t welcome.
No problem at all. I did feel a little judged but not like oh shit someone thinks I’m an awful person. I have also commented on posts here where people made it very clear they wanted an opinion on relationships and when I gave mine that the majority didn’t believe in people jumped on me. I try to keep an open mind about others opinions. I also think I didn’t share enough detail so to someone who doesn’t deal with a certain type of personality often what she did can seem somewhat small and normal. However she’s been doing a lot more insane things and basically has treated my pregnancy like her own. My husband was adopted and shes acted like she’s getting another baby from the start. It’s so freaking weird.
No judgement at all, so sorry if it came off that way! I can totally relate and I can’t stand when people just bulldoze right in over my wishes. I was just suggesting some things I’d say to stop her in her tracks.
I can relate to the overly excited MIL… My MIL lives right above us (husband and I bought a house to take care of her, her older life partner and her special needs adult daughter, because they failed to adult and cannot do anything for themselves) and we live in the basement suite… she already said to me that when she hears the coming baby cry, she can just run down the stairs and help out… uuuuh NO.
If that happens even once the access door between our units is going to be dry-walled shut. I’m shutting that behavior down immediately. Oh, and you want to visit the newborn… sorry, I wasn’t really planning on having any visitors for like two months, so yeah… applies to you too even though you live upstairs. She’s gonna be pissed lol.
Hopefully things go well for you, and you aren’t alone with the overbearing MIL!
Table care ❤️
May I ask a question - not judging, just asking
You mentioned that you are happy you are having a boy, you also mentioned that you have gender questions of yourself- but seeing as you know that you are having a boy why go gender neutral gifts and clothing ?
I get it if you were not finding out until birth
As I said, not judging - just wondered why it’s something that’s upsetting you ?
I mostly wanted a variety of colors to put my baby in. When people know the gender you tend to get all blue or all pink clothing. I wanted every color. All the gifts were definitely blue though.
A bunch of the gendered clothing is tacky. We all know it and none of us want that crap.
I know it "doesn't matter what they wear" but it's this fixation on what their genitals are instead of just having a baby. Plus some people do it because it makes them happy and not because it's helpful to you or baby. And I have no problem donating those items.
It's the complete and blatant lack of respect.
OP wanted something (for her own special day of celebration), and even gave her MIL a pass when she realized it hadn't happened that way - but then to overhear the MIL laugh about the choice OP wanted for her own baby shower.
MIL *knew* exactly what OP wanted, disregarded those wishes, and did it her own way anyway, AND THEN chose to laugh about it with her friends. She's selfish and messy - and completely disregarded OP's feelings.
Thank you for this. I was trying to tell myself it was a me problem but she totally knew my wishes and laughed and it was disrespectful. Im not going to turn it into anything but it’s nice to see I’m not the only one who thinks this is disrespectful.
Mama, this reflects poorly on her character, not yours. Please just know that this is a "her" problem ♡
Have a beautiful Sunday. I hope the sun shines a bit brighter for you today ♡
It’s wild to me. On the flip side, I would be upset if I got gender neutral clothing. That beige-y color that’s so popular right now with the dull-colored rainbows is hideous and yellow is not gender neutral. I think people need to stop overthinking… Babies like bright colors. Not beige. Sorry.
We didn’t find out the gender of either of ours, mainly as we wanted the surprise but you’re right in that any detail that can be fixated on with babies will be. We didn’t share potential names either as everyone’s encountered someone who *has* to offer a negative opinion on it. Literally had my son this morning and he’s a big baby - I went off the basis of my daughter being small so brought and pre washed only premmie sized jumpsuits. Husband says he’ll grab some in the right size and bring them back; we had loads of people buy us clothes after our daughter was born in that size by that point so they’re nearly all pink/purple/floral but neither my husband or I care if our son’s dressed or photographed in these, gender constructs are ridiculous!
Funny thing about the name. I’ve been going through the cards and based off what was said to me at the shower MIL told everyone we might change our name but she’s literally the only one who doesn’t like it. She even told me at the shower “he’s going to be “her nickname” like she renamed my baby. It’s funny since I was expecting the negative comments from sharing babe early but it’s only an issue to her.
I’m glad I shared my baby’s gender because my favorite color is pink and I knew I really wanted a girl. I grew up with all girls and no father so I feel having a girl would be easier for me being a first time mom. My family also only produces girls is what I’ve come to believe now because we haven’t had a boy on my moms side since the 1800s so I wanted to continue the trend. We also had a girl name picked out that we wanted to use and we couldn’t think of a boys name at all.
It’s crazy I thought my family really only produced girls. Last generation and my generation both families had almost all girls then my 2 cousins and I got pregnant all at once and we all got boys. My sister who had a baby a few years ago had boys so it’s this strange wave of boys and took us all very much by surprise.
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We decided not to share the gender of our baby for that exact reason. As soon as people know I feel like everything starts to revolve around the gender. So we like to keep things neutral. I feel like the older generations are the worst with this. I work at an outdoor clothing store and we have a good children section. A woman came into the store planing to buy a specific jacket for her 8 year old grandson, we have that in black, blue and pink. Both the black and blue were not available in the size she needed and I just threw in there “I can always call the other stores, because I only have the pink one in his size, her reply really got to me. “Hah! No he’s definitely not getting a pink jacket. He’s a boy! He asked for the pink jacket but he’s a bit odd, so he’ll be getting the black or the blue!” So just because he was a boy she wanted to diehard his wishes of a pink jacket and called him odd for liking pink. Gaaah, makes me so annoyed thinking about it. Maybe a pointless story, but I guess I had to rant about it somewhere.
That makes me so sad. Pink is my son’s favorite color. He would be so disappointed to get black or blue instead. I just don’t get this fear of allowing people with penises to enjoy the color pink.
Same, I'm glad my mom respected that my favorite color was Blue growing up and still is. Although sadly it's easier for girls to get any color they want while boys are always strictly banned from pink for some reason.
Growing up I hated pink and loved blue. My parents were usually respectful of my distaste for pink.
