Boy/ girl - why do people care so much?

[pinkwaffles]

We've decided not to find out the sex of our baby until s/he is born. It's our first and probably only.

I appreciate I'm probably in the minority but I have been fascinated by people's reactions to this.

'How will you be able to buy anything?' being a big one.

'You won't be able to have a gender reveal!' being another.

Honestly - I don't believe in gender reveals or pink for girls/ blue for boys anyway - but even if I did - there are other colours!

I don't think my newborn is really going to care whether they are dressed in 'gender appropriate' clothes, and I'm certainly not fussed, in fact I'd rather they weren't.

It's just winding me up partly because my mum is desperate to know and is pressuring us to change our minds.

What do you think? To me it's kind of the least important thing - as long as I have a healthy baby, I'm genuinely happy and I cannot relate to the 'which would you prefer?' question. How can you have a preference before they are even here and you can't possibly know who they are going to be?

I didn't find out either time. Both times I was utterly shocked it was a boy. I would have been equally as shocked if they were girls! 😀 It's the best bit about giving birth

@pinkwaffles I'm a ftm and couldn't care less, but my husband would really like to know. He genuinely doesn't have a preference, but when I asked he said it's because he likes to imagine what they'll be like as a person, and I can kind of see that.

My mum and SILs are all dying to know but my MIL is on my side 😂 She says by the time the baby's born the only real surprise is how much they weigh.

@pinkwaffles I'm a ftm and couldn't care less, but my husband would really like to know. He genuinely doesn't have a preference, but when I asked he said it's because he likes to imagine what they'll be like as a person, and I can kind of see that.

My mum and SILs are all dying to know but my MIL is on my side 😂 She says by the time the baby's born the only real surprise is how much they weigh.

@OptimisticRealist2024 my DH really wants to know too but I've told him it's my body, my choice! He's convinced himself it's a girl though, so has taken it upon himself to refer to the baby as "she" until proven otherwise 😂

Oh no you're one of them mums!! God help us all

What is one of those mums?

Weird take. There's mums out there on drugs and alcohol through pregnancy. Mums who abuse and neglect their kids, or turn a blind eye to their partners doing it. But sure, be offended by women who want to wait another 20 weeks to find out what their child's sex will be 🙄

I don’t believe in colours neither, nor gender reveals or baby showers (load of attention seeking American nonsense). I did find out because I wanted to sort of picture a future, make plans in my head. But DH and I kept the info to ourselves until the birth.

I found out with our first but didn’t with my second.

I’m was bothered by what I ended up with - as I already had a girl the amount of people saying I bet your hoping for a boy….as one of three girls and knowing what is was like for my youngest sister feeling like she should have been a boy - my parents genuinely didn’t care what they had, comments never came from them.

I have two girls couldn’t be two different children neither fit in a square box - we as parents have always kept every door for them to be what they want to be. Same with home life my husband shared equally responsibility of both home & bringing the children up. It doesn’t have to be all glitter and pink or all trains - they can have interests in both or neither!

I didn't find out with either of mine, I didn't mind what I had and I didn't want to agree a name before they were born. I think names should fit the child so we had a few options for both and decided once they were born.

I completely agree, I have 2 DDs and we didn't find out the sex of either, we preferred a surprise and also genuinely didn't mind either way.
Clothes were all neutral shades. They didn't fit for long anyway, and also I don't think it's in any way a problem if they wear the "wrong" colour.

Gender reveals are just awful!

Oh and I had two boys and they had some hand me downs that were girls but they didn't mind!!

@CharlieAndMoose That's a good argument!

We did that for a while - husband also convinced it's a girl and does also want it confirmed so he can gloat a little bit about having a sixth sense. 😂 But now we've got into a terrible habit of calling the baby "it", which I think is awful and hopefully doesn't mean we're psychopaths. 😬😬

I think I'll probably just find out because I feel a bit sorry for him having to wait another 20 weeks. I don't think I could wait 20 weeks to find something out if I was even a tiny bit curious. 😂 I feel quite lucky not to have a partner who will be disappointed with one over the other. He's curious about the gender, I'm really curious about their eye colour...😂

If (a big if) we have a second, I'm going to insist on not finding out, though. 😁

I didn’t find out the sex with my last but did with this one. I wanted to be able to tell my child the sex of their sibling when I inform them. Gender reveals are awful.. truthfully I don’t think anyone actually cares what sex your baby is apart from close family perhaps.

