To judge gender disappointment?

[illstayinthepoolanddrown]

When that person has a baby gender reveal party?

I’ve seen (from both parents) where after the reveal and everyone is cheering they are stood there miserable, or they’ve started crying and even seen some where they walk off.

The worst one I’ve just seen was twins and it was blue confetti first and the mum just shrugged and everyone looked awkward, second confetti was pink and she’s screaming and jumping with joy. How horrible for that little boy to maybe one day see that video.

I do think gender disappointment is valid and I’m sure most who feel it wish they didn’t. I just don’t get why you’d put yourself in that situation to be the centre of attention when it could turn out pretty bad.

Me too, I spend a lot of time with my husband's parents but barely see my mum.

I never heard of gender disappointment before MN. It seems to be a certain type of person that "suffers" with it and thankfully I don't know any in RL.

Yup I had a mc and struggled TTC for a long time. We had a scan just me and DH and I cried after when it was a boy. I was so ashamed I felt like that. Actually if you ever asked me when I was younger (and naive) I’d have said I’d like a boy first then a girl (well aware now you cannot choose this) so even though I got what I wanted I still felt that for a little bit. I think it was being an only child and being a girl who is close to my mum as a female you feel a bit sad you won’t have that and might not ever and also being just me and my mum growing up I thought I didn’t know what to do with boys. My 5 month old is lying next to me sleeping and I love him with every single part of me and have since the second he was born and I cannot imagine him being anything else. Now if I have a second I genuinely wouldn’t mind. Maybe slight sadness at never experiencing a daughter but I would also now be sad if my boy never got to experience a brother. But yes why do people have parties and film and then post their awful reactions on Facebook!

Oh honey

Here is where you seem confused

It's not up to you to decide what is a valid contribution to a thread or not

Hope that's helped

Yawn 🥱

@JurrasicCazza same. Ridiculous thing who even cares?

Exact same here. I'm not sure I've ever seen a video of the mother being the 'disappointed' one. Only ones where the children are (varies depending on that child's own sex) and the dad's throwing an almighty tantrim because it's a girl.

Evidently Google analytics is filtering so well it only shows specific gender reveal videos.

I don't see the stupid videos any more thankfully (still don't know why I used to get so many of these gender reveal videos suggested to me. Never sought them out.) After I manged to clear them off I ended up being show heaps of 'big family' ones for reasons unknown

(Think they were equally irritating. A couple with hoding a baby. Stupid sounding voice saying "is that your first baby" couple do pantomine style laughing and then 700 children (often dressed similar) appear from out of shot. I cleared off these and now get shown videos of people who sold everything and live travelling around in massive RVs. Why?!!)

I think gender disappointment is a real and valid feeling. There's no point shaming someone for it. However I think it's something that should probably be felt privately or discussed discreetly. I certainly wouldn't be having a massive gender reveal if I knew I was going to be upset at the 50/50 likelihood of me not getting what I want. I cringe when I see videos of people stropping, walking off or the most recent one, launching the canon at her partner as if it's his fault she got a boy not a girl!

I just think it would be awful for the child to see that when they're older. If you know you're going to be disappointed then don't hold a massive party to make everyone feel awkward at it. Idiots.

I judge people who are disappointed in their babies gender. If you are going to be upset that your baby has the wrong genitals then you shouldn't have a baby in the first place. Get a doll to dress up instead. No doubt I'll get slated for that opinion and told gender disappointment is a valid thing. I read a thread in here once where the OP said they had upsetting news at the 20 week scan, the baby wasn't her preferred sex. Needless to say she was put in her place by women who had genuinely terrible news at their scan.

The worst is when I hear grandparents upset that their soon to be grandchild isn't a particular sex. If anyone had shown disappointment that my daughter was a girl, I would have found that hard to forgive and told them not to bother meeting her if they feel that way.

Just my opinion though, no doubt others have different ones.

I’m the second daughter of my parent’s marriage and I’m pretty sure my dad would have preferred me to be a boy. He was really sporty and had this preconceived idea of how his son would be and all the things they’d do together……

I once joked to my dad that I bet he was gutted when I popped out. He denied it of course but also laughed and I could tell he probably had…..it didn’t upset me at all though because I know he didn’t love me less because I was a girl. I’m not offended at all that he was hoping for a boy when my mom was pregnant with me and I know he doesn’t have life-long disappointment in me because he didn’t get what he “wanted”.