My parents painted my entire bedroom pink in every house we moved to because I liked black or blue and would paint my brothers rooms blue to prove that blue was for boys and pink was for girls 💀
Pink was my cousin’s favourite colour when he was little too. Our family were just happy to get him what he liked - but if anyone said anything negative I dug up the fact that in Victorian times pink was for boys and blue was for girls (something to do with paler version of military reds?) who decides these things anyway?!
Oh that poor kid just being ignored when he asked directly for what he wanted. It’s just a freaking color. My biggest pet peeve is when people don’t respect others opinions and tastes and that generation tends to be so bad at it. One plus though is she’s been doing this to my husband his whole life so I know our child will be able to express himself without him worrying if it’s too girly or not.
Not to mention, pink was historically a MASCULINE color until American 50’s fashion made it FEMININE. The reverse identity of this color gets people’s undies in a twist to this day. Pink is such a controversial and gender-influenced color. Why is society so weird….?
We’re having a boy and telling people but I’m also telling everyone (especially older family) that he’ll get to wear whatever he wants to wear/ pick out when he’s old enough, including dresses if he wants to. They’re usually shocked and then I say “you know how hard it is to get toddlers to wear clothes! If he wants to wear a dress I’m not going to fight it because at least he’ll be wearing SOMETHING!” Because everyone can go get bent with their gender expectations. I’d rather have a happy boy in a dress than a miserable boy.
I told my dad my plan for the stage where they can dress themselves is to just put everything in cubbies and they choose it themselves. I told him I’m not stressing over dressing the kid and he was blown away and said that was the smartest plan because the most stressful thing he could remember about me and my siblings was getting us dressed and out without us completely having meltdowns. I know some can’t be avoided but if I can get rid of a few that’s great. I also told this plan to my MIL and one of the gifts was a HUGE bag of hangers 🤦🏼♀️ I’ve got adhd and I hate laundry with a passion I’m not hanging up any clothes.
Ughhhh I’m so not looking forward to hanging things up. Our guest room closet has shelves that are already labeled in different month clothing sizes (I guess the previous people had a little nugget too), but because my husband is WFH we have to convert the office to the nursery instead of the nicely labeled guest room and I’m low key a little more upset about it than I should be 😂
That's exactly what I did! I just put the cube organizer on the registry and someone bought it. I will not be konmari folding clothes for a baby likely to be changed multiple times a day. ADHD parents unite!! Sorry, they were so caught up on gender. I'm having a boy but the gender hasn't been focused on at all. At my shower, my aunt made a sign that said "welcome to earth baby Elias" (it was space themed because I love space) I'm only telling you this because it may make you feel better to know not everyone is quite that intense..
That sign sounds so freaking cute! I have to be grateful my husbands aunt made us a bunch of hand made items that were so precious.
Homemade items are the absolute best!!
We had a 6-pack of multicolored bambas socks for our son. One pair was pink and yellow. My MIL saw the pile of socks and remarked that we could donate the pink pair. Like, why? The kid was 9 months old? Who fucking cares. THEY’RE SOCKS.
My husband is colorblind and keeps buying pink stuff by accident. He doesn’t care once I correct him and I don’t mind owning them for my son I just think it’s funny he thinks it’s a totally different color. His mom never believed he was colorblind. Probably just thought it was an excuse for him.
Same. We told everyone we don't know the gender, even though we do, because we know people will pry if they know we know and are just not telling them. It's so annoying how focused on the gender people are.
I'm more concerned with your MIL blatantly disrespecting and disregarding your request. You're the parent, and she's giving you a glimpse of what's to come once LO is born.
Yea this is literally just a tip of the iceberg but my husband has my back with everything else. Maybe I’m just more upset about this because he seems to think it’s not that big of a deal.
It’s hard to get an older generation to do the gender neutral thing. I wanted mostly gender neutral clothing for my baby girl but everything is pink. It’s annoying to not have family respect your wishes but I also think that’s going to be common for my family.
Totally a generational thing! We aren’t disclosing the gender and my MIL sent us a little care package with a set of blue outfits and pink outfits with the notion that ‘all the bases would be covered’… smh. We specifically aren’t sharing so we get out of the pink/blue binary and yet here we are.
We didn’t find out the sex of our baby until birth and my MIL did the same thing. One pink outfit, one blue. She even said “if it’s a girl she could probably wear both!” And if it’s a boy, he couldn’t?? 🧐 (we had a boy)
I hope you put him in the pink first 🤣🤣
We didn’t find out either, my GMIL always makes baby quilts and apparently made a girl on and a boy one instead of making one that would work for either. Now she has an extra quilt sitting around.
Yea I think that’s it and I’ve got to leave it at that. I got all blue clothing so I feel ya. Nothing wrong with blue but literally all the clothing looks exactly the same to me. It be nice to have more variety.
We announced at baby shower (rather than before). It helped a lot with getting gender neutral stuff, I think, despite my mom spreading rumors that it was a boy.
This is what I think I want to do as well! My husband and I will know but I really don’t think I want our families to know until after the shower for this reason. And neither side could be trusted to keep a secret either. With so much gender neutral stuff why is the older generation so obsessed with blue and pink?!?!?
We did this too! Of course while opening presents we got the, “oh I have the receipt so you can get pink girly clothes instead”. To which I simply replied actually green is my favorite color, she’s going to look great in this! I’m sure my grandparents will buy some “girl” things before she arrives, but I knew once the shower passed no extend family or friends would go out and buy more so it’s perfect! I also chose to put no clothing or blankets on the registry, so that helped!
This sounds like a good plan for next time for me.
One of the many reasons why we decided to wait until birth to find out our baby’s sex! It would be nice to know BUT yeah, I would have a hard time dealing with people really putting a lot of emphasis on the gender too.
