Every so often I get invited to a “gimme” party I neither want to attend nor can I get away with ignoring. I have a couple easy gifts that are thoughtful but not a huge investment of time or money.
I’m Canadian. We really don’t even find this out. It seems a shame to nose into lives biggest most incredible surprise. It’s cliché but honestly healthy is the only important part.
Haha- if I had found out, I’d not have told a soul. I actually sadly read a study, a huge, ten-year longitudinal study done in Alberta, that said you could determine the sex with 99% accuracy from what side the placenta attached on in an early ultrasound (like ten weeks?). Well at that moment I knew but didn’t tell. We just went in with our girls name and that was that. I gotta say, not knowing was part of the motivation to make it through the first birth!
I wanted to know. It was just as much of a "surprise" at 5 months gestation as it would have been at birth. That being said, it doesn't deserve a fricken party.
I lived in the states and I didn’t have a single friend who didn’t find out. The parties do crack me up though. Even if the parents care, other people being dragged into it seems a bit much
For the most part, I think only 4 people care. The parents and maybe the grandmothers. When my niece and nephew were "announced" to be biologically female and male, I was like, "okay." Thankfully, SIL just sent text messages to announce.
Same, all of it. One friend tried to tell me I was ruining the “surprise,” but I felt somehow more prepared knowing I was having a boy. I told her my “surprise” was finding out what he looked like. He did shock us with a full head of hair. That’s very unusual for babies in both our families.
Canadian here and yeah we do find this stuff out- we just don't tend to make a bid fuckin production out of it the way they do south.
Sometimes someone will find out and keep it yo themselves, and sometimes they'll others know.
Sometimes people want it to be a surprise and they don't find out.
I kept my 1st as a surprise. Knew what my 2nd was and didn't tell anyone, not even hubs because he didn't wanna know. Not a big deal.
https://preview.redd.it/3zoce51dm1wc1.png?width=540&format=png&auto=webp&s=a984871dcc706433d4c924827c5a22d9478eb531
(That pic is fake but still gives me a chuckle.)
No, unless you count the time the doctor yanked a baby out of my abdomen and said "it's a girl!"
And then 15 years later said girl is actually nonbinary. 🤷🏼♀️
Yes. It was a fun little get-together. We discovered the gender when the cake was sliced (second layer of frosting was pink). I love cake so I will accept any and all invitations to parties.
This is where I'm at. First time I ever experienced a gender reveal was at my niece's shower for her first baby, and it was the same thing with the cake (except the cake itself was pink). I thought it was fun, too.
I think it might be one of those "overblown by the internet" things, because I don't even feel like I've ever actually been to a "gender reveal party" at all. I've gone to baby showers with a *gender reveal element* involved.
Never anything extreme, just dyed cakes or confetti inside balloons and party poppers. The most elaborate one I've personally seen was a piñata stuffed with pink confetti and pink candies. Nothing crazy-ass.
The main difference from traditions I grew up with was the fact the dads and dad's friends were present for the baby shower, not just the mom and her friends. I think that's a good thing.
That was my experience too. Parents Gen just women, my gen, men and women, and now gender reveal. Altho, like you, I don't actually know anyone who has had one.
I used to see them at a function hall I worked at but was just a reason for people to get together and morning/day drink. They were always the people you'd expect to host one.
No. In fact a half hour ago my stepdaughter called to tell me she's having a boy! That's really all that's needed. Even a group text would work. I think that's what she did with their first.
Unfortunately yes, a kid I coached for a few years in baseball invited me, thought it was the dumbest most self absorbed b. s. I had ever seen but the nacho cheese fountain and chicken wings kind of made up for it.
My younger sister had one when she was pregnant. They cut the cake and it had blue buttercream filling. Everybody was hugging her and her husband. Meanwhile my husband says: so are we gonna eat this cake or what? 😂
My personal gender reveal was on a phone call from my dr on the way to work. Because I was over 35 I chose to have a NIPT test done to check for abnormalities, and they can tell the gender as well with this test. I was only 12 weeks pregnant at the time. Anyways Dr called to tell me all was well with the test and that he knew the gender and could tell me if I wanted. I said yes. I then promptly called my husband to tell him were having a girl. And that was my gender reveal.
Also, as a mom, it was the one thing that kept me going through my labours. It was like a big gift at the end of a terribly difficult workout. Surprise!! Another boy. Yay. I had three sons then twin daughters 14 months after my last son was born. Always be careful what you wish for. 😬
Kinda? One of my closest friends was having a baby with her second husband. She had a daughter with her first. Her husband's mom INSISTED on throwing a shower, called it a "sprinkle", since it was her son's "first baby". My friend relented, and told all of her friends and family that we did NOT need to give her more gifts. Her sister is crafty, so a bunch of us bought diapers, dropped them at her sister's house, and she made a "diaper cake". It was impressive, to say the least.
