@Massmomm I agree with you and think this is part of the Instagram crazy culture when every thing is orchestrated and photographed for all to see. I don’t get it. I’m clearly old.
There are all kinds of office dynamics.This brings back to 28 years ago, when I finally became pregnant. My office knew about my fertility troubles, and my surgeries, and lots of personal details. I worked there for 10 years and had plenty of close friends. No reveal (although I could have learned the sex of my D), but I fondly remember my office baby showers ( I had two, because I was teaching at a satellite office). I cherish the cards signed by everyone, some now deceased.
If I cared for the expectant co-worker, I’d support the festivities, but I can’t imagine caring about picking boy or girl. I wouldn’t use this situation as an opportunity to make a point. If I didn’t want to wear pink or blue I just wouldn’t. I doubt anyone else would care.
One thing I find odd about gender reveals-- and I must admit I’ve only seen them on TV; never actually been to one – is that regardless of whether it’s a boy or a girl, everyone is supposed to cheer and be excited. So why bother?
Another weird thing–obviously, at the office gender reveal, the parent must already know it, right? They’re not going to find out with their officemates. So it’s staged for the “edification” of the officemates. Because why just tell them, when you can make a pageant out of it ahead of time? I agree with the comment that this is definitely part of the Instagram Era eventification of EVERYTHING.
@romanigypsyeyes I think you’d have been very uncomfortable in my parenting group discussions. We talked about how to change boy’s diapers to avoid getting sprayed, lots of discussion, pros and cons on male infant circumcision (both religious and cultural) and the best way to clean uncircumcised boys, and issues with undescended testicles. The hazards of Mr. Bubble Bubble Bath for little girls, discussion about setting up saving accounts for future weddings while they were newborns.
I never had a gender reveal party but I did learn all my children’s sex very early on, it really helped, especially with the third to know if the baby would be moving into my son’s room or my daughter’s room. Then there were the potty training discussion, teaching boys to “aim” and if it was acceptable to just send them out back to pee on a tree, and how to handle situations when kids “discovered” their genitalia. I’ve got to say we were a pretty open group of moms and I learned a lot from the different points of view.
@3scoutsmom In my house, that was referred to as “tee tee tree.” As my son and husband were alway out exploring, finding an opened bathroom close by wasn’t always easy.
@gtalum, I hope it went ok today, whatever you decided to do.
From an contributing opinion writer at the NY Times who is transgender:
Why Are Gender Reveal Parties a Thing?
They say a lot more about our culture than they do about the sex of our soon-to-be children.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/opinion/gender-reveal-party.html
@3scoutsmom – That’s a bit of a misreading of what @romanigypsyeyes said. Those meetings, obviously, are discussions of various baby issues concerning various babies, which each person in the room has one of. GR parties are a a bunch of people learning about ONE baby’s genitalia. So I think her comment still stands. And to say she’d be made “uncomfortable” just continues the disingenuous misreading.
My gender reveal party story…
A young relative was expecting her first child and was thrown a gender reveal baby shower by her mom. I had a great time at the party and enjoyed holding the very young babies of a few of her college friends. The baby was a boy, so all the food was blue. Unfortunately, a few hours after I got home I started breaking out in a full body rash. My first thought was, "Oh no! I spent the day circulating among pregnant women and tiny babies. Have I just exposed them all to chicken pox or some other communicable disease? I rushed off to my dermatologist, who after an exam and a lot of questions about what I’d been doing in the previous 24 hours, learned about the shower and said, “It was a boy, wasn’t it?” “How did you know?” I responded. The answer was “Blue food dye.” Apparently blue dye is a common allergen but most of us never ingest enough to react to it. A lunch composed of foods soaked in blue dye had overloaded my system, thus the mystery rash!
From a sociological perspective, this whole conversation is loaded.
@Sue22, not to minimize your rash reaction, but worse things have happened at gender reveal parties: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/border-patrol-agent-pleads-guilty-starting-wildfire-fire-gender-reveal-n915441
Ok @garland @romanigypsyeyes please clarify would you be uncomfortable talking with other parents about various issues about your own child’s genitailia or are you just uncomfortable sharing with your friends and love ones what kind of gentitailia your expected child has?
I still don’t get what’s “creepy” about telling people you expect a male or female child. It’s the parents choice to share that information or not, the OP can participate in the gender reveal party or not, their choice
Because some people don’t think genitalia determines whether one is male or female or whatever. And they won’t identify for the child until it decides.
@garland The parents don’t necessarily know. The sonographer writes down the gender and puts it in a sealed envelope. The envelope is then given to a neutral party to make the blue or pink whatever’s.
I totally believe in letting people just be who they are. Transgenders are who they want to be and absolutely should be treated with respect. By that same token let parents be who they are and celebrate however they want. Having a gender reveal party is in no way disrespectful to someone who is transgender.
Take part or don’t just keep your opinions to yourself. They are not harming anyone.
One of the articles linked above insinuated that if someone transitions as a Young adult, that transition will be made more difficult if the parents celebrated their gender when the child was in utero. That is just laughable.
@bhs1978 --right. I know that. My point is that the original reveal for the parent is not happening at the office party. do you honestly think that that is where they’re going to find out themselves, not with a party that includes both of them and their friends and family, not their colleagues?
@3scoutsmom – I can’t clarify because I don’t know where you’re getting this “discomfort” topic from in the first place?
@garland. I understand now what you were trying to say.
@lookingforward so what do they put on the birth certificate? “other” ?? My kids have college age friends that can’t figure out how they “identify” seems like a lot to ask of a small child to figure out.
This strikes me as a very weird thing to do. Sure, the child may grow up and decide to switch their gender, or dye their hair and change their eye color, or decide they don’t want anything to do with their family. You can change many things in life but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t acknowledge being born with some of them.
I’m personally we didn’t know the gender of either of our kids till birth. I do think that imho, there’s just too much oversharing and too much making everything a huge deal. If I were in the office, I’d probably wear something neutral or both pink and blue (pink shirt and blue slacks).
We used a lot of primary colors with both our kids. Both D and S like all colors. I often give bright primary colored baby gifts.
Wow—will watch out for blue food coloring!