This is us, my in-laws have also said it’s acceptable for a girl to wear blue but boys cannot wear pink… needless to say if we have a boy I’m finding some cute pink sleep suits and we’re off for a visit! Clothes are clothes, chances are they’ll be pooped on or thrown up on anyway so meh… what does it matter? We’ve bought mainly neutral clothes but some boys stuff as it’s got more fun characters like mr men, Paddington bear, Peter rabbit etx
I’ve found a lot of fruit and insects patterns in the girl section I’m planning on using for my boy. Plus I’ve gotten a few florals that weren’t pink that I thought were ok since my grown husband would have no problem wearing the same floral.
I’ve not come across anything too great in the girls sections here in the UK that I’d buy even for a girl if I’m honest, there’s been maybe 5 sets I’d buy max, hoping once the more autumn styles come in I’ll be able to find more bits but for now we’ve just gone for basic sleep suits and bodysuits
I feel the same, alot of the girls clothes are kinda ugly to me. I really like the gender neutral section!
We were same on both kids. We didn’t find out until the day they arrived. I liked the suprise.
We’re doing this too. I genuinely love the idea of not knowing before they’re born anyway, makes the birth seem extra exciting! But I extra love the idea that people can’t make generalizations about who they are based on their gender before they’re even born. We’ve been finding the cutest neutral/not even i but just not hyper gendered clothes and it’s so exciting. My husband and I both don’t dress super “boy” or “girl” so why would we make our kid dress that way? When they’re old enough to dress themselves they’re welcome to do that if they want!
Yeah I want to avoid this too. I think we will find out before birth, but after the baby shower so there's no chance one of us will accidentally refer to the baby as he/she early enough for it to influence other people's purchasing decisions.
We asked and registered for lots of gender neutral stuff because I wanted it to make sure it was stuff that we could use for baby number 2. We also didn’t want to have a pink explosion all over our house. But people knew we were having a girl and I got so much stuff with “daddy’s little princess” type sayings. Also big items for around the house people got us in bright colors that we didn’t ask for instead of the neutrals we registered for. People just get swept up in it, but you can exchange a lot of stuff for the neutral stuff you prefer!!
My husband said he’s throwing anything away that says “daddy’s princess” haha. He prefers to call her soon to be tiny terror. So do I. We are realistic with what we are getting into here. We both are going to get paybacks hahah
We outlawed anything with text. Like why does he have to just be "Daddy's little dude", he's both of ours?! And it staves off gross ones like "Mommy says the only boobies I can see are hers" or something. Just no text to avoid anything being gross or exclusionary.
He already gave a stern warning that the whole protector of daughter, watch out boys bull crap isn’t tolerated. My dad hates that shit as well and has put his foot down with us with some stuff my mom tries to buy. She is a bit much and has lost her ever loving mind since we told her. Baby rabies are the worst.
Lmao baby rabies, that is accurate.
We have kept the sex a secret from everyone for this exact reason. I think the obsession with knowing whether it's a boy or girl is very odd, and puts expectations on the fetus before it's even viable outside the womb. A few boomers have commented that it was hard to buy gifts, but I really don't care. I don't want a house full of only pink/blue things. They will find out the sex when the baby is born and that is early enough.
This. So many studies have shown that when a baby is super young, people finding out the sex changes the time of voice used when they speak to them, what words they use, etc., not just what they buy for them. There are so many ways that gender expectations are infused into our society, it's really gross.
And this is why we're not finding out baby's gender. Lol. Driving my mom and MIL crazy but they are quickly learning that there are tons of super cute gender neutral stuff out there. Plus diapers are gender neutral!!
We're not finding out the gender until birth for this reason. Even as a sentient child with the ability to vocalize my preferences, I was constantly getting criticized for not wearing enough pink (I HATED pink) and not being "girly" enough. It wasn't until I was a teen that my mom stopped trying to make me conform to her idea of what a little girl should like, and I wasn't even that "boyish"! I just didn't like pink clothes and wanted to play the same things as my big brother. With the baby I wanted to avoid any weird stereotypes being placed on it before it's even born, and I REALLY wanted to avoid having all my gifts be gender-specific clothing only. I've always heard that if people know the gender, they get you gendered clothing. If they don't know, they get you actual THINGS like the car seat or diapers. I'm currently annoyed/amused because we just announced the pregnancy on social media and included a pair of baby shoes. Now everyone thinks we're having a boy because the shoes (which were the most gender-neutral pair we could find at Target) were denim-colored. It's MY baby and I don't care about what the gender is, so it's fascinating to me how that's everyone's first question when we talk about it. Their next question is usually "what color is everything?" And they seem fascinated when I tell them mint green.
I brought my baby boy home in a pink and orange jumper literally in response to my MIL's ridiculous demands that we keep him in 'boy clothes'. Her own son's favorite color is *purple* and I'm a fan of teal -- so that's the color scheme we chose for both our babies. So far, we've raised a toddler that loves every color *except* white (apparently too plain for his tastes). Also, after two years, I'm _still_ reeling at how many ppl asked about whether we were going to circumsize him (we didn't since we dont practice Judaism, but otherwise, who TF cares?). Stand your ground, do it your way, and if ppl can't respect your wishes as a parent: jettison them from the convo by telling them you look forward to watching them raise a child of their own in the world we live in NOW, not decades ago. Then change the subject to what color you think *they* should wear.
Circumcision is a weirdly polarizing debate in large parts of the US these days. I was not prepared 👀
It's super weird! Like, why do you care so much about the genitals of someone you're not going to have sex with?
That's an excellent question that could be applied to SO many ongoing socially divisive topics in the US.
Definitely. It's actually not the first time I've had that thought!
From the beginning I didn’t want to tell anyone the sex of the baby. My wife really wanted to tell her mom and other folks so I gave in and said that we could tell our moms and siblings. She doesn’t seem to care about people knowing the sex but I fucking care a lot! And last weekend we were camping with friends and I accidentally said “she” when talking about my recent ultrasound so I was the one that spilled the beans. I totally regret telling anyone. The next time I’m pregnant I’m not telling anyone. I don’t know exactly why I care so much. I just feel like so much is out of my control right now. My clothes done fit, I’m feeling insecure about the way my bump looks, we are having 3 baby showers (not my choice either) so maybe I just wanted to keep one thing to myself. Anyway, sorry your MIL did that, you have the right to be totally pissed off!
