AIBU to be upset at my DF over my gender reveal

[Denise3011]

I have a child and when my husband & I Were expecting we found out the sex.
However at the time my DF was very opinionated & instead of saying “I’d rather you didn’t find out, but it’s your choice”
He called us silly etc for being unable to wait for a surprise and said there was no reason to know and it was wrong etc. He went on to say he categorically did not want to know before the birth and we were not to tell him.
We live very close and this led us to having a very stressful few months as we did find out (as we wanted to) and then had to try and hide it from him, lie to other family that we didn’t know and ask the few people we did tell (my mum, best friend etc) to keep the secret.
But we did it and he got his way and he knew the day our DC was born.
Fast forward a few years & I’m expecting again.
I said from the start that we were finding out this time and that I wanted a little dinner to celebrate the news with family.
second baby has been a long time coming!
Again DF said he didn’t want to know but I was firmer this time & said we were finding out & making it public.
I thought he would just accept that we respected his decision the first time, but this time we were doing what suited us.
Instead he refused to come to the ‘reveal party’ which led to me having to ask all family not to tell him & apologise for putting them all in that position.
I’ve since had to block him on social media because I’ve friends abroad who posted congrats etc.
AIBU to be really mad that once again he’s put his personal preference as priority regardless of our choice or how difficult it would make it for everyone else?

I should add he found out only a week later because a friend slipped up.
Now she feels awful, he’s not happy he knows and I’m left feeling angry that he made such a fuss over a decision that was not his to make.

Your father is being a diva.

And so are you OP.

"Doesn't matter what's between its legs" Why bother finding out if the baby is a boy or a girl before they are born then?! I found out on my first. My daughter. Funnily enough I didn't rush out to buy pink clothes and accessories

I just do not get this wanting to know the sex of a child before its born
What should be the greatest reveal of your life is spoiled by doing this, and a reveal party, ffs is this another American import
So you don't get it but there's no need to be all'ffs' about it. Some people really enjoy knowing.
You do it your way and let others do their thing with out being all sneery about the Americans!
I

'Gender reveal party'

Eeeeuuuu what did that entail?

Ugh

I bet you will have a baby shower with guests bringing tacky nappy cakes etc....

Grim

Your dad probably finds it all grim too though

Your poor DF OP. He sounds like my kind of guy.

Gender reveals are just so so naff. I don’t get it all! I’ve been invited to an online broadcast of one by a relative living abroad, which to me is a new height of narcissism.
Our lives are so lacking in real, genuine mystery of the good kind I cannot for the life of me fathom why people are so keen to do this.

Anyway each to their own but I can totally understand why your DF feels the way he does.

You're both being ridiculous. He can't demand that you keep it a secret. No matter what you say to the contrary, it IS totally naff to have a sex reveal party and I would be making my excuses too.

You want people to know? Just tell them without all the fanfare. Including your father.

Are gender reveal parties actually a thing?

Thought they were an urban myth, not sure I could keep a straight face if I was invited to one 😂

Are gender reveal parties actually a thing?

Thought they were an urban myth, not sure I could keep a straight face if I was invited to one 😂
Another one!
All they are is Friends and family having a gathering and fun together and there is a revel.
Same with a baby shower. They are usually organized by a friend and involve cake. What's so bad about that!
It's a bit of harmless fun and can be a nice thing for the mum to be
The baby showers h e been nice and relaxed and we've normally bought mum some nice body creams and sprays and little things she likes.
Why put people's pleasures down. It just make you sound like Hyacinth Bucket!

With the posts so far, gender reveal celebration is ridiculous. Pips the post being worse than babyshowers.and they are awful. DF is being unreasonable, just don't tell him. He will no doubt learn through others' chat and be cross with them instead of directly with you.

Gender reveal parties weren't a thing when mine were little but it sounds like a harmless bit of fun. I'd be happy to be invited to one as anyone i like enough to be invited to one by I'd be interested to know what they were having and i like socialising with friends and family. People get a bit cat bum mouthed at anything that's not traditional

Your df is pathetic. That said, I don’t get why it was stressful to keep it a secret from him. My XP didn’t want to know, neither did Xmil. So, I told my family and friends and told them not to tell him. End of story.

I’m with the opinion that gender reveal/ baby shower parties are tacky. However, your baby, do what you what and congratulations

Honestly , you both sound like a pair of drama queens . Just tell him the sex and move on

*want.
My baby is 18 this year so I was fortunate to just miss the social media age. Wtim, I can understand how keeping the secret could be more of a problem.

As for everyone saying gender reveal parties are stupid - all OP said she wanted was a little dinner with family to celebrate. I can't see anything wrong with that!

