Another new baby occasion

Baby showers. Gender reveal parties, now I have just found out they have push parties .......... whatever next !!!!!

I agree entirely SirChenjin

Thanks MOnica I didn't think scans were available as early as that.

I think all this gender stuff has gone a bit too far. I am all for a party but not sure about this one. Annsixty - congratulations on the wonderful news of a new baby on the way.

I have a niece who makes gender reveal cakes for parties. It's getting to be quite a lucrative business and she feels so privileged to know the babies sex before the parents. The cakes are beautifully decorated too with neutral colours and nursery themed characters etc, it's only when the cake is cut that the colour of the sponge is seen! Delicious cakes too!

Minniemoo: I might have agreed with you a few years ago, but one of my DDs found out at her 20-week scan that the baby had a cleft lip and palate, and that it was a boy. In that case, we had time to find out what the first couple of years might be like - and knowing the extra fact, that he was a boy, was helpful.

(He is now a delightful, bright, social child with a sense of humour. Repairs so far have gone well, though further surgery will be needed later. He walked late, but his arms were splinted, twice, after ops, at a time when he was ready to crawl. Talking is indistinct, but he is getting there. That info is for anyone faced with similar situation. Don't call it a 'hare lip'; 'cleft' is more acceptable.)

I agree, dear pendant, gender is a term in grammar and this mealy-mouthed Americanism of substituting "gender" for "sex" when referring to whether some person or animal is male or female gets my goat too!

As far as I know even at the height of Victorian prudishness it was possible to talk about the sex of an infant.

In that same era, when Spain was still about the most intensely Catholic country in Europe, glass water jugs were common christening presents. The spouts were made to resemble the genital organ of the newly baptised child.

My GD kept her legs together at all scans, including all the private ones they paid for trying to find out if she was boy or girl!

I quite like the idea of a gender reveal party but for me it would be just a simple family affair.

I didn't know the sex of my two - but I would have loved to have known. Both born in the 80's scans were not available. I could have had amniocentesis tests but they carried a slight risk of miscarriage and I didn't have the money to pay the £100 they wanted anyway!

I was lucky, I got a boy then a girl, exactly what I had wanted but through my second pregnancy I constantly fretted in case I was upset if I had another boy.

Stupid I know, we love them regardless!

I know someone who did a gender reveal for the grandparents, she had had an advanced form of IVF and the grandparents didn’t know the gender reveal was happening .They had gone to watch a big local football match and the parents made the announcement at half time In those situations yes given the problems she had had,but normally I would think it just a money spinner

Airy-bloody-fairy!!

I remember having to go to the orthopedic department for scans in the 80s as the hospital only had one machine. Wasn't fussed about the sex as long as baby was healthy.

MiniMoon, you did make me smile, we all have our own ways of working out the babies sex! I had to have an Xray just before my son was born and looking it I could see a pronounced crown to the head. I said to the man doing the Xray its a boy but he just laughed. Nice to be right about something. I am afraid my superstitious old granny would be horrified about all the pre-baby goings on now, I wasn't allowed to have the pram in the house until baby arrived.

Consumerism gone mad. I wonder if we’ll ever get the genie back in the bottle, allowing market forces to invade our private lives?

Call me superstitious but I prefer to wait until the baby is born all safe and sound before I start celebrating. Heaven forbid that something should go wrong and they lose the baby when they have already had all the celebrations and gifts etc. What happened to waiting until the baby is born?
We are so impatient today.
As a retired midwife, there was nothing nicer than when the first thing the parents asked as the baby was born was, “ have we got a boy or a girl?”
It’s like opening all your presents before Christmas.

I had an amniocentesis with my 3rd child and the technician performing it asked if I wanted to know the baby’s sex - he was in no doubt about it. My husband didn’t want to know so he left the room. I wasn’t in the least bothered by the sex - I was already lucky enough to have a healthy boy and girl. It was a boy. My husband absolutely refused to know so I had several months trying desperately not to drop any hints. The best bit though was when we were discussing names. He came up with - in my opinion- some appalling female names, which I wouldn’t have even given to a pet hamster. But I responded enthusiastically and put them on a list which I knew would be totally irrelevant.

My only thought is that personally I would want it to be a special and private moment between partner and myself - maybe I'm strange.

I've just seen this on Grace & Frankie show. Thought it was a joke - obviously not. How sad really. Another way for business to make money out of us - if of course we let them, which we shouldn't.

I had no idea what sex our babies were until the second they popped out!

Absolutely Iam - but live and let live should also include an understanding that many people might not want to attend your party because they find them tacky/uninteresting/overly commercial/whatever. That doesn't make these people 'crabby old bat faces' as was suggested upthread, or boring, or unable to enjoy the whole 'someone is pregnant and having a boy or a girl as has happened over millennia' thing.

It's another opportunity for friends, family and loved one's to get together and have a happy time. there will be cakes, fizz, cups of tea and fun.
If you don't want to go, don't go. But, why shouldn't people have a bit of light hearted fun if they want to. Of the young parents we know, one group who love to celebrate anything, go for gender reveal parties. The other group feel a bit anxious about too much celebrating before the baby arrives safely. Live n let live. There's so much stress and angst around currently, a bit of what you fancy can't be all bad.

I didn't want to know the gender of my children. My eldest daughter opted to find out but no gender reveal party.

Never really understood why anyone wants to know but to each their own.

Each to her/his own.
Knowing the sex of a baby before it’s born is a rather like knowing what you’re getting for Christmas having had a sneaky peek before the day. It takes the fun and surprise out of the occasion. I’ll always remember the excitement of asking ‘what is it’ after each of my babies popped out. I wasn’t bothered about decorating the room pink or blue!

My DD's friend (11 years ago), didn't want to know the sex of her baby, but her husband did.

So they wrote it down for him, and he didn't tell his wife. But when they were discussing names he didn't seem interested in girls names, so she suspected he was told it was a boy.

The day of delivery, the midwife said 'it's a girl', apparently he kept saying, 'it can't be, we are having a boy'!

What a load of crabby old bat faces!

It sounds delightful - except for the pink and blue bit. That needs to be knocked on the head.

So it's new and unusual and commercial?

And buying/eating chocolate eggs ?

And old men (in whose honour we spend a fortune and nearly die of stress every year) who fly though the air with reindeer are all perfectly normal?

Get a grip. If it makes people happy what's wrong with it?

I recently saw a gender reveal where they put something in their car's exhaust pipe, and when the man started his car it blew pink smoke to show he was going to have a daughter . Incredible. Who thought up this nonsense ?

I overheard a conversation on a bus one day.A family group were all talking very loud about the pregnant member who was going for a scan to ''See what she was getting''
I felt like telling them she was getting a baby.
have also heard about some young mothers in floods of tears because the baby, otherwise perfectly healthy, was not the gender they were hoping for.