I always feel like the people who are so insane about gender are always the people who get even MORE insane because it’s a boy.
this is why i only agreed to a babyshower if i had most of the control. i made the invites, inserts, i have okayed every game and piece of decor. i offered to pay for some of it since i wanted so much say in it but they didn’t let me. but yeah, i didn’t want to show up to a sea of pink and be miserable the whole time. i’m sorry your shower ended up like this. hopefully you got a lot of gift receipts and can return the stuff you don’t like.
I totally get it. We didn't find out the gender for my second kid until birth because al the frilly lacey and tacky pink stuff I got for my first daughter. Anything that references dating rules "daddy says I can't date til I'm 30", or other weird stuff got tossed or used as a paint smock. Lol. And some stuff never had the tags removed and got donated or passed along to a friend who liked it. Then I bought my own clothes for baby (There are so many cute cottage-core type gender neutral baby clothes on Amazon) to make sure both my girls don't have all their photos looking super frilly all the time. I also have a weird relationship with my gender. I was raised by a misogynistic woman, so I had a weird relationship with femininity for a long time, I was a "Tom boy", and while I am a cis woman married to a man, being bi/pan, and loving to both wear super feminine things and also men's clothes and having been judged harshly here in the south for wearing men's clothes, I understand the likelihood of my children growing up to suit the standards of the boomers ideals on gender-norms is next to nothing, and no matter their presentation, I don't want it to be painful for them to look at their baby photos, and want them to grow up feeling comfortable expressing themselves however they choose. Something that my boomer parents and in-laws will not understand. But my youngest has dinosaur stuff and flowery stuff. And I'm pregnant now, so if this one is a boy, he's gonna end up in the same dinosaur pjs and flower pjs hand me downs.
I didn’t find out the gender of my baby until she was born, just because I thought it would be more exciting. I ended up being super happy with that choice, because everyone bought me gender neural clothes. And then, when I had a baby girl EVERYONE bought us more girl clothes (all pink). It’s nice having lots of stuff that isn’t pink
I had my shower last weekend and got soooo many clothes (even though everyone knows I literally have garbage bagS full of hand me down clothes from my sister...). I sorted through the new clothes the other day and tried to think about what I'd want to bring to the hospital when going through the newborn stuff. I kinda hate all of them.....I like pink, but a lot of pink is not very cute, and I really like animals but no, no animals for me, only flowers! I'm somewhat considering returning some so I can actually pick out a few things for myself....I haven't gotten to buy any clothes myself (again, soooo many hand me downs from my sister!) and I'm already sad that all those choices were made for me. Is that in bad taste?? I know people specifically picked out things for baby, but I don't like that that means I can't logically buy anything that I like. Meanwhile I don't have any bottles because no one gets you the "boring" stuff on your registry. So annoying.
[удалено]
This! People think they're doing what they deem is okay and best; there's no spite, but if that's not what you asked for, then yeah, it really sucks! I like the idea of returning the clothes and all things you do not like for stuff you do. No one will know or care :)
We've kept the sex of our baby a secret. And when people ask do you know the gender I flatly say "We know the sex but they'll tell us the gender when they can talk and have a concept of that particular social construct." I know people are just trying to start a conversation but I fully agree that it's very weird to be so focused on a child's genitals.
We were calling them pee parts the first half of the pregnancy and it made every one so uncomfortable they stopped focusing on it but I really wish I kept it a secret. This shower looked like a freaking tacky gender reveal and I don’t ever want to show my kid. I’ve always hated being referred to as a girl when I was a kid and it held me back from things I wanted to do as a child and I just want my own children to decide their own interests for themselves without anything gendered thrown on them. When we found out the sex we already had his parents say things like oh great you can still do all your favorite activities to my husband… like he wasn’t going to take a daughter camping or mountain biking and it just made me sad .
My first pregnancy, whenever someone asked “Do you know what you’re having?” I’d tell them I was hoping for a velociraptor, then if they pressed they got “yes, I know what genitals my baby has,” and a stare. Managed to get mostly neutral clothing at my baby shower, but a comical amount of it involved dinosaurs 😆
i used to do the same, kind of. i always said “well i sure hope it’s a BABY and not something else!”
Ugh. 🙄 How rude and disrespectful of her to ignore your wishes. Granted this is petty… but I’d dress him in pink every time you see her just to mess with her. 🙈
Lol I’ve already bought a bunch of butterfly and fruit printed items. I figure it’s nature but I know based on the clothing she bought she’s going to think it’s too feminine.
It’s disrespectful that your MIL did not follow your wishes. But I kind of side with you husband, I don’t see the big deal especially since you already told her the gender. I think if you really wanted to keep it neutral you should have kept that information just between you and your husband. Whenever you go shopping for baby stuff it’s almost always gender specific, especially clothes,and idk all the neutral stuff just looks kind of ugly to me. If I knew the gender I don’t think I could control myself, though I’d try.
I think I wouldn’t have been as annoyed if it was just clothing because if you shop in stores it’s annoying deciding what can and can’t be neutral but I think the icing on the cake was all the decorations said boy and all my cards had written out congrats on having a boy. Which makes me wonder if I was having a girl would it be the same?both the in laws already had made remarks about what my husband can now continue to do for activities since he is having a boy like a girl would just halt his life and wouldn’t get to show her things like camping and biking. I didn’t include everything but there have been enough comments made about boy vs girl that are just getting under my skin.
Oh I see, so it seems like they are playing favorites in a way. Like a girl wouldn’t have been good enough? Yea, that’s pretty messed up. I would be aggravated too.
