Gender reveal nonsense

[my3bears]

This whole make a big thing with a gender reveal - glitter, balloons, cakes with coloured centres etc

Then the parents act all surprised 😱

Isn't the biggest 'gender reveal' just to wait until they are born???

This really flipping irritates me and it's so American.

Just watched the LaBrant Family gender reveal (it came up on my timeline..why do I click on things that irritate me 😂) Boy it made my teeth itch!!

Aibu 🙄😂 anyone with me? Don't even get me started on baby showers....

I've been to one baby shower. It was okay - the mum to be was American and it was organised by another American friend. What was lovely about it was no-one knew the sex of the baby so all the gifts were gender-neutral.

A pp mentioned that knowing the sex of the baby early helped with buying things. How?

@PickleForPresident

"I don't understand why it being American is such a problem. What's with all the American hate on MN? I've been on here for a few years but it seems to be getting progressively worse."

inorite? My favourite bit is how the mods do nothing about it.

I'm American I have an obscenely large family, loads of babies over the years, and not one single gender reveal party ever. I've never known anyone that had one and I've been to a ton of baby showers. Which are actually a very lovely way to show support for people you care about.

I wouldn't attend a sex or gender reveal party but don't begrudge those who have them, even if I personally find them odd.

"A pp mentioned that knowing the sex of the baby early helped with buying things. How?"

It helps if you want to save money by buying second-hand clothes off eBay and gumtree. It takes time to find the right bundles at the best prices. There are very very very few gender neutral bundles, so it's easier to search by boy or girl. There were gender neutral clothes within those bundles but in our case lots of pink as well.

We found out the sex by CVS testing so didn't have to worry about the sex being incorrect from a scan.

I don’t like it either, other than immediate family (and often not even then) no one really cares what sex someone else’s baby is.

This is probably outing but my brother and his tacky AF wife had one

Except they clearly didn't have a very good baker, so when they cut into the cake, it was green
And thankfully, someone captured the exact moment she did a 'huh?' confused face, while he did a 'why the fuck did I go along with this' eyeroll

There’s a great episode of “Sex and the City” where Carrie adds up how much she’s spent celebrating just one friend’s life choices.

Here in the UK that could be an engagement gift, a hen do somewhere expensive, a wedding gift, balloons and random tat for a sex reveal, a baby shower, a gift when baby is born and then repeat the last three for every subsequent child.

I honestly find it tacky and the height of self indulgence. Nobody but the parents (and possibly grandparents) give enough of a fuck to watch people gurning as they cut a cake/spray coloured silly string/let balloons out of a box/fire confetti everywhere.

I had a baby shower with my youngest, it was organised by my mother and sister in law. Nothing big, just nice and simple, closest family and friends round, had a book and everyone wrote little messages in there that she can read when she's older

Tacky and the height of self indulgence 🤣 c’mon.

I love American traditions, particularly the way everything is celebrated. It’s so positive and family oreintated. We should have more!

It’s social media culture ‘init’ if your event isn’t on there then your life isn’t real.

Best hen do I went on was pub crawl, all chipped in together all people who was relevant to bride traveled up. Not one person moaned about wedding aboard and all travelled up forpiss-up wedding after party few weeks later.

I’m more bothered by the posting of photo announcements of baby’s arrival of just a fucking hand.

Thankfully I had Bounty club prey on me in my delirious state and take picture of my Puffed up squashed looking tomatoe newborn to post out to rest of world.

That SATC episode was on the money. I can't see a gender reveal getting an easy ride from them either!

Anyone remember the season 1 episode with the baby shower from Hell? They weren't too keen on the woman throwing it, felt pressured to buy her a naff gift, didn't know any of her mommy friends, put up with bitchy comments and then she stole Charlotte's precious baby name.

It was satire/purposely awful but again, it looked bang on the money.

I am so watching SATC this afternoon now.