As it is he ADORES my husband and he treats him like the son he never had, and I have two sons and he loves out through them what he had imagined having a son would be. The three of them have a great relationship and are always out doing things together which are mostly sport related and “laddish” things.

Do I buy into the whole, “A daughter is a daughter for life, a son is a son until he meets a wife”…..I know it’s anecdotal stories but in my experience I would say that sadly it is quite common for men to be more distant from their mothers when compared to women.

Saying that though, my mum has an awful relationship with her mother, and I feel closer in some ways to my dad.

However, my mum still makes a point of regularly visiting and phoning her mum, as do I with mine, but I think that’s where men and women differ.

I think women feel more obligated to tolerate bad familial relationships and perhaps feel a burden when it comes to staying close to family members where relationships aren’t great, whereas I think men seem to have the freedom enough to just walk away without feeling bad about it.

I imagine a lot of that is social conditioning though and the expectations we have of the certain sexes which leads us straight back to the issues behind gender reveal parties.

I don’t think short lived disappointment in your baby’s sex is unusual or abhorrent, but its the idea of forced personality traits and characteristics being foisted upon an unborn baby that sits uneasy with me.

Does it?

Also why have you used therm "Karen", although by doing so you've made opinion of yours look irrelevant.

Oh my God. I always thought the happy couples knew the sex of their baby and were revealing it to other people! I didn’t realise it was a performative spectacle like that! Awful idea!

And yes, unless you know you will be delighted with either sex, and they must know if they have a preference, don’t have the party!

Yes it's all bollocks quite frankly. My younger brother was the closest of us to my mum. Some mother / daughter relationships are quite fraught in reality.

On the gender reveal thing I am quite nonplussed. I understand a lot of women dislike men , often with good reason. There's a thread on MN about it now and then. But if your baby boy is such a let down , maybe let someone more mature adopt him and get a hamster ?

I wouldn't call her a 'darling' mother or 'dear' for abandoning her child...

I think you missed the sarcasm.

@Abhannmor 🤣🤣 can't wait

How come your hospital won’t tell you the sex?!

So do I.

But they just had to squeeze in the anti-trans lecture just in case🙄

I don't judge the disappointment. People can't help their feelings. I do judge demonstrations of that disappointment for the same reasons you do. I can't understand why people who have such strong feelings about their baby's sex would want to find out in public.

But when I was at school Gender just meant Sex. Isn't it the trans lobby who want to distinguish or separate them , so they can be men and women without being male or female?
Anyway @crosstalk is referring to the twee pink x blue stuff and stereotypes I think. She doesn't mention trans.

Anyway @crosstalk is referring to the twee pink x blue stuff and stereotypes I think. She doesn't mention trans.

I don’t think it matters either way. It just wasn’t relevant to the conversation.
Posters like cross always make me think of characters like Uncle Colin on Derry Girls for some reason. ‘Oh god, here he comes…’ Massive buzz kill and conversation killer at any occasion.

Yes, I absolutely judge.

When I was pregnant with my first baby, my husband and I both had a slight preference for a girl but we found out he was a boy at the 20 week scan. It didn't take us long to get excited about having a boy. By the end of my pregnancy we couldn't wait to meet him, and he's the most gorgeous little boy, I can't imagine him being a girl.

I'm pregnant again and genuinely had no preference this time because all babies are wonderful.

Gender reveals are horribly tacky and there's so much potential for embarrassment if the parents are visibly disappointed. Someone I know filmed herself and her husband opening the card to find out what they were having. It turned out to be a third girl and their reaction was just...yikes.

Why would you put that on Instagram?

I was cringing.

As for the gender vs sex debate, when people talk about finding out their baby's gender they are using the word as a polite synonym for sex. Nobody wants to invite their grandma to a "sex reveal party" because it sounds like something that could get you arrested.

Most people use the word gender as a polite synonym for sex.

The people who use it differently are using it as a polite synonym for sexist stereotypes, which is much more problematic IMO.