Death, powerful explosions, devastating fires! What images come to mind when you hear these words?
Naturally you would think of war, natural disasters, and gender reveal parties. Wait hold up… gender reveal parties?
Say what?
It sounds absurd, but yes, gender reveal parties have become a menace to society due to a lack of common sense among the masses. However, that is not the only controversy surrounding these types of celebrations.
It is widely believed that the first gender reveal party was conceived in 2008 by Jenna Karvunidis, a blogger from LA. She had a creative idea to reveal the sex of her baby to family and friends by cutting into a cake that had pink icing.
Sounds like safe, wholesome fun, and best of all, no one died! It’s pretty absurd that I even have to even mention that, but sadly that’s where we are today.
So how did this tame party turn into such a controversial topic?
When Jenna shared the idea on her blog, it took on a life of its own throughout the years, with couples seemingly trying to one up each other and be more and more outrageous with their reveals.
Now these parties have become associated more with deaths, destruction, and stupidity than wholesome fun.
In 2017, the Sawmill Fire in Coronado National Forest was caused by a gender reveal explosion that spread rapidly. The fire burned over 45,000 acres of forest and caused more than $8 million dollars in damage.
This wasn’t the only incident when a massive fire was started, unfortunately. In 2020, a couple used pyrotechnics to reveal the sex of their baby and burned down over 22,000 acres of forest in Southern California. Known as the El Dorado Fire, it sadly claimed the life of Charlie Morton, a firefighter who perished while fighting the blaze.
Tragically, in 2019 a grandmother to be was killed in Iowa when her family inadvertently made a pipe bomb to announce the sex of their baby and an expectant father was killed in 2021 when a gender reveal device he was working on exploded.
I could go on and on about other tragedies, but I think you get the idea.
These parties have become associated more with deaths, destruction, and stupidity than wholesome fun.
Of course, it would be easy to blame social media for these tragedies and the ever-growing desire of people seeking attention on these platforms, but really this all boils down to having some common sense.
Do we really need things to ‘go boom’ and impress the masses as we tell the world about the sex of our babies?
Jenna Karvunidis is now pleading with people to stop the insanity, recently saying, “For the love of God, stop burning things down to tell everyone about your kid’s penis. No one cares but you!”
Not only are these parties becoming increasingly dangerous as couples try to top each other, but there is also a brewing controversy about how these parties are forcing a gender role on a child.
This debate alone has people digging in their heels on both sides of the aisle. We have one side believing it’s ridiculous not to celebrate the gender of your baby, while the other segment argues that all these parties do is reveal nothing but the anatomy of a baby, and harmfully forces a sexual identity on a child.
Just reading the above paragraph to a room full of people is likely going to cause fireworks, but that is where our society is today. Too much yelling and not enough listening to the other side.
When my wife was pregnant with our daughter, and later my son, I honestly only cared about having a healthy baby. I had no preference about sex and felt a gender reveal party was kind of silly. However, I was raised to respect the opinions of others, and do understand why some couples want to make a big deal of things.
I also am empathetic towards the view of those who believe these parties can be harmful to those who identify as non-binary.
Unfortunately, there are no easy answers here and very few people on either side of the equation will be changing their minds anytime soon. However, if you are an expectant dad that plans on having a gender reveal party, please be pragmatic and keep it safe.
Don’t be the next dunce that makes the news because he lacks simple common sense!
