Baby gender reveal parties need to stop

Cachoo said:
There are ways to do gender reveal parties that don't have to involve accidents and death. I think they are silly anyway but here are some of the bad ones:

---Firefighter dies from burns after gender reveal party ignites the El Dorado fire
---Iowa grandma (to be) dies when a pipe bomb is inadvertently made to look like male anatomy explodes and kills her.
---Iowa plan crashes after dumping pink liquid at a gender reveal party
---Texas plan crashes following a request to fly very low for gender reveal party
---Grandpa hit in the face with pitch of baseball full of blue powder
---In Philly fireworks were hung from an outdoor clothes drying rack spewing fireworks into the crowd causing burn casualties.
---Father-to-be breaks ankle kicking football full of pink powder
---Mom-to-be pitches to Dad-to-be and is hit in the face with the pitch
---Iowa man used tannerite to reveal a baby girl and the resulting explosion is felt two miles away.
---And lest you think it is just "us" in Australia a car revealed blue smoke which quickly turned to fire and black smoke.
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I bet none of those made it on America's Funniest Videos.
 
oleada said:
Gender reveals are dumb. Aside from you and your close family, no one cares.

That said, there’s totally valid reasons to find out the sex od your baby while pregnant. I really, really wanted to have a girl and I wanted to know the sex in case it was a boy, so I could get used to the idea. And of course, it was a boy and i was able to process my feelings about it while pregnant snd be totally happy about it when he was born.
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I think this is a good point. I also really, really wanted a girl, and I remember having a brief moment of alarm when I got pregnant with twins and for a moment realized they could both be boys. :eek: If they had been 2 boys, I think it would've been super helpful to have the rest of the pregnancy to come to terms with that, as you did.

Factoid: When I said to my husband, "What if they're both boys?" he just said, "I think they're girls." And he was right. ;)
 
Susan1 said:
I bet none of those made it on America's Funniest Videos.
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Probably not but the Philly party was minor burns and I think I just want to see this....hanging firecrackers on a rotating, outdoor clothes line---what could possibly go wrong?
 
We knew the sex of our middle son because I was in the hospital for pregnancy complications and was having 3 times a week US to check on the health of the placenta.

I'm not sure I could have handled knowing son #3 was son. I wanted a daughter, but once I had delivered and held him the thought left. I think I would have not be thankful for a healthy boy if I knew before.
 
I figured if strangers knew and it was in my chart, I might as well know too. I do think it made the baby more real for me.

There are so many uncertainties around having a baby that having one more didn't seem to me like it would add to my experience. Plus the tests can be wrong so there still is some "is it really a girl/boy?" suspense to be had.
 
MacMadame said:
I figured if strangers knew and it was in my chart, I might as well know too. I do think it made the baby more real for me.

There are so many uncertainties around having a baby that having one more didn't seem to me like it would add to my experience. Plus the tests can be wrong so there still is some "is it really a girl/boy?" suspense to be had.
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For son #1 and #3, I didn't have US. No one knew sex until the moment of birth.
 
once_upon said:
For son #1 and #3, I didn't have US. No one knew sex until the moment of birth.
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These days pretty much everyone gets US though. It was only starting to be that way for my kids but I had a medical reason to get an US for the first one and, for the second one, I had amniocentesis because I was "ancient."
 
Two of my daughters and my DIL were all expecting around the same time and live close to each other in the states. In the local mall they had a commercial ultrasound place that for a fee told you the gender and provided 3D pictures. I was visiting and offered to pay for this if they wanted to do it. Huge mistake!! We made a day of it and all 3 had the gender revealed to them and all 3 were expecting boys. This was a 2nd boy for my DIL and 1st child for the other two. My DIL was sobbing and one of my daughter's husbands was very disappointed which he did not even attempt to hide. In other words - a disaster - but not really as the babies were all growing and developing well. They are now turning 14 years old this spring. My conclusion - I should stay out of it - which I have since.
 
We adopted so we didn’t know gender or age (just younger than 2 as that is the age that we were approved for) until there was a child matched to us.

Our agency told us to expect a 2 year old and we nearly went into shock when we learned we were matched with a 7 month old.

Biggest and best surprise of my entire life.

We had fun buying stuff once we found out. :lol:
 
I got a text from my sister with a gender reveal for her daughter's child. Husband loves golf and he hit a 'golf' ball that exploded in pink power. It was cute and no one was hurt. And we are all happy about the baby girl - she has two older brothers!
 
MacMadame said:
These days pretty much everyone gets US though. It was only starting to be that way for my kids but I had a medical reason to get an US for the first one and, for the second one, I had amniocentesis because I was "ancient."
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You don't need to wait for the anatomy ultrasound to know the gender these days. You can have non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) and know if there's high risk for any trisomies and the gender in the first trimester. There's also a commercial product called the Sneak Peek, which you can even do at home and learn the sex as early as 8 weeks. I did the former and we knew Baby Oleada was a boy by the time I was 12 weeks pregnant.
 
