They've ended in injuries, a wildfire and even death.
The woman who started the gender reveal party admits she wants the trend to end.
The woman who started the gender reveal party admits she wants the trend to end.
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🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00I don't ever want to shame anybody for having a party.
00:02I should feel the worst.
00:04Hello, I started this.
00:06If there's anybody who can say,
00:08hey, they're not cool anymore, it's me.
00:30The parties have really evolved into something that I never foresaw happening.
00:39I don't think anybody could have.
00:40They've really become dangerous.
00:42They've started to involve explosives, alligators,
00:47huge spectacles for people to unveil if their baby is a boy or a girl.
00:53So I had a blog since the early 2000s.
01:00By 2008, I had quite a following on my blog.
01:03So when I had my first, they call them gender reveal parties now,
01:07but that's not what I called it.
01:09When I had my first party with the cake, with the icing and the pink
01:13saying that we were having a girl, I did that for my own benefit.
01:16And I had about 10 people at my party.
01:19I put the pictures on my blog afterwards.
01:21And the story was actually picked up by a magazine called The Bump.
01:24That magazine wound up being the magazine that was distributed for free
01:28to the OBGYN and midwives offices all throughout the Midwestern United States.
01:32So back in 2008, nobody scrolled their smartphones
01:36when they were waiting for their doctor's appointments.
01:38They picked up the magazine, they saw my party,
01:41and the idea just really spread from there.
01:51So there are problems with pyrotechnics and people taking it out of hand,
02:10but there are also social implications which affect every single party.
02:14And that is the erasure of transgender and non-binary people,
02:18which is a conversation we were not happening, was not happening in 2008.
02:22It just never crossed my mind because I'm privileged in that way.
02:28I was born a girl. I'm a woman.
02:30I've honestly never had to doubt my gender or my sexuality in my entire life.
02:34And so that's why it didn't occur to me.
02:37I thought you have a baby.
02:38It's a boy or a girl, as a lot of people still do think.
02:40And there's nothing wrong with holding a belief like that.
02:45As long as you're examining your beliefs
02:47and understanding that there are transgender and non-binary people,
02:50we need to recognize their existence.
03:01As I started to get into the 2000 teens, 2013 or so,
03:06I actually have all three daughters.
03:08So I was raising my daughters and I started to have a problem
03:10with one of my daughters in particular.
03:13She wouldn't play with any toys unless they were pink.
03:16And she just she held this belief as a two-year-old
03:19that if it wasn't pink, it wasn't for her.
03:23And it kind of opened my eyes to something.
03:25I was like, well, it's not that boys have the default,
03:29all the colors and the only thing that the girl can have is pink.
03:32But somehow that message gets driven home.
03:35I believe it starts with the gender reveal party when it's like,
03:37oh, pink is for the girl.
03:39And if you're not pink, you're not a girl
03:41or there's something wrong with you to stay in that box.
03:44And that really is limiting for girls.
03:48One of my daughters wanted to, you know,
03:50get the short haircut and she wanted to wear suits and tuxedos.
03:54And she's the absolutely most adorable thing you've ever seen.
03:57She absolutely rocks her little style and I support her in every way.
04:00But, you know, I started to think,
04:03wow, those gender reveal parties are just so inaccurate
04:06and they just are really harmful.
04:09I think the vast majority of people
04:10who are having these so-called gender reveal parties
04:13are doing them in complete innocence.
04:15But we still have to examine that there is this very strict binary
04:21that's being reinforced with the gender reveal parties.
04:29Absolutely have a cake.
04:30If you want to have a cake, have a cake.
04:33Have a cake on a Tuesday.
04:34Pop open a bottle of champagne for no reason at all.
04:36There's nothing wrong with celebrating
04:38all the moments in our life, big, small, no matter what it is.
04:41If you're having a baby and you're excited,
04:43you should absolutely celebrate that.
04:45I think the focus should just be off of the body parts.
04:48So maybe not have a cake about a penis.