Exactly. Nothing at all wrong with that-the baby’s been a long time coming, for whatever reason, and clearly finding out if it’s a boy or a girl and celebrating with family is important to the OP. She referred to it as a ‘gender reveal party’ in quotes, sp I took this to mean it wasn’t an OTT ‘tacky’ one-although again, each to their own. She’s already had the party, DF didn’t attend, but found out accidentally a week later through a friend. Cue pages and pages of people piling on to express their distaste at such a party when really all the OP wanted was to express her frustration at how difficult he had made keeping it a secret. OP, it’s done now, you did your absolute best for him not to know-him knowing now isn’t through your doing, so don’t worry about it. He’ll get over his annoyance and move on.

notacooldad any baby shower I've heard of is about presents for the baby and sometimes the Mam. I've not heard of any that are just friends and a cake

And don't even get me started on the self righteous line of 'cake smashes are wrong when there are starving people' - I assume such people only ever eat to live, never have cake or wine or chocolate, you know food/drink that is purely consumed for enjoyment? With a cake smash the enjoyment is watching the child or the photos, with the pudding the enjoyment is purely the taste, it's still technically wasting food just getting different enjoyment from it.

While I understand to a point, I don't agree that it's quite the same thing. The best comparison I can think of is taking photos of yourself in fancy clothes setting fire to a bunch of £50 notes. Yes, technically it's no more wasteful than spending the money on something frivolous (in fact, it would be better for the environment just to burn the notes rather than spend them on plastic items, for example!) but a lot of people will find it distasteful nonetheless.

@Valanice1989 no it's not the same, unless you get some specific enjoyment in burning money. It's not wasteful if you are getting enjoyment from it. Once everyone is clothed and fed, and all bills are paid, the only point in money is for enjoyment. Some might not get why others enjoy it but that really is none of their business unless they are stumping up the money themselves.
Personally, I don't get the enjoyment in going to a fancy restaurant and eating fancy food, I'm happy cooking at home or getting a take away but I don't get on my soap box and start preaching about what a terrible waste of money when there are homeless people and people on the breadline.

You are both being a little unreasonable.

no it's not the same, unless you get some specific enjoyment in burning money. It's not wasteful if you are getting enjoyment from it.

But some people do enjoy burning money. Weren't there stories about David Cameron (or one of his friends) doing just that for a laugh during their student days?

The reason people don't like that is that though is it looks like they are saying they are sooo rich money doesn't matter. But that's not what people are doing with smashes, it's not 'I've literally got so much money I can waste it on anything' is it? It's just them choosing to spend money on something they get enjoyment from, much like a big holiday or a new car. I don't go out to the pub or buy designer clothes but if I had £800 spare to spend, I would choose a photo shoot of some kind because that's what I like

When I used to work in Gynae, one of my consultants was completely baffled by not just the expectation to find out, but the referring to the 20 week anomaly scan as 'the scan to find out the sex'; she was quite cross about it, as she felt very strongly they should be wanting to find out whether the baby was likely to survive the next 20 weeks, rather than focusing upon which colour babygros to buy.

I think she'd be horrified by these parties, as it puts an expectation to plan a party and increases the 'positive excitement' for people just at the point they could be about to find out that the celebration was permanently cancelled - and that she delivered enough premature and stillborn babies during her career to think that it's far too soon to be having parties.

I'm not quite so serious about it. But I don't try to peek inside presents on December 18th to see whether it's something I wanted or not, either.

The reason people don't like that is that though is it looks like they are saying they are sooo rich money doesn't matter. But that's not what people are doing with smashes, it's not 'I've literally got so much money I can waste it on anything' is it?

But it is sending out the message that food is so plentiful that you don't even need to feed it to your children, just let them play with it. Maybe I'm being too harsh, though.

When I used to work in Gynae, one of my consultants was completely baffled by not just the expectation to find out, but the referring to the 20 week anomaly scan as 'the scan to find out the sex'; she was quite cross about it, as she felt very strongly they should be wanting to find out whether the baby was likely to survive the next 20 weeks, rather than focusing upon which colour babygros to buy.

I read about a survey showing that 60% of mums-to-be believe the PURPOSE of the 20-week scan is to find out the baby's sex! It's surreal. Apart from anything else, why would the NHS provide those scans unless it was medically necessary?

He is being unreasonable. Utterly.

I’m not without sympathy for him though. The fact that OP isn’t on here complaining about the slagging he’s giving her for the gender reveal antics suggests he hasn’t lost all self control.

@MitziK I think the vast majority of people would be far more devastated to find out there was something wrong with baby than if it was 'the wrong sex'. I don't think getting excited about finding out means they care less about baby's health but I don't see the point of constantly assuming things will go wrong either. There is nothing wrong with concentrating on the positives. I spent my whole pregnancy worrying 3rd time round and it did me no good at all.
I found out 1st and 2nd time and didn't 3rd time as by that point I had one of each so had stuff for both sexes anyway. There were pluses and negatives both way round but neither is wrong, it isn't wrong to want to celebrate rather that worry