The sad thing is these "gender reveal parties" may be the millennial's greatest societal contribution to date.

MacMadame said:
I read the article and it sounds like the dude has a cannon he liked to shoot that blew apart because it was old and not properly inspected or maintained.
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How peculiar. Fortunately,Mr. Bottems certainly knows how to aptly handle a cannon— and realizes meticulous upkeep is of paramount importance.

-BB
 
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oleada said:
Gender reveals are dumb. Aside from you and your close family, no one cares.

That said, there’s totally valid reasons to find out the sex od your baby while pregnant. I really, really wanted to have a girl and I wanted to know the sex in case it was a boy, so I could get used to the idea. And of course, it was a boy and i was able to process my feelings about it while pregnant snd be totally happy about it when he was born.
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If people want to find out the gender for whatever reason, then I say go ahead, but there are certain situations where it's incredibly valid. The husband of one of my good friends has a rare genetic disorder that is passed through the X chromosome, so when she was pregnant they needed to find out if they were having a girl so they could prepare for any complications and start getting appointments lined up with specialists.

My brother's 'gender reveal' was a 10 second video posted on facebook, zooming in on the ultrasound photo saying 'baby boy coming this fall'
 
Yes, there's an important difference between finding out the baby's gender for purposes like party planning, and in finding out the baby's gender for medical reasons. I don't think anyone is saying that all prenatal gender reveals should be banned.

Having seen a friend with genetic issues in their family history go through pre-natal gender testing twice for that reason, I wouldn't wish that kind of stress on anyone. Thankfully both children turned out to be the gender that didn't carry the genetic problem. If the children had been the other gender, then their parents would have had some very difficult decisions to make :(
 
I like the cake idea. Maybe don't have parties where things explode or crash or blow up.

When my ex-husband's daughter was pregnant, we did the ring over the stomach thing. It was wrong. ha ha
 
Gender reveal parties are fine with me as long as they're not made out to be ridiculously elaborate. Then it's just an annoying ego party for the parents-to-be.

Just like parents who plan a first birthday party for baby, at a country club with a parade, clowns, carnival rides, etc. A birthday that no 1-year-old will ever remember.
 
Cachoo said:
There are ways to do gender reveal parties that don't have to involve accidents and death. I think they are silly anyway but here are some of the bad ones:

---Firefighter dies from burns after gender reveal party ignites the El Dorado fire
---Iowa grandma (to be) dies when a pipe bomb is inadvertently made to look like male anatomy explodes and kills her.
---Iowa plan crashes after dumping pink liquid at a gender reveal party
---Texas plan crashes following a request to fly very low for gender reveal party
---Grandpa hit in the face with pitch of baseball full of blue powder
---In Philly fireworks were hung from an outdoor clothes drying rack spewing fireworks into the crowd causing burn casualties.
---Father-to-be breaks ankle kicking football full of pink powder
---Mom-to-be pitches to Dad-to-be and is hit in the face with the pitch
---Iowa man used tannerite to reveal a baby girl and the resulting explosion is felt two miles away.
---And lest you think it is just "us" in Australia a car revealed blue smoke which quickly turned to fire and black smoke.
Click to expand...
My question is... what's wrong with Iowans? Lol!
 
overedge said:
You mean, someone having a party to announce that they're transitioning? That seems like a great reason for a celebration!
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No it's more like they're "reborn" as their new gender. Old pictures are burned and they wear diapers and even have a simulated birth. People buy gifts for the transitioning individual. I went to one once -- it was a bit quirky but sweet.
 
I love it because it's celebrating a fresh start, a new beginning. Transgender people need all the love and support too!
 
Gender reveal parties her fetuses are gender essentialist. Also how many parties does one person need before they have a baby? You know these gender reveal people are also having baby showers. Finding out what junk a baby happens to have is not a good reason for a party. I totally get why it’s interesting for the pregnant person and close friends and family. Pregnancy is a long wait! You might want to know as much about your new little person as you can. But it doesn’t need a party.

Gender reveal parties for a transgender person are awesome. I support these wholeheartedly. A transgender person coming out and getting to live as the gender that is right for them definitely deserves a celebration. From now on, all gender reveals should be for trans and NB people.
 
I am not in that demographic really but I am around a lot of female coworkers, many of whom were pregnant at some point during my tenure there. I can’t remember one of them ever talking about a gender reveal party. They talk about showers (we do those at work). I can’t remember any of my friends doing them but they are perhaps too old for them.

Is it just an American thing? I mean, I have FB friends who announce the gender of their baby but they don’t post photos of their gender reveal party.
 
manhn said:
Is it just an American thing? I mean, I have FB friends who announce the gender of their baby but they don’t post photos of their gender reveal party.
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It's a pretty new thing and a lot of people don't do them because they agree with us that they are stupid. :D
 
Another thing I noticed is that people tend to have baby showers before the baby arrive. Is that an American tradition? We like to have them after the baby is born so everyone can meet the baby.
 
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