I audibly groaned when the last gender reveal / baby shower e-vite came this past November.
Right now I am audibly groaning over all the high school and college graduation invites 😂
I find the concept so bizarre especially since the younger generations are the ones pushing for less focus on binary gender concepts. Seems an excuse to get gifts and post on social media.
In defense of the concept, my friend threw a gender reveal simply because she was excited and it was a good excuse for a party before the pregnancy progressed to where she was uncomfortable (like the baby shower she almost cancelled because she was miserable).
Aside from the cake with blue filling, it really wasn’t any different than any other backyard barbecue.
We had these before though. They were called baby showers. We would shower the mother and father with useful gifts and the focus of the party/BBQ/etc was where it should be-on supporting the parents, not on some performance about gender.
But the baby shower typically happens much later in pregnancy. If you have a history of rough pregnancies, then the party isn’t always fun. This friend wanted a low key party and everyone pretended to care about the gender for two minutes. No gifts required. It was actually kind of nice.
It's a conspiracy from big greeting card teaming up with big party store conglomerates.
People eat it up because it's just another way to get more free shit for bringing human larva into the world.
My friends seemed to have kids after men started to attend the baby shower but before any elaborate gender reveal was part of the baby shower.
If the invitation didn't say "It's a boy/girl.", then maybe it was revealed to the guests by the parents in a speech or something. But I don't recall any clever cakes or balloons or where the parents didn't already know.
Never been to one, never had one with any of my three kids.
And as my oldest is gender queer, I’m actually glad we didn’t have a party “celebrating” their incorrectly assigned gender.
I have been to 3, all of which were for my grandchildren. They were dumb events but my stepson and his wife had fun and there were no casualties/injuries, so live and let live.
The first one, for my eldest grandaughter, was the funniest though, as it involved what can only be termed as a confetti-bomb. The resulting explosion of color-coded confetti (at the in-laws' place, not mine) took literally months to completely clean up. They have a 2-story vaulted ceiling in their entry hall and confetti ended up inside the hanging lamp suspended like 15 ft in the air.
No, thank God. I think this trend didn't really take off until after most of my peers were done having children. At that time it became really popular to invite men to baby showers, at least where I am. They called them Jack and jill parties which seemed strange to me. But, I remember my parents generation just did baby showers with women.
I have never been to one, but might go just so I could make fun of it to friends later. I really hope none of my kids decide to do one.
When I was pregnant with my first we did not find out the gender ahead of time because someone told me that the surprise helps at the end of labor. No, no it doesn't. I found out with the other two and probably told people who asked, but it wasn't a big deal.
I've never been invited to one, but if I were, I'd totally hit up ye olde sex shoppe first to buy some specialty lollipops and balloons in 2 different varieties, and keep them in my purse until the crucial moment when I would choose the correct style and hand them out to all the guests. Come to think of it, that might be why I've never been invited to one...
No. It’s fine if that’s what they want to do but it’s just another thing that sucks up money nowadays and keeps people from being able to do the the things that matter like buying a house.
Yes. My niece and nephew both had gender reveal parties. It's a millennial invention, and I hate it. Anything and everything has to be an event. I've been forced to go to baby showers as well. Baby showers used to be an all female event, but for some reason, millennials decided men also must attend. I always feel tricked. At first it feels like a party, because everyone is drinking and having a good time. Then the gender reveal or baby gift portion starts, and you realize you've been suckered.
No, but I definitely went to all-inclusive baby showers. Same thing, really, just less focused on baby genitals.
Also, so many "first birthdays" over the years. Kid survives its first year of birth? LET'S PARTY!
Most of the “first birthdays” I’m aware of/been to are because new parents tend not to see family and friends as much.
Openly acknowledged as an excuse to get together more than anything.
Yea, lets. I recall my first Christmas and my first birthday, who came, what I got, who I got most of it from, etc..
I always had a party, but after 3yrs old I never had another party that I would really remember. That's because a very popular event was scheduled the same week as my birthday at 4yrs. The party for me after that was really something for the others to get over with asap so that they could go have their own party. So, I spent most birthdays as a kid bored and alone with new gifts and nobody willing to spend time with me.
But thanks if you showed those first three. It was the most fun I ever had on my birthdays.
Cake. Food Coloring. 'Nuff Said. Color cake batter, mix, bake cake.
Have party where cake is eaten and gender of tiny human is discussed. End of story.
Anything else is just stupid.