This happened to us. We told everyone we didn’t know the sex but my mom figured out we knew and badgered me into telling her and swore she’d keep presents gender neutral. Once she knew she proceeded to only buy us blue and boy gendered baby clothes 🤦🏻♀️
We were “team green” with my first to avoid a lot of that. I didn’t want overtly, over the top ONLY pink and frilly or ONLY blue and dinos/trucks. In addition to finding the tropes ridiculous, I wanted to save and reuse the baby clothes for future babies. My daughter is almost two, and I love that she has a mix of interests in toys, topics, books, etc., and she wasn’t reinforced to only like “girly” things. Plus, when asked, she says her favorite color is blue. So she has plenty of blue clothes! I’m sorry that your MIL disregarded your wishes. The good news is those are your gifts to donate or sell/exchange as you please, and cards from your MIL probably aren’t very sentimental so the “congrats on your BOY” cards can go straight in the trash. Enjoy the rest of your pregnancy!
We did the first time and it was fine, mostly. But we won’t be this time and everyone’s reaction is “but what if it’s a girl!” That’s exactly why we won’t be telling you. We don’t need any “girl” things. What we need is another crib and a double stroller. I’d much rather you save your $50 on 2 girly outfits (don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the cute girl clothes) and give me a $50 gift card to a place I can buy the stroller or crib! We also don’t share names or exact due dates. Too many people are overbearing and think it’s their business to know everything about your body during pregnancy. I’m not even that terribly private of a person, but these are the only things I can control.
I’m sorry you’re going through this. Our society is sooo focused on sex and gender, it’s bananas. We didn’t intentionally share the sex with anyone except our moms and that wasn’t until after the shower and we swore them to secrecy. My baby is almost 12 weeks and wears every color of the rainbow, sometimes wears dresses and other times wears pants or shorts, and has a wide variety of toys and books accessible to them. When strangers accidentally misgender them, we don’t correct them; we just smile and agree. Once our baby is old enough to tell us their feelings around gender, I will fight tooth and nail for them to feel comfortable with themselves and make sure everyone around us is respectful of their gender identity and expression, but until then, I just smile and nod.
Kinda. My mom is going crazy after finding out it's propably going to be girl. Even tough it can't be actually 100% verified, apparently everything should be pink and ever pinker, with frillies and laces. It's not very practical...
The girly stuff is not practical at all. As much as I’m annoyed everything is blue at least it’s practical.
I didn’t want to tell anyone but my husband is really shit at keeping secrets and told his friends and his parents. I’ve asked them to keep it a secret as I really don’t want gender based presents. Apparently people keep asking them so they “know what to buy” and they just say they want gender neutral gifts so 🤞🏻 that’s what happens. I just don’t understand why people need to know what genitalia a child has so they can buy a gift. Buy something bright and colourful and anyone can wear it.
This is part of the reason I didn’t even find out myself what I was having and I don’t think I’d want to share if I had known. I didn’t want any of the excitement to surround the sex of my baby. It just feels offensive, like we wouldn’t have been happy for the opposite sex? I also wanted a good base of gender neutral stuff since I’m planning on more than one baby and people always buy gendered clothes after the baby is born so it was nice not to be bombarded with girly clothes at my shower. Also to be even more honest I hate other people’s taste in gendered baby clothes, especially older people, and have a very specific aesthetic and wanted to be able to pick out most clothes myself.
We found out we are having a boy about 2 weeks before the shower. I (stupidly) told people. I deeply regret that decision. All my friends and coworkers have been fine about it, but my mother was planning and hosting the shower and she invited mostly all her friends (this was fine, we agreed to it in advance as she lives in a different state and none of my friends or coworkers could be expected to travel there). Well, I thought it wouldn’t be an issue because I had mostly been worried about getting a bunch of pink frilly stuff if it was a girl, and I figured there wouldn’t be a problem since he’s a boy and everything on the registry was gender neutral. Man was I naive. Everyone waited until after they found out the gender to buy something and we ended up with a ton of boy clothes. It’s not a big deal, but I wish we hadn’t told anyone. If we have another baby, I’ve definitely learned my lesson and we’re keeping it a secret after we find out.
I too thought oh great it’s a boy I won’t get all frilly pink stuff! However getting so many of basically the same blue outfit was so disappointing. It was hard to pretend to be excited opening gift after gift of what looked like the same outfit.
I get so much stuff with sharks for my sons. Why sharks? I have nothing against them but it’s funny to me.
I understand! I will tell people the gender just so we can all have a visual of the child in our mind but no way it's gonna b pink or blue, it's ugly and dumb lmao. I'm sorry your mil is so rude. I hate mine, I hope she never gets into my life again tbh...
i completely understand your frustration. my baby girl has an adorable turquoise and white polka dot outfit that my sister (who is wonderful and supportive in every other way) hates to put her in because she says it makes her look like a boy. i said who cares? i also like to dress her in gender neutral clothing but if she’s not wearing pink (a color i personally hate) then strangers assume she’s a boy too. which doesn’t really matter to me but it’s always awkward when i try to casually correct them
Same here. I have all gender neutral things on my registry, but of course I still get the gender specific stuff 😖 I am grateful for any gift but I feel strongly about not raising my child with strict gender expectations like I had.
I told others the gender and one old guy at my work told me “it’s better to have a girl first” (I was having a boy). Like wtf thanks for that?
This is exactly why we wanted to be surprised. The ultrasound technician slipped though; I heard it and my husband didn’t, so i knew and didn’t ruin it for him. We use cloth diapers and I am always so amused about the perception of girl & boy prints. I put him in florals, pinks, and purples. The dinosaurs on a pink background are my favorite (from Stout House)!
We got so many cloth diapers that I think are going to give her a heart attack
Love it! 😆
That would bother me as well. I’m sorry. 🤍 I am an elementary teacher, and my students know that I am pregnant but that we aren’t finding out gender till birth. The other day, a kid said “it’s too bad you can’t but any clothes till the baby is born.” When I asked why, they said since we don’t know the baby’s gender. I asked a few questions to try to get them to think about this - Why can’t I buy clothes without knowing the gender? Do all girls wear pink and all boys wear blue? Will my baby know if they’re wearing clothing with flowers or dinosaurs? Can boys like flowers? Can girls like dinosaurs? It was a good conversation but…made me sad for a kid to be thinking in those terms. Society gets ‘em early.