I've never had an opinion of anyone finding out the sex of their own baby, I'm always of the 'to each their own' mindset. But when I was pregnant and didn't want to know the sex I was absolutely baffled by the negativity I was met with. People genuinely couldn't get their heads around me not wanting to know. I had a friends husband once get fairly heated about it saying things like 'I just do not see one good reason as to why you wouldn't find out, it's stupid what you're doing.' Seriously?! I had to walk away from that one. Or another friend saying 'I could never dress my baby in white I think it's ridiculous to have no colour on them' ....umm babies can wear any colour you choose to put on them?? My newborn who turned out to be a boy wore an array of colours😅

So I guess my 'to each their own' attitude was not returned. I just always knew from when I was younger that I'd like to be surprised and I was happy I didn't find out. But honestly we all have different preferences so who cares what anyone else does, I just could not believe that people had such strong opinions when it came to MY unborn child.

FWIW that surprise on their birthday was just beyond magical to me, anyone who questions you just say you have your preference and will look forward to the biggest surprise of your life when they make their appearance 😊

I was super keen to find out, but not for some of the reasons that some people might be. For instance, I literally couldn't have cared less whether it was a boy or girl - the first time was a boy and I was ecstatic, the second time round we've found out we're having a girl and I'm equally as ecstatic. Also the gender reveal stuff is of no interest to me at all, I've never done this and would never consider it. My reasons were:

Labour and giving birth is such a blur, there's no time to savour finding out the sex until after, so I love the moment when you find out to be able to take it in without being distracted by exhaustion 😂
By nature I'm the most impatient person who ever lived!
I love thinking about names and having little personalised things ready for their birth
I'm not an all blue/all pink kind of person but yes I did buy cute little boy outfits prior to my son's birth and I've done the same for our upcoming daughter. I love browsing and seeing those tiny little outfits get delivered
I can visualise them more knowing the sex, I don't know why but it makes it easier to imagine them with little personalities. I.e with my son I wondered if he'd be very sporty and musically gifted like his dad and so far he's his absolute double, so I wonder whether our daughter will inherit any of my traits. Not bothered if they don't, but I enjoy musing about it by myself just for fun!
I love talking to my little boy about his upcoming little sister, even though he can't understand a word I'm saying!
I enjoy talking to my partner and telling him that once she's born, she and I along with our female dog will outnumber the males!

So yeah it's silly little things for me but I got to 37 childless after always dreaming of having a family, so these are the things I enjoy and aren't harming anyone, and I would love any child I had with all my heart regardless of their sex, it just makes the lead up even more exciting for me!

This is my second pregnancy and we will find out this time but we aren't telling anybody , it's just for ourselves. I've already had a friend get in a huff because I won't be telling her the sex of my child. When I explained that we aren't telling anybody that didn't satisfy her either. People get really over involved and possessive about other peoples pregnancies , it's beyond weird.

I've never understood why anyone would want anything to do with their baby to be a 'surprise'. It's a human being, not a birthday present. We do all these scans and tests so not wanting to know the sex is like not wanting to know if they've got club foot, or a high risk of Pataus etc. It's readily available information that helps you understand your baby better. Your mum should absolutely not be pressuring you to find out the sex if you don't want to, but this isn't a 'people' issue, it's a 'you and your mum' issue and something you need to discuss with her. Her reasons for wanting to know do not represent why the billions of women/people around the globe want to know their baby's sex. You can buy gender neutral clothes and colours, and gender reveal parties are very American - I haven't come across them so frequently in the UK and I hope this doesn't change. But then I think celebrating an unborn baby in any way is weird (e.g baby showers).

As for preference, of course some people will have a preference. People have preferences for houses, jobs, partners, friends, pets - it's reasonable to have a preference for a particular type of baby even if you have no control over it. Doesn't mean they will not love or care for their baby even it doesn't meet that preference. But many human beings like to imagine the future, and characterising their unborn baby into a narrative is a way of doing that - so all information that can form the narrative is important.

Each to their own. I don’t have the patience to wait for a ‘surprise’. I mean it’s not that big of a surprise it’s either going to be a boy or a girl. I wasn’t surprised at my gender scan lol. I also like to be organised, I also don’t want a neutral nursery I want one for boy or girl but that’s my personal preference. I’m not talking bright blue or pink but my son’s nursery definitely wasn’t what I’d call neutral.