Definitely not my thing but I really can't be bothered to worry about what other people want to do, this is one of those things that really doesn't harm anyone else. If you are invited to one then just don't go, personally if it was a close friend I cared about I would go, baby showers the same.

@PaulHollywoodsSexGut me too! Both episodes mentioned here are very good.

That SATC episode where her shoes get nicked at the baby thing is one of my favourites.

We found out the sex but we didn't 'reveal' it in any way. I'm not sure it's really that exciting to anyone other than us. Plus I quite enjoy spending time with friends and not talking about baby stuff whenever possible – I get my fix of baby chat from MN and other online spaces but try to avoid it as much as I can elsewhere in my 'offline' life, including Facebook etc., as it's a) not very interesting to me to keep talking about it and b) not very interesting to most other people.

Genuinely lolling at the green cake though. I'd actually go to a 'gender' reveal if it turned out the couple were having an alien.

I'd love to see a purposely green one. Someone being deliberately gender neutral to troll & kill the non-event.

I'd personally like to open a gender-reveal balloon box and find a kitten instead. DP wants a puppy

This feels like one of those things that people complain about as part of the whole "what is this world coming to?" thing, but rarely ever actually happens. I don't know anyone who's had one, and I'm early-30s and swamped by people having babies at the moment.

If you hate it then don't go, bitching about what other people want do with their lives when it's harmless... 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 your such nice people... NOT!

It makes me cringe. What does it matter to anyone whether a couple is having a boy or a girl? They are having a baby which is a reason to celebrate of course. I understand that a couple might have a preference for a particular sex, of course, and that doesn’t make them bad people. For everyone else, it shouldn’t matter, but obviously does as evidenced by the sort of comments people get when they have all same sex children.

‘Oh, will you try again for a boy?’

‘All boys! You’ve got your hands full’ etc

It’s all just gender stereotype bollocks, isn’t it? Women who buy into/enjoy performing femininity night prefer to have a girl so they have ‘someone to go shopping with’; some men want a boy they can play football with.... this is all the sort of stuff that is inextricably linked with ‘gender reveal parties’. Many of the videos have this underlying vibe about which parent ‘wins’ by getting the ‘gender’ that’s the same as their own. It’s really fucking weird, IMO, and exactly the kind of stuff we should be trying to dismantle.

I have never been invited to a party to find out whether someone’s unborn child has XX or XY chromosomes, but if I did, I would try to politely decline.

I really don't see why people make such a big thing about the sex of a baby. It's like having an eye colour reveal.

Caprisunorange

Laugh at me all you want, I stand by what I said!

I see it all the time on Instagram. People (not bloggers or "influencers", just normal people) will post over and over - "watch this space for our BIG REVEAL!" - trying to whip people into a frenzy about what sex their baby will be. Then it's a naff video of their family spraying them with blue or pink silly string

@RedDrink @PickleforPresident the attitude has put me off living here at times. I came to Mumsnet because we were thinking about TTC but also because I've been lonely and wanted to get to know the culture here in the UK. I've met some posters on here who seem to be nice but I wonder if they're insulting Americans in other threads, since it's such a great pastime.

I've never heard of anyone having one, but it sounds a bit daft. Parties for everything nowadays.

How could the parents not know the sex of the baby though? Would the hospital really tell a third part instead?

Private scan places offer various things you can get, like a confetti cannon, sealed envelope, etc.

Oh right, thanks.

Kescilly, I hope you choose to stick around. There are occasionally lazy stereotypes about Americans that get trotted out on here. It’s actually aspects of American culture that are usually being critiqued, rather than Americans themselves but I agree that some people make some very sweeping and unkind remarks. I’ve met enough Americans to know that not all match the stereotypes.

For what it’s worth, a huge part of our culture is dry and cynical humour, which we apply to ourselves as much as others. Don’t mind us too much, and feel free to tell us to ‘bugger off’ if we’re being arrseholes 😬