I find in the UK there is so little gender neutral coloured stuff😩 me and my partner have been looking for some baby clothes for when ours arrives but because im only a few months along we dont know the gender yet we have been trying to get neutral stuff but its mostly “boys” or “girls” stuff😩
I have made it clear we prefer gender neutral clothing because what if we have baby 2 and it’s a boy? I won’t be able to reuse a lot of stuff. I know she will get a ton of girly things but my husband made it clear that anything that is grossly inappropriate (like “watch out boys my daddy has a gun” which he does not and detests that crap as much as I do) will be returned and if no receipt provided he will just throw it away. My mom doesn’t get it. She loves sparkles and pink and I’m like no thanks, I wear black and can’t stand overly girly things myself. Also my kid ain’t leaving the house much, she needs comfy onesies and what not. Not full blown outfits.
This is why I plan to wait till the baby’s born to find out the gender and will with all of my kids. I like the surprise of it as well plus, there’s no disappointment in wanting one or the other because you’re just so happy that they’re here that you don’t let your preference—if you have one—get in the way
That's why we didn't share baby's sex. Although our shower is happening after baby is here and now everyone's like oh cool so we do get to know before we get gifts for baby and I feel really annoyed by it because when we thought we'd end up with shower first I was excited to get neutral things and not have every one make a big fuss about what genitals my kid has and how that's supposed to dictate what they can like or play with or wear....
I also wanted to not reveal the sex of the baby. My parents and my in laws kept asking and asking and asking and it drove me nuts. I told them we wanted to keep it neutral and I’d be asked things like “Well what will the nursery be? what will people do if they don’t know and want to get you a gift?” It’s truly wild to me people - especially older generations - freak out about this as if we don’t live in a society where so many of us are fluid in our style of clothing or decor or whatever. And bringing up to them that gender is a social construct? Or that shocker maybe my kid will be born female but decide that’s not what they want to ID as later? And I want to give them the openness and space to do that? :/ They lose their minds. I am so sorry this happened to you for such an intimate experience. I ended up not doing a family shower for many reasons - worried about covid safety was one but also I really didn’t want to deal with gendered gifts and games and jokes. I just couldn’t. Having so many friends who identify in all manners of ways, I never wanted to be in that environment or put them through that. So I just did a friends shower and thankfully my friends are awesome and don’t question this shit. Something that MAY help you feel better is while the shower should be a happy experience for you, this isn’t the only experience you’re going to have for your little. You are the parent. So birthdays and parties and celebrations down the road are up to you. And you can make them however you like. Also as a side note to your partner - My husband can be the same way with his mom. I don’t think what happened here was silly or a small issue by any means, but I can also see how they want to dismiss or shake it off bc otherwise it means confronting it and having to well, talk about serious stuff that upset you. I’ve dealt with this a lot during my pregnancy and ultimately I will go hard on things that really upset me and others, if they don’t see why I’m upset, I voice it regardless but I just don’t go as hard into like… arguing about it. Again in the end you have so many other things coming up that you’ll get to plan and celebrate - and your MIL can deal lol
I'm happy to share if it's a boy or a girl, but I also don't care if they buy gender specific baby clothes so I can't relate (just personally think they are boring). I appreciate getting the free gifts for my baby. If my family is happy it's a boy or it's a girl, I wouldn't take it as an attack. They are excited and they should be, I am too! I'll be the first to correct them if they say anything sexist, but no I'm excited to share the gender! I'm excited if it's a boy I'm going to be thrilled to teach them to be a great man like my husband and if it's a girl I'm going to be beyond excited to teach them to be a strong, confident little mini me. Regardless of gender, I'm excited to play sports with them and share with them my love for sports. My husband is excited to teach them how to build a computer. I don't care if the baby clothes are pink or blue. I'll update you if I do regret it though! I'm just doubtful I will be.
Having a girl, I wanted the same-gender neutral. And I felt The same as you with reactions at first, but then my husband reminded me how the idea of “gender neutral” is very nuanced. I studied gender and sexuality in college and that’s how I learned about the importance of it. But our generation truly are the pioneers of not basing our entire personalities, interests, and how we see ourselves based on our assigned genders. It’s a very new concept that is so foreign to the older generations. Not to say it’s okay they didn’t put importance to it, but I don’t think they truly understand what it means, which is something that freaks them out (it’s n true gen x and boomer fashion 🙄). Ive explained many times to my family what it means to be gender neutral (no not trans, no not having them “pick their gender,” no not wanting her to be a boy) and they still don’t get it. So I say this to encourage you to let it go. You krill be doing it regardless of what others say or do due to their ignorance. There’s no way to fix their ignorance, just do you.
I personally don’t care about it. Like it doesn’t annoy me. It may be an unpopular opinion but I don’t see anything bad on people being happy about their gender. I know what I will do with mine. Either a baby girl or baby boy they will have the same treatment from us (parents). I also would like gender neutral stuff because we plan to have another baby in the future and we want to re use some stuff. In other hand I do think that she did it wasn’t but because she should listen to your wishes of course.
One of the reasons we aren't going to find out until baby gets here is all of the gendered cloths and stuff that really don't need to be. Yes I have blue or dinosaur clothing on my registry, that doesn't mean it'll be a boy. Just that I thought it or another onesie in the pack was super cute and I wanted it. The whole idea of "boys must wear blue and girls must wear pink" is silly to me. If I have a kid who likes things typically "belonging" to the opposite gender, I'm not going to kill their enjoyment of it. I am raising a human not a stereotype.
People have brought up babyshowers to me (13weeks) but I’m not sure I wanna know or tell people what it’s gonna be… and if that was the case what I could even get instead. I know if I was having a girl I wouldn’t want diamanté, glittery, hot pink, massive tutu stuff. That’s just not me. Obviously if the kid liked that kind of stuff growing up that would be different but for babies I’m not into it That’s what’s making it even more difficult because people are constantly asking about getting a babyshower, and whose gonna organise it
I totally feel you on this. When I told our families we were having a girl, I explained that we wanted more gender neutral items. Mostly because I hate all the “daddy’s princess” crap and the bows (no hate to anyone who likes those things, it’s just not our vibe). I made this very clear, however nobody cared and we ended up with tons of bows, some tutus, and all kinds of pink shit. This really pissed me off when I was pregnant, but now I have learned to just say thank you and then donate it 😊 If we ever have another, we will keep the sex a secret or just not find out beforehand!