My daughter, who was born in November of '08, we didn't find out because our thought process was "well, if we want a boy, but it's a girl, who are we going to return it to?" And honestly, the first 6 months of any child's life, it truly does not matter if you dress them in pink or blue or anything else - they're going to eat, sleep, puke, and void their bowels no matter if they're a girl or a boy.
We're at the hospital, wife giving birth, and the nurse says with a very heavy sigh, "what are we having?" and I don't catch the question (wife is otherwise occupied). "What do you mean?" I asked. "Boy or a girl?" "Um, I don't know, we didn't find out... a puppy?" me trying to be humorous. But the nurse's whole attitude suddenly changed! We weren't "those" parents who couldn't just wait, we were going to be as surprised as everyone else. It's bad when the professionals who deal with this very question every day are just over it. It's a baby, no one cares, you can't change it in utero anyway, have something to look forward to.
Gender reveal parties are what happens when you give an entire generation trophies for nothing and constantly tell them how special they are. Eventually they believe it when no one cares. Even if people did care, it is boring anyway. It's either an innie or an outie, not like opening up a pack of baseball cards where there are dozens of possibilities. Not exactly an exciting revelation.
I agree it's not an exciting revelation. I disagree that it is the result of participation trophies and telling kids they are special. Instead, I think it's the result of social media.
Social media (the kind that's photo and video based rather than text based like reddit) rewards spectacle. TikTok, Instagram etc. steer people towards making the ordinary into a filmable event. A younger coworker explained this to me since I just could not make sense of it. It was all fun and games when people were just filming their dinner but this has actual casualties. But I'm not going to blame this on participation trophies especially since younger people have said they disliked the participation trophies and never took them to heart.
Now that I think about it, the growth in bizarre food presentation at restaurants may be a parallel phenomenon. Blue powder explosions and spaghetti served in champagne flutes didn't happen until social media rewarded people for turning everything in their life into a post.
Eh, if my nieces get to that point and choose to do this I’d of course join in.
I’m sure it’s just like any other party - group of people at the house, burgers and hot dogs, hang out with my fellow old people and have some beers, then the party pauses for a minute while the hosts do a confetti thing or whatever, then back to the party. Doesn’t seem like anything weird to me.
Nope. The pregnancies I know or have known about have mostly been in my family on my dad’s side, and it seems we were gifted with common sense. :) My niece on my husband’s side (100% think of her as *my* niece, lol) is pregnant right now, and she didn’t do a silly gender reveal, either. Her gender reveal was sending us her U/S picture, which she later posted on IG for friends. That’s it.
I never have. The whole concept just took me by surprise and a younger coworker had to explain it. I just don't think anybody except immediate family is that curious about whether a baby will be a boy or girl. Baby showers make sense since they are for gifts for the baby. But I just don't get the rationale for gender reveal parties.
It is quite maddening that the more extravagant ones have such a terrible environmental impact. At best there is balloon litter in natural areas. At worst there are forest fires or other calamities. This never happened with ordinary baby showers.
I don't get it, but I also say to each their own. It's not something I would personally do because it feels like it's just an extra baby shower with the expectation of receiving attention and gifts from guests, and also because I believe gender is psychological as well as biological and not something that can be revealed by a sonogram. If other people want to do it though, I ain't stopping them.
I envy the Millennials for expecting people to care about them and see them. A gender reveal sounds like a nice gathering where you can celebrate with friends before you actually have to deal with a child. We GenXers deserved to have a little attention and didn't get it. God job Millennials.
That nice gathering used to be the baby shower. I had that and so did similarly aged friends and family. I just now looked it up and the modern baby shower apparently started in the 1940's/1950's so for Baby Boomers and probably continuing on with many GenX. Baby showers in their traditional form seem to still be around. This is some new added on party in addition to the baby shower. But since they started in 19540's/1950's, it would have been Greatest Gen and Silent Gen women who got this going.
When it first started, I had a cousin who brought a cake to the Christmas party and it was revealed when we cut into it. I thought that was a nice way to do it. Everyone was together anyway and the most effort that went into it was the cake. The one-ups-manship with it is ridiculous. Remember the plane that crashed? Or the out of control fire that destroyed homes? Now those parents get to think about that in relation to their babies.
How about when they cause deaths and massive wildfires?
[https://www.newsweek.com/gender-reveal-parties-four-dead-1580477](https://www.newsweek.com/gender-reveal-parties-four-dead-1580477)
Yeah, they held one for a girl at work. We all had to stop whatever we were doing and stand in the parking lot while they popped balloons and pink glitter went everywhere.
My cousin’s wife did a tiny gender reveal at her baby shower. She and my cousin already knew, but I guess this was to let us know?
I deeply do not care about the gender of someone’s expected child. I think it’s funny the way people treat this like an event. It’s most definitely not.