I’d never ask anyone else if they know what they’re having though, it’s absolutely none of my business and I didn’t tell anyone what my last baby was nor will I with this one. Because the minute you give anyone information, it goes from asking what you’re having to what name you’ve picked and every other little detail they can obtain.

I also find neutral clothes aren’t all that neutral anymore. When I was pregnant with DS, before we knew he was a boy there was a lot of ‘neutral’ clothing that definitely wasn’t unisex imo.

Going against the grain, I didn’t find out because I did care. I did have a preference and I didn’t want to feel any sense of disappointment and then resulting guilt. I knew once I was handed an actual baby it wouldn’t matter as much.

We found out but quite late on (got them to write it in a card at 20 weeks and then read it together on our anniversary). We didn’t tell anyone for exactly this reason. I was convinced we were having a boy and husband convinced we were having a girl! (I think mainly because so many men said they hoped he had a boy and more women were pro girl to me so we both went the opposite way 😂). We have a gorgeous boy who wears mostly blue because it’s my favourite colour. If we have a girl next I’m sure she would rock those outfits too!

I’m not finding out either OP. I’d like to
find out at the birth (or just after, if things are a bit frantic!). It genuinely doesn’t matter to me either way, and we did IVF so I felt like I was inundated with clinical data from the moment of egg collection onwards. We thought, why not savour finding out this thing about them when we meet them?

I also CBA with people putting their gender stereotypes on my baby before he/she even exits my uterus, and if withholding that information prolongs that inevitability then all good as far as I’m concerned. I will dress my potato in clothes that are appropriate and practical for the temperature and situation, I don’t give a crap what colour they are or what print they have one.

I do totally sympathise with people who do choose to find out, however, because particularly after several failed rounds of treatment, once I saw a heartbeat on the 7 week scan I felt like I wanted to know everything I could! That feeling subsided by the 12 week scan so I didn’t find out in the end.

and yes, have had several comments from people about not finding out being a weird choice, but actually just as many people who seem to have found it sort of charmingly old fashioned 🤷🏼

What wasn't unisex about it?

I'm really interested in what makes it not OK for a newborn baby to wear one particular item of clothing or another.

They're so tiny and have no preference, how can it possibly matter if it's pink or blue or has a flower or a tractor on it?

Why on earth would not wanting to know the sex be the same as not wanting to know they have an anomaly? That's a very strange comment to make. There's nothing wrong with either gender, so why liken it to something wrong with the baby? Everyone's personal preference on whether or not to find out the sex is valid, some people won't agree with your thinking and you won't agree with theirs. The 'surprise' that you don't understand is really nice for some people. Not for others. Can you see how we all have different likes and dislikes? Sorry but it doesn't make your preference more valid than someone else's.

It's not that it's not ok to dress a baby in whatever clothing. The baby has no clue what it's wearing as along it's clean and comfortable, but I as a parent have (stronger than I expected) thoughts as to which baby clothes I do and don't like and dressing my baby in clothes I like is something which I'm looking forward to, so in that respect the clothes a baby wears do matter if it matters to their parent. To take it to the extreme, there are those hideous baby clothes which say 'my daddy only wanted a blowjob' and while the baby wouldn't know or care as long as they were comfortable, I don't think anyone would agree that's appropriate. Below that, some people care a lot a spend a lot of time on curating their child's clothes because they love it, and some people buy a huge clothes bundle and don't care what the clothes look like as long as they fit. Most fall somewhere in the middle and have preferences for what they do and don't like. My baby has no preference for the baby version of the Taylor Swift folklore cardigan I bought before we'd even conceived, but I do and that's ok.

As someone who isn't finding out the sex of their baby in part due to wanting to avoid gender expectations as long as possible I actually know what that poster means that no all neutral clothing feeling unisex. Adult clothes are very gendered and it makes sense that that trickles all the way down to newborn clothes in terms of style/ colours/ patterns. We live in such a gendered society that even though I dislike it, I'm part of it. I can't tell you why I feel that these fairly neutral baby grows look like boys clothes, they just do. And I've bought this for my baby which to me feels entirely neutral, but everyone I've seen mention it on TikTok has it in a baby boy list. The fact that you've called called out pink/ blue/ flower/ tractor as points shows awareness of gender expectations and how those apply to the clothes available for your baby - even if you personally disregard it.