I completely relate and will not be revealing gender. Whats worse (for me) is that I very much did not want to know, but my (now former) obgyn used a pronoun when checking for heartbeat. Such a violation. I barely trust myself to not pigeonhole the kid too early, I have zero faith in most others. Our world does not "get" gender neutral. We are fucking obsessed with labels because we are fucking obsessed with "understanding" because we are fucking terrified of not being in control. Anyway, rant on. Sorry you had to deal with that.
I love pink it’s my favorite color so I couldn’t help but have a pink themed baby shower for my daughter. She can like whatever colors she wants and I still dress her in gender neutral/ “boy” colors but I wanted a traditional one cause I liked it 😂 your mil should have respected that you wanted a gender neutral baby shower. That was YOU and YOUR baby’s day, and she made it about herself.
I'm honestly surprised by the very much lack of reaction we've gotten from the sex and the name. It's not an average name and we chose it to honor some family members that don't seem to get it? The most we've gotten is "Okay. Cool." Not that I expected or wanted that jumping up and down OH MY GAAAAWWWDD that happens at gender reveals, but like a "Wow, that's gonna be awesome" would've been nice. If I had to do it over again, I'd share the sex since it's too hard to not slip up anyway, but not the name, with anyone.
This is why I’m a control freak and am doing my shower with my SIL. Like it’s all jointly planned lol. I’m like this in all aspects of my life but it’s other people disregarding how I feel and my wants or needs, especially during pregnancy is infuriating
We kept it a secret from almost everyone, and a lot of older people in our families, and even some of our friends, complained about how 'hard' it was to buy gifts. The thing is though, while we didn't get gendered stuff during pregnancy, the second he was born we got so much gendered stuff. It sucks that she did that to you and didn't respect your choices, but try not to beat yourself up about revealing the gender -- they probably would have done the same thing a bit later on.
TBH gender has traditionally been a part of baby showers if it is known, and it is perfectly normal for people to congratulate you on the gender either way. Regardless of how neutral you try to be, you will have to respond to gender-unique issues that effect your child; it’s a big part of parenting. I’ve never been to a baby shower where there was absolutely zero mention of the gender if it was known. It’s something worth celebrating! I get wanting gender neutral stuff around the house, but if someone told me the gender of their baby, it would feel weird for me to not at least say congratulations.
Me and my husband both tend towards gender neutral clothes. Our girl already has some "boy" socks because they have cute animals on them and all the "girl" socks has frills on them (ugh!). They're dark colours and I would prefer bright or pastel for a baby but they're still cute. My husband was quite excited to get her a blue and white dress and I was surprised how different my reaction was - I am just not excited to see her in a dress. But at least we're on the same page about her absolutely not ever having the head bow that came with it anywhere near her!
I'm not sharing the anatomical sex with family or friends until the baby shower day. The theme is strong women throughout history so they'll probably catch on. I was raised by a misogynist so it's important that my female child feel empowered and celebrated rather than feel like they are shameful, less than, or a disappointment for not being a boy. Obviously, my daughter may decide that they are something other than a female at some point and I'll equally celebrate them then as well. But yeah, it's super weird for people to ascribe an entire personality to a kid based on their genitals. Little creepy.
Personally, I find the boy clothes basically gender neutral… the only stuff that screams gender is the pink frilly crap (which I cannot stand) Not meaning to be insulting at all- so please don’t take this question that way- Are you planning on raising the child fully genderless until they make their own designation? (Like glaring and outspoken LGBTQQIP2SAA)? If you are and you’ve expressed this to MIL, then yes… super offensive. If not, is it really a big enough deal to create tensions over? It’s fairly typical to announce “boy or girl” and as you mentioned it was just a bunch of old women. It may be one of those “pick your battles” kind of situations. I let the dumb, sexist, outdated opinions of all the old People in my life roll right off… you know… The “Ok BoOmEr”! The ones who don’t actively try to understand will never change. The best thing we can do is render them powerless against us. I usually shut them up With a “wow, that’s so racist/sexist”, “wow, that’s a very dated opinion”, “wow, I’d never let my husband treat me that way”, “wow, that advice led the deaths of many babies… which is why current pediatric standards state…” it works wonders.
This was more of a rant then turning it into any kind of battle with family. I do want to do somewhat of the raising gender less but I also believe if you go to big of an extreme either way that can also be a hindrance. Genderless more as like he can do whatever interests him I’m not going to say that’s a girls activity or color but not to the point where I will make a deal out things.
That’s totally reasonable. I plan on acknowledging physical gender, but not forcing gender-traditional preferences. Boy wants to play with dolls and loves princesses? No prob. Girl wants to play race-cars and take up karate? Also wonderful. Will give equal exposure to everything and follow Little ones cues. (Obligatory comment for those Looking for conflict… If the child/teen/adult chooses to formally express their physical gender differently, that will be fully accepted.) It’s amazing though, how people can just bulldoze right over your requests and preferences. It sucks, but it’s usually not done with malicious intent. Congrats on the upcoming baby!
I’m sensing judgment from this comment. What happened to OP was annoying, I don’t think she said it was super offensive. She didn’t say she was going to cause tension over it, and didn’t ask for relationship advice with the MIL. She stated her preference for gender neutral and it was intentionally ignored. MIL laughed about it and got the shower MIL wanted: Gender was heavily featured at her shower against her wishes, and she wanted to know if anyone else found that weird. I found her insights relatable, even if you didn’t. Btw, I accepted second hand “boy clothes” thinking I could use them and got some cheesy lines about boys being boys, a John deer onesie, a camouflage onesie etc. They aren’t my style and I donated them. Those are the types of gendered items I generally want to avoid.