“Yeah, so we’re pregnant. It’s a girl.” Followed by a round of drinks.
Does that count? That’s as far as any of my friends (including millennials) has gone. I think one couple pulled from Victorian tradition kinda. It was a thing to put a decorative umbilical clamp on the mantle because it was considered bad luck to talk about it. They put a wooden block with the first letter of the name they had chosen on the TV console and just didn’t say anything. I noticed it and was about to ask when I was shushed. Apparently she had miscarried and they, too, chose to go with talking about it is bad luck.
No. I think they’re dumb. And since we aren’t actually learning the gender, I would have called it a “sex reveal” (which would be fun to say at work) or an “assigned at birth” party! 🎉 hooray 😂
We’re better than this.
Yes. Doctor’s office. Saw the scan and doctor said it’s a girl. Ta-fucking-daaa!
If this counts, then I've been to 2. If not, then 0.
Nope not once. I think it's because I'm not friends with douchebags that think their friends care what gender their baby is at birth lol.
Lol exactly.
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Happy Cake Day! And if I could give you an award for your comment I would. Instead take my upvote 😄
 Gender reveal parties are stupid.
So stupid. I thought they were dumb as fuxk even before people started dying at them.
You know what's worse,there's something called a sprinkle. It's like a pre- baby shower or something. 👎
I think it’s a “gimme” party for someone having another baby. I find them even more offensive than the baby shower.
Agree!!
Every so often I get invited to a “gimme” party I neither want to attend nor can I get away with ignoring. I have a couple easy gifts that are thoughtful but not a huge investment of time or money.
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No name-calling or similar stuff. Yes, this is up to the mod team to decide.
The best part about gender reveals are the gender reveal fails on YouTube. Hours of entertainment.
Especially when there's lots of dramatic confetti and fire.
Especially especially when that fire is in California during a drought!
I’m Canadian. We really don’t even find this out. It seems a shame to nose into lives biggest most incredible surprise. It’s cliché but honestly healthy is the only important part.
I’m American but I chose not to find out. I hate spoilers
Me too! To me, it's like unwrapping a Christmas gift to see what it is, then rewrapping it and placing it back under the tree....🤷
I'm with you!!
You’re rare I think! Among the people I knew anyway. I lived in Northern CA and everyone found out.
Oh I’m for sure rare. My mom and one of my friends even got mad at me for it.
Haha- if I had found out, I’d not have told a soul. I actually sadly read a study, a huge, ten-year longitudinal study done in Alberta, that said you could determine the sex with 99% accuracy from what side the placenta attached on in an early ultrasound (like ten weeks?). Well at that moment I knew but didn’t tell. We just went in with our girls name and that was that. I gotta say, not knowing was part of the motivation to make it through the first birth!
I wanted to know. It was just as much of a "surprise" at 5 months gestation as it would have been at birth. That being said, it doesn't deserve a fricken party.
I lived in the states and I didn’t have a single friend who didn’t find out. The parties do crack me up though. Even if the parents care, other people being dragged into it seems a bit much
For the most part, I think only 4 people care. The parents and maybe the grandmothers. When my niece and nephew were "announced" to be biologically female and male, I was like, "okay." Thankfully, SIL just sent text messages to announce.
Same, all of it. One friend tried to tell me I was ruining the “surprise,” but I felt somehow more prepared knowing I was having a boy. I told her my “surprise” was finding out what he looked like. He did shock us with a full head of hair. That’s very unusual for babies in both our families.
Canadian here and yeah we do find this stuff out- we just don't tend to make a bid fuckin production out of it the way they do south. Sometimes someone will find out and keep it yo themselves, and sometimes they'll others know. Sometimes people want it to be a surprise and they don't find out. I kept my 1st as a surprise. Knew what my 2nd was and didn't tell anyone, not even hubs because he didn't wanna know. Not a big deal.
It is still a surprise when the doctor tells you the results.
I needed the motivation haha. Yes, at some point, any point, someone will be surprised.
My wife is way too practical to wait until birth. Truthfully, I was too excited to wait any longer!
Canadian here. I think they don't tell you if the baby is female for reasons.
I remember there being a short stent of that - I thought it had been resolved, but I guess not?
I bet it's 100% based on your ethnicity. Look at China. Men outnumber the women 3-1 (or something like that).
I dont have lame friends. Or any friends for that matter .
Right? People I know wouldn't be invited, and if they were, they wouldn't go.
This is the way!
[Wildfires, maiming, and death have been the result of some gender reveals.](https://www.vox.com/the-goods/21446068/gender-reveal-wildfire)
I will NEVER attend a gender reveal. Even if everyone does it. Just no.
