A moment to celebrate

By: Sandra Carranza

The first gender reveal party was in 2008 when Jenna Karvunidis celebrated finding out she was
having a baby girl. Since then, gender reveal parties have become as common and important as
birthdays and baby showers. And just like any other celebration, gender reveals have caused
people to question whether they are safe and establish a gender norm.
As the name suggests, a gender reveal party is just that: a party. Families come together to
celebrate, and I agree, sometimes the celebrating can get out of hand. The lack of safety
measures could cause major danger. Recently, a wildfire in California was started when a family
used a pyrotechnic device at a gender reveal party. However, you cannot blame the party itself
for a mistake the family made. A party cannot start a wildfire. People start wildfires, and just
because this one family took things too far does not mean everyone will.
In April, an expecting mother, who was also a coworker of mine, threw a gender reveal party for
her baby. Her close friends and family were invited. I cannot remember what the theme of her
party was, but I do remember that there was no fire, and no one got hurt. People were simply
happy to able to spend time together and prepare for the upcoming baby girl. There are many
families like that of my coworker that are not prone to defying safety measures and are able to
celebrate moderately.
Moreover, a gender reveal party does not have that much of an impact on how the child will
come to view or question their gender identity. All children are assigned a sex of either male or
female at birth. However, children develop their gender identity over time. As defined by
healthychildren.org, “’gender identity’ refers to an internal sense people have of who they are
that comes from an interaction of biological traits, developmental influences, and environmental
conditions. This may be male, female, somewhere in between, a combination of both or neither.”
Children will not be born and be confused about their gender because of a gender reveal party
their parents held a few months ago. Not only that, but we all know gender reveal parties are
mostly for the parents who want the presents, for grandparents who can’t wait for the baby to be
born and for the photos, of course.
For both parents, there is almost a sacredness to finding out the gender of your child for the first
time. After the parents find out, then the wonderful news has to be spread. What better way to
share the news than to have a party that marks the occasion? You cannot look at all the negative
possibilities of a gender reveal party without acknowledging all the positive possibilities: the
reunion of family and the celebration of future life.
With Karvunidis’ post back in 2008, a beautiful new tradition was born. The mistake of a few is
not the mistake of many.