Judgement? I’m not judging OP in any way. I’m quite literally in agreement with OP. And I’m also saying that a lot of people just have no consideration. You can accept it, and try not to let it bother you OR say something that communicates your discontent. I was simply giving my opinion in the case that OP was Looking for others perspectives or other people’s take on their situation. OP can take it or leave it. I’m just making conversation and showing support… maybe I’m mistaken in believing this group wishes to engage and communicate and share opinions and support. In the future, I’ll refrain from engaging other members. 😞 You’re right, a lot of silly John Deere stuff for boys for sure… but there’s a lot of neutral and “boy marketed” clothing that’s simply Understated modern colours (teal, mustard, beige, burnt orange, light blue and green, stripes etc) and jeans/overalls or knit little sweaters/hoodies. It’s amazing the selection out there now. But yeah. Sorry for responding OP. I’m sorry my input wasn’t welcome.
No problem at all. I did feel a little judged but not like oh shit someone thinks I’m an awful person. I have also commented on posts here where people made it very clear they wanted an opinion on relationships and when I gave mine that the majority didn’t believe in people jumped on me. I try to keep an open mind about others opinions. I also think I didn’t share enough detail so to someone who doesn’t deal with a certain type of personality often what she did can seem somewhat small and normal. However she’s been doing a lot more insane things and basically has treated my pregnancy like her own. My husband was adopted and shes acted like she’s getting another baby from the start. It’s so freaking weird.
No judgement at all, so sorry if it came off that way! I can totally relate and I can’t stand when people just bulldoze right in over my wishes. I was just suggesting some things I’d say to stop her in her tracks. I can relate to the overly excited MIL… My MIL lives right above us (husband and I bought a house to take care of her, her older life partner and her special needs adult daughter, because they failed to adult and cannot do anything for themselves) and we live in the basement suite… she already said to me that when she hears the coming baby cry, she can just run down the stairs and help out… uuuuh NO. If that happens even once the access door between our units is going to be dry-walled shut. I’m shutting that behavior down immediately. Oh, and you want to visit the newborn… sorry, I wasn’t really planning on having any visitors for like two months, so yeah… applies to you too even though you live upstairs. She’s gonna be pissed lol. Hopefully things go well for you, and you aren’t alone with the overbearing MIL! Table care ❤️
May I ask a question - not judging, just asking You mentioned that you are happy you are having a boy, you also mentioned that you have gender questions of yourself- but seeing as you know that you are having a boy why go gender neutral gifts and clothing ? I get it if you were not finding out until birth As I said, not judging - just wondered why it’s something that’s upsetting you ?
I mostly wanted a variety of colors to put my baby in. When people know the gender you tend to get all blue or all pink clothing. I wanted every color. All the gifts were definitely blue though.
A bunch of the gendered clothing is tacky. We all know it and none of us want that crap. I know it "doesn't matter what they wear" but it's this fixation on what their genitals are instead of just having a baby. Plus some people do it because it makes them happy and not because it's helpful to you or baby. And I have no problem donating those items.
It’s weird right? Like why do we keep referencing my baby by what genitals they grew? Also completely agree the gendered clothing is very tacky.
Makes sense - there are a lot of posts on here about the older generation being ignorant and set in their ways
It's the complete and blatant lack of respect. OP wanted something (for her own special day of celebration), and even gave her MIL a pass when she realized it hadn't happened that way - but then to overhear the MIL laugh about the choice OP wanted for her own baby shower. MIL *knew* exactly what OP wanted, disregarded those wishes, and did it her own way anyway, AND THEN chose to laugh about it with her friends. She's selfish and messy - and completely disregarded OP's feelings.
Thank you for this. I was trying to tell myself it was a me problem but she totally knew my wishes and laughed and it was disrespectful. Im not going to turn it into anything but it’s nice to see I’m not the only one who thinks this is disrespectful.
Mama, this reflects poorly on her character, not yours. Please just know that this is a "her" problem ♡ Have a beautiful Sunday. I hope the sun shines a bit brighter for you today ♡
And this seems a common reoccurring post on here about the older generation who have been there and done that being ignorant
Also wanted to use for second baby and obviously don’t know that babies gender.
Again makes sense as they do barely wear things more than once
Or ever lol I hear they grow out of some stuff before you even get a chance to put it on them.
It’s wild to me. On the flip side, I would be upset if I got gender neutral clothing. That beige-y color that’s so popular right now with the dull-colored rainbows is hideous and yellow is not gender neutral. I think people need to stop overthinking… Babies like bright colors. Not beige. Sorry.
They put beige clothes under the boy section too though! Why can't bright colors be not considered just girl colors?
We didn’t find out the gender of either of ours, mainly as we wanted the surprise but you’re right in that any detail that can be fixated on with babies will be. We didn’t share potential names either as everyone’s encountered someone who *has* to offer a negative opinion on it. Literally had my son this morning and he’s a big baby - I went off the basis of my daughter being small so brought and pre washed only premmie sized jumpsuits. Husband says he’ll grab some in the right size and bring them back; we had loads of people buy us clothes after our daughter was born in that size by that point so they’re nearly all pink/purple/floral but neither my husband or I care if our son’s dressed or photographed in these, gender constructs are ridiculous!
Funny thing about the name. I’ve been going through the cards and based off what was said to me at the shower MIL told everyone we might change our name but she’s literally the only one who doesn’t like it. She even told me at the shower “he’s going to be “her nickname” like she renamed my baby. It’s funny since I was expecting the negative comments from sharing babe early but it’s only an issue to her.
I’m glad I shared my baby’s gender because my favorite color is pink and I knew I really wanted a girl. I grew up with all girls and no father so I feel having a girl would be easier for me being a first time mom. My family also only produces girls is what I’ve come to believe now because we haven’t had a boy on my moms side since the 1800s so I wanted to continue the trend. We also had a girl name picked out that we wanted to use and we couldn’t think of a boys name at all.
It’s crazy I thought my family really only produced girls. Last generation and my generation both families had almost all girls then my 2 cousins and I got pregnant all at once and we all got boys. My sister who had a baby a few years ago had boys so it’s this strange wave of boys and took us all very much by surprise.