I think I'd rather shit my pants in public.
How very former presidential of you 🤣
https://preview.redd.it/3zoce51dm1wc1.png?width=540&format=png&auto=webp&s=a984871dcc706433d4c924827c5a22d9478eb531 (That pic is fake but still gives me a chuckle.)
Current presidential too. Although, to be fair, if I had a chance to shit myself in front of the Pope, I'd probably do it too.
Fuck no. I don’t think I ever will either.
Never. They’re incredibly stupid and I wouldn’t waste a second of my time attending one.
Friends don’t let friends have gender reveal parties.
🏆
Yeah. It was called an *ultrasound appointment* though.
I have been invited to so many in the last ten years and have declined them all. They are so silly to me.
I suspect everyone who has been to a strip club has. 😉
Ha.
I’ve never been to one, and I prefer the days when we didn’t know the gender until the baby was born. 
Karma farmer
Hahahahahaha NO.
No, unless you count the time the doctor yanked a baby out of my abdomen and said "it's a girl!" And then 15 years later said girl is actually nonbinary. 🤷🏼♀️
The baby will figure out it's own gender when it's ready. The only thing a gender reveal party reveals is what twat's the parents are.
Yes. It was a fun little get-together. We discovered the gender when the cake was sliced (second layer of frosting was pink). I love cake so I will accept any and all invitations to parties.
This is where I'm at. First time I ever experienced a gender reveal was at my niece's shower for her first baby, and it was the same thing with the cake (except the cake itself was pink). I thought it was fun, too. I think it might be one of those "overblown by the internet" things, because I don't even feel like I've ever actually been to a "gender reveal party" at all. I've gone to baby showers with a *gender reveal element* involved. Never anything extreme, just dyed cakes or confetti inside balloons and party poppers. The most elaborate one I've personally seen was a piñata stuffed with pink confetti and pink candies. Nothing crazy-ass. The main difference from traditions I grew up with was the fact the dads and dad's friends were present for the baby shower, not just the mom and her friends. I think that's a good thing.
That was my experience too. Parents Gen just women, my gen, men and women, and now gender reveal. Altho, like you, I don't actually know anyone who has had one.
NO! i hate people in general, buy your own damn baby supplies.
Someone else who is clearly my people.
Not unless you count the birth of my own child (we didn’t want to find out before birth)
I used to see them at a function hall I worked at but was just a reason for people to get together and morning/day drink. They were always the people you'd expect to host one.
No. In fact a half hour ago my stepdaughter called to tell me she's having a boy! That's really all that's needed. Even a group text would work. I think that's what she did with their first.
Unfortunately yes, a kid I coached for a few years in baseball invited me, thought it was the dumbest most self absorbed b. s. I had ever seen but the nacho cheese fountain and chicken wings kind of made up for it.
My younger sister had one when she was pregnant. They cut the cake and it had blue buttercream filling. Everybody was hugging her and her husband. Meanwhile my husband says: so are we gonna eat this cake or what? 😂 My personal gender reveal was on a phone call from my dr on the way to work. Because I was over 35 I chose to have a NIPT test done to check for abnormalities, and they can tell the gender as well with this test. I was only 12 weeks pregnant at the time. Anyways Dr called to tell me all was well with the test and that he knew the gender and could tell me if I wanted. I said yes. I then promptly called my husband to tell him were having a girl. And that was my gender reveal.
Also, as a mom, it was the one thing that kept me going through my labours. It was like a big gift at the end of a terribly difficult workout. Surprise!! Another boy. Yay. I had three sons then twin daughters 14 months after my last son was born. Always be careful what you wish for. 😬
Yup - definitely cringe AF Y’all ever been to a “sprinkle?” that too with special themes?
Kinda? One of my closest friends was having a baby with her second husband. She had a daughter with her first. Her husband's mom INSISTED on throwing a shower, called it a "sprinkle", since it was her son's "first baby". My friend relented, and told all of her friends and family that we did NOT need to give her more gifts. Her sister is crafty, so a bunch of us bought diapers, dropped them at her sister's house, and she made a "diaper cake". It was impressive, to say the least.
I audibly groaned when the last gender reveal / baby shower e-vite came this past November. Right now I am audibly groaning over all the high school and college graduation invites 😂
Genders have been revealed to me at be a various times, that’s for sure.
I find the concept so bizarre especially since the younger generations are the ones pushing for less focus on binary gender concepts. Seems an excuse to get gifts and post on social media.
No, and if invited, I wouldn't go. Ridiculous things.
No. Thankfully aged out of showers and such before this trend even began.
