Did you throw a gender reveal party?
I didn’t have a gender reveal party during either of my pregnancies, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted on my second one.
I had a lot of family living abroad at the time and I thought it would be cute to announce it to them with some sort of gender reveal video.
My daughter had other ideas though as she wouldn’t reveal what gender she was in any of our hospital scans until I was almost ready to pop, so we scrapped the idea.
It’s hard to believe that gender reveal parties have only been around the last ten years, as they have become such a huge trend, but the woman who started it all now says she wish she could take it all back.
Mum Jenna Karvunidis, who claims she coined the trend, is now outspoken on social media on the widespread trend of gender reveal parties and why she wishes that she’d never started it.
“Someone remembered it was me who “invented” the gender reveal party. I had written about my party on my blog and a parenting forum in July 2008. It was picked up when an interview with me was published in The Bump magazine and the idea kinda spread from there. I’ve got the article framed!
Anyway, I’ve felt a lot of mixed feelings about my random contribution to the culture.”
The mum and parenting blogger went on to say that she feels like the gender reveal trend has taken on a life of its own and that more emphasis is being put on who can have the biggest gender reveal rather than about celebrating the baby itself.
“It just exploded into crazy after that. Literally – guns firing, forest fires, more emphasis on gender than has ever been necessary for a baby.
Who cares what gender the baby is? I did at the time because we didn’t live in 2019 and didn’t know what we know now – that assigning focus on gender at birth leaves out so much of their potential and talents that have nothing to do with what’s between their legs.”
She also went on to say that it’s quite ironic that she threw the first gender reveal party for her eldest daughter as she now likes to style herself more androgynous and prefers wearing suits over dresses.
While I don’t think there is anything wrong with wanting to celebrate your pregnancy with family, I do agree with Karvunidis that gender reveals have gotten out of control.
Maybe just put the explosives down. A Piñata is one thing, but no one needs anything blowing up lads.
