Gender reveal parties have only been around for a decade, but now they’re becoming one of the more controversial aspects of the baby-making scene. Some parents go all out with pink cupcakes, blue balloons or even gender-color-appropriate fireworks, while others hate the concept of gender stereotyping kids before they’re even born more than they hate “Baby Shark.” Now, a surprising voice has weighed in on the debate: Jenna Karvunidis, the mom credited with inventing the gender reveal, has admitted that she’s had second thoughts about her creation.
After a Twitter user asked how gender reveals originated, Karvunidis replied, “Thank you, yes I ‘invented’ the gender reveal in July 2008, and it was picked up in Bump Magazine and kinda spread from there. I’ve felt major mixed feelings about my contribution to the culture.”
She expanded on Facebook, adding, “I had written about my party on my blog and a parenting forum in July 2008 … It just exploded into crazy after that. Literally — guns firing, forest fires, more emphasis on gender than has ever been necessary for a baby. Who cares what gender the baby is?”
Karvunidis was inspired to throw her gender reveal party after enduring several miscarriages. The mom wanted to celebrate making it to the point in pregnancy at which she could find out the sex of her baby. She had the doctor put her baby’s sex in an envelope, threw a little party with her nearest and dearest and revealed the baby’s sex to everyone using pink icing.
But in the years since that original 2008 party, gender reveals have only gotten more over the top. People have started revealing their baby’s gender using colored gun powder and explosives. Last year, a man was charged with starting a 47,000-acre wildfire after he shot a rifle containing Tannerite, a highly explosive substance, to reveal the sex of his daughter.
Gender reveals have also started to rely heavily on narrow gender stereotypes, with themes like “guns or glitter,” “pistols or pearls” and “touchdowns or tutus.” Karvunidis says that while she initially threw her party as a celebration, her feelings about the trend have changed “because we didn’t live in 2019 and didn’t know what we know now — that assigning focus on gender at birth leaves out so much of their potential and talents that have nothing to do with what’s between their legs.”
Still, the mom isn’t looking to shame those who are excited to reveal their baby’s sex or who participate in gender reveals. “My hope is that these parties get updated to 2019, and back away from the aggressive explosives and guns and abandon narrow gender norms,” Karvunidis tells Care.com. “If people want to celebrate, let’s pivot to pregnancy reveals and name reveals. If people insist on revealing the biological sex of their baby, then let’s do it in a less problematic way, perhaps with a bunch of X ‘chromosomes’ popping from a balloon.”
For the record, Karvunidis says her daughter Bianca, the world’s first “gender-reveal party baby,” is now a 10-year-old who proudly wears suits, challenges gender stereotypes and loves expressing herself in her own unique way. “The truth is gender just isn’t the most important detail about your child. Their talents and interests will have so much more to do with their success and happiness than their anatomy,” she tells Care.com. “Let’s love our kids and let them lead the way.”
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