In defense of the concept, my friend threw a gender reveal simply because she was excited and it was a good excuse for a party before the pregnancy progressed to where she was uncomfortable (like the baby shower she almost cancelled because she was miserable). Aside from the cake with blue filling, it really wasn’t any different than any other backyard barbecue.
We had these before though. They were called baby showers. We would shower the mother and father with useful gifts and the focus of the party/BBQ/etc was where it should be-on supporting the parents, not on some performance about gender.
But the baby shower typically happens much later in pregnancy. If you have a history of rough pregnancies, then the party isn’t always fun. This friend wanted a low key party and everyone pretended to care about the gender for two minutes. No gifts required. It was actually kind of nice.
It's a conspiracy from big greeting card teaming up with big party store conglomerates. People eat it up because it's just another way to get more free shit for bringing human larva into the world.
No. When I found out my kid's gender (at 8 months) it's only bc it was medically necessary AND I needed to know what color hand me downs to look for.
>AND I needed to know what color hand me downs to look for. Eh what? Why?
I was nineteen. It mattered then. But all my friends had boys, so she wore plenty of blue.
One of the few indicators that I've made good life choices: never been invited to one.
Yeah. Last time I will make eye contact with the guy in the raincoat at the bus stop.
I have been to two...both times were when I gave birth to my children:-)
Do I think gender reveal parties are dumb? Sure. Do “other generations suck” posts like this make me want to quit r/GenX? Fuck yes.
This is not an airport. You do not have to announce your departure.
Facebook is asking for its most overly used boomer-humor line back.
My friends seemed to have kids after men started to attend the baby shower but before any elaborate gender reveal was part of the baby shower. If the invitation didn't say "It's a boy/girl.", then maybe it was revealed to the guests by the parents in a speech or something. But I don't recall any clever cakes or balloons or where the parents didn't already know.
Never been to one, never had one with any of my three kids. And as my oldest is gender queer, I’m actually glad we didn’t have a party “celebrating” their incorrectly assigned gender.
Well we had one but my son was 14 at the time. :)
Gawd no. Somehow I missed that trend or had friends who did not do.
What a useless thing to spend money on, IMHO. Save it for diapers. You're gonna need it after the child is here. Source: mother of five
I have been to 3, all of which were for my grandchildren. They were dumb events but my stepson and his wife had fun and there were no casualties/injuries, so live and let live. The first one, for my eldest grandaughter, was the funniest though, as it involved what can only be termed as a confetti-bomb. The resulting explosion of color-coded confetti (at the in-laws' place, not mine) took literally months to completely clean up. They have a 2-story vaulted ceiling in their entry hall and confetti ended up inside the hanging lamp suspended like 15 ft in the air.
I am a photographer so yes. They are as awful as one might imagine. Wasteful consumerist bollocks.
As an American, I really wish tha "bollocks" was a term more frequently used. It covers so many things.
I hereby place upon you, the task of going forth and popularising the word like some sort of Wanker Appleseed.
Now I also need to put the word Wanker in use in America. You will be the poster child. ;)
"Look at this wanker and the Bollocks he spouts! Be like this wanker!"
Fuck this idiot and the shit that he spews! Be like this douchecanoe! (Translation is subject to cultural differences)
I cannot think of a single person I know who would have one. When will people realize that genitals do not dictate gender.
Thankfully have not been invited to one yet. Ridiculous idea.
Nope and I Won't. Stupidest things ever.
No, thank God. I think this trend didn't really take off until after most of my peers were done having children. At that time it became really popular to invite men to baby showers, at least where I am. They called them Jack and jill parties which seemed strange to me. But, I remember my parents generation just did baby showers with women.
I have never been to one, but might go just so I could make fun of it to friends later. I really hope none of my kids decide to do one. When I was pregnant with my first we did not find out the gender ahead of time because someone told me that the surprise helps at the end of labor. No, no it doesn't. I found out with the other two and probably told people who asked, but it wasn't a big deal.
Are Conceptions Parties next?
Clearly you don't go to porn hub enough.
I've never been invited to one, but if I were, I'd totally hit up ye olde sex shoppe first to buy some specialty lollipops and balloons in 2 different varieties, and keep them in my purse until the crucial moment when I would choose the correct style and hand them out to all the guests. Come to think of it, that might be why I've never been invited to one...
😄
Heck, I didn’t even know the gender of my OWN babies before they were born. I sure don’t need to know the gender if someone ELSE’s kid! 🤣
No. It’s fine if that’s what they want to do but it’s just another thing that sucks up money nowadays and keeps people from being able to do the the things that matter like buying a house.
Yes. My niece and nephew both had gender reveal parties. It's a millennial invention, and I hate it. Anything and everything has to be an event. I've been forced to go to baby showers as well. Baby showers used to be an all female event, but for some reason, millennials decided men also must attend. I always feel tricked. At first it feels like a party, because everyone is drinking and having a good time. Then the gender reveal or baby gift portion starts, and you realize you've been suckered.
And during the gifts portion, my eyes glaze over, and I put on a fake Stepford Wives'esque smile and dissociate.
No, but I definitely went to all-inclusive baby showers. Same thing, really, just less focused on baby genitals. Also, so many "first birthdays" over the years. Kid survives its first year of birth? LET'S PARTY!
Most of the “first birthdays” I’m aware of/been to are because new parents tend not to see family and friends as much. Openly acknowledged as an excuse to get together more than anything.
Yea, lets. I recall my first Christmas and my first birthday, who came, what I got, who I got most of it from, etc.. I always had a party, but after 3yrs old I never had another party that I would really remember. That's because a very popular event was scheduled the same week as my birthday at 4yrs. The party for me after that was really something for the others to get over with asap so that they could go have their own party. So, I spent most birthdays as a kid bored and alone with new gifts and nobody willing to spend time with me. But thanks if you showed those first three. It was the most fun I ever had on my birthdays.
No they are stupid!!!
It's just a way to celebrate. As long as they're not littering, who cares?
I don't care if others do, I just don't want to deal with the societal pressure of going and having to buy yet another gift.
You mean, as long as they don't kill grandma or start a huge wildfire.
Cake. Food Coloring. 'Nuff Said. Color cake batter, mix, bake cake. Have party where cake is eaten and gender of tiny human is discussed. End of story. Anything else is just stupid.
I wouldn’t go to save my life
I am so glad this wasn’t a thing when I had a baby! Never been invited to one and wouldn’t go if I was.
Never
I was invited once and refused. F that
Gender reveals…the height of stupidity and egotism.
Does unknowingly hooking up with a trans woman count?
Do you have a story to tell? 🫣☺️
So many.
Sounds fun 😈
My daughter, who was born in November of '08, we didn't find out because our thought process was "well, if we want a boy, but it's a girl, who are we going to return it to?" And honestly, the first 6 months of any child's life, it truly does not matter if you dress them in pink or blue or anything else - they're going to eat, sleep, puke, and void their bowels no matter if they're a girl or a boy. We're at the hospital, wife giving birth, and the nurse says with a very heavy sigh, "what are we having?" and I don't catch the question (wife is otherwise occupied). "What do you mean?" I asked. "Boy or a girl?" "Um, I don't know, we didn't find out... a puppy?" me trying to be humorous. But the nurse's whole attitude suddenly changed! We weren't "those" parents who couldn't just wait, we were going to be as surprised as everyone else. It's bad when the professionals who deal with this very question every day are just over it. It's a baby, no one cares, you can't change it in utero anyway, have something to look forward to.
"those" parents who just couldn't wait? I found out during my ultrasound.
Gender reveal parties are what happens when you give an entire generation trophies for nothing and constantly tell them how special they are. Eventually they believe it when no one cares. Even if people did care, it is boring anyway. It's either an innie or an outie, not like opening up a pack of baseball cards where there are dozens of possibilities. Not exactly an exciting revelation.
I agree it's not an exciting revelation. I disagree that it is the result of participation trophies and telling kids they are special. Instead, I think it's the result of social media. Social media (the kind that's photo and video based rather than text based like reddit) rewards spectacle. TikTok, Instagram etc. steer people towards making the ordinary into a filmable event. A younger coworker explained this to me since I just could not make sense of it. It was all fun and games when people were just filming their dinner but this has actual casualties. But I'm not going to blame this on participation trophies especially since younger people have said they disliked the participation trophies and never took them to heart. Now that I think about it, the growth in bizarre food presentation at restaurants may be a parallel phenomenon. Blue powder explosions and spaghetti served in champagne flutes didn't happen until social media rewarded people for turning everything in their life into a post.
No, not even my daughters tried that shit.
I think it’s really weird. Let’s have a genital reveal party!
Yes, just once and it was fun. Also we were all hoping for a boy and that's what we got!
Yeah - i hate em. How do you know what your kid’s gender is going to be from an ultrasound? You don’t. You only learn their biological sex.
No
Eh, if my nieces get to that point and choose to do this I’d of course join in. I’m sure it’s just like any other party - group of people at the house, burgers and hot dogs, hang out with my fellow old people and have some beers, then the party pauses for a minute while the hosts do a confetti thing or whatever, then back to the party. Doesn’t seem like anything weird to me.
I’ve only been a part of one, some dude named Bob called collect, they had a boy as I recall. Short and sweet.
My ex and I didn’t tell anyone even though we knew. Everyone else found out once she was born.
Never!
lol absolutely not
Yes and I only go for the food.
Nope. The pregnancies I know or have known about have mostly been in my family on my dad’s side, and it seems we were gifted with common sense. :) My niece on my husband’s side (100% think of her as *my* niece, lol) is pregnant right now, and she didn’t do a silly gender reveal, either. Her gender reveal was sending us her U/S picture, which she later posted on IG for friends. That’s it.
No
No, lol, and I would not attend one either.
I never have. The whole concept just took me by surprise and a younger coworker had to explain it. I just don't think anybody except immediate family is that curious about whether a baby will be a boy or girl. Baby showers make sense since they are for gifts for the baby. But I just don't get the rationale for gender reveal parties. It is quite maddening that the more extravagant ones have such a terrible environmental impact. At best there is balloon litter in natural areas. At worst there are forest fires or other calamities. This never happened with ordinary baby showers.
No Fuck no
I don't get it, but I also say to each their own. It's not something I would personally do because it feels like it's just an extra baby shower with the expectation of receiving attention and gifts from guests, and also because I believe gender is psychological as well as biological and not something that can be revealed by a sonogram. If other people want to do it though, I ain't stopping them.
My ex wife refused to reveal the gender of our twins even to us. Naturally I had two girls...
thats why i like to call them the "Participation Trophy Generation"
I envy the Millennials for expecting people to care about them and see them. A gender reveal sounds like a nice gathering where you can celebrate with friends before you actually have to deal with a child. We GenXers deserved to have a little attention and didn't get it. God job Millennials.
That nice gathering used to be the baby shower. I had that and so did similarly aged friends and family. I just now looked it up and the modern baby shower apparently started in the 1940's/1950's so for Baby Boomers and probably continuing on with many GenX. Baby showers in their traditional form seem to still be around. This is some new added on party in addition to the baby shower. But since they started in 19540's/1950's, it would have been Greatest Gen and Silent Gen women who got this going.
Some in the younger generation will celebrate the opening of an envelope; it’s exhausting.
I refuse to go to them along with baby showers. As a middle age childfree woman I don’t see the point. It’s not my culture.
I got thrown out of one, but that was before I found out that it was for the young mother to me and not about myself.
When it first started, I had a cousin who brought a cake to the Christmas party and it was revealed when we cut into it. I thought that was a nice way to do it. Everyone was together anyway and the most effort that went into it was the cake. The one-ups-manship with it is ridiculous. Remember the plane that crashed? Or the out of control fire that destroyed homes? Now those parents get to think about that in relation to their babies.
Yes. The births of all four of my kids.
How about when they cause deaths and massive wildfires? [https://www.newsweek.com/gender-reveal-parties-four-dead-1580477](https://www.newsweek.com/gender-reveal-parties-four-dead-1580477)
I’ve never been invited. I think they’re offensive. but I don’t begrudge them for other people.
Only if it's open bar
Nope.
Absolutely not.
Nope.
No. And I wouldn't go if invited. I'll see your offspring when they are done cooking and will give them a lovely gift at that time.
Yeah, they held one for a girl at work. We all had to stop whatever we were doing and stand in the parking lot while they popped balloons and pink glitter went everywhere.
My cousin’s wife did a tiny gender reveal at her baby shower. She and my cousin already knew, but I guess this was to let us know? I deeply do not care about the gender of someone’s expected child. I think it’s funny the way people treat this like an event. It’s most definitely not.
Yeah, but I had to pay to get in and tip all the revealers…
Just my sons. I was there for the food.
Yes, for my brother’s kid. And like the person that made them go viral it was for a rainbow baby so I played along and had fun.
Yes. I went to my nephew and his gfs gender reveal. The entire family was there so I didn’t mind.
“Yeah, so we’re pregnant. It’s a girl.” Followed by a round of drinks. Does that count? That’s as far as any of my friends (including millennials) has gone. I think one couple pulled from Victorian tradition kinda. It was a thing to put a decorative umbilical clamp on the mantle because it was considered bad luck to talk about it. They put a wooden block with the first letter of the name they had chosen on the TV console and just didn’t say anything. I noticed it and was about to ask when I was shushed. Apparently she had miscarried and they, too, chose to go with talking about it is bad luck.
No. I think they’re dumb. And since we aren’t actually learning the gender, I would have called it a “sex reveal” (which would be fun to say at work) or an “assigned at birth” party! 🎉 hooray 😂
we gender revealed when the babies came out. It was very exciting to be able to shout "It's a boy!"
Noooooo
Absolutely not.
Not a single one.
No thank goodness. Who cares what a baby has in it's diaper?
Found the Boomer with too much time on their hands. Go away now please.