With headlines like “Explosion at Gender Reveal Party Kills Woman,” it’s no wonder that many people are asking the question, have gender reveal parties gone too far?
Just to be clear: yes. Parties resulting in death via flying debris from a homemade pipe bomb, cars bursting into flame, and fires that cause millions of dollars in damages have indeed gone too far. Even parties that involve a balloon flying away before the gender can actually be revealed (much to the chagrin of the parents who chase after it) or a baseball to the face are still signs that the trend is not always safe.
Luckily, normal gender reveal parties are far tamer. Though such parties have arguably gone from fashionable to laughable, Christians should refrain from joining in on the online mockery. Gender reveal parties actually have a beautiful message about the children and families they celebrate.
As the name implies, gender reveal parties are simply meant to reveal the gender of a baby, and usually require some kind of game, such as popping a balloon filled with blue confetti for a boy or smashing a piñata with pink candy for a girl. Oftentimes, someone other than the expectant couple will prepare the prop so that the parents can be surprised alongside their guests. It’s wholesome, and no matter the gender, everyone cheers. (Except, hilariously, some disappointed siblings.)
In a November episode of the Slate podcast Decoder Ring, host Willa Paskin researches and explains the history of and psychology behind the gender reveal party, with a somewhat critical tone. She also interviews Jenna Karvunidis, an early-adopter to blogging and social media who created the concept.
Karvunidis, who has since denounced the viral events, was about three months pregnant when she was asked to bake a cake for a coworker’s baby shower. Looking for another occasion to put her baking skills to use and knowing that her own shower was still months away, Karvunidis planned a party to reveal her baby’s gender. She baked two cakes – one filled with blue frosting and one with pink – and let a family member who was in on the secret bring out a cake for Karvunidis to cut open. It was the pink one.
But it turns out there was more to celebrate than her daughter’s gender.
“Sort of the reason for the party also was that I had had three miscarriages,” Karvunidis told Paskin. “So by the time we finally were to the point of the anatomy scan – being at 20 weeks and finding out that the baby was healthy – finding out if she was a boy or a girl at this party was icing on the cake. It’s like, finally. This is actually happening for us.”
To finally have a baby after losing three children is a joyful occasion. Unfortunately, miscarriages are common and heartbreaking, so it’s understandable that once Karvunidis reached 20 weeks – past the point where 80% of miscarriages occur – she’d want to celebrate her daughter’s life.
From the very first one, gender reveal parties have celebrated the life and innate humanity of unborn babies. Part of the pro-life message is that we all deserve dignity, even before we’re born. Being able to describe your baby as a “boy” or a “girl” (rather than an uncomfortable and somewhat dehumanizing term like “it”) is a direct reminder of the fact that he or she is not a “clump of cells” or a “parasite,” but an actual human with a gender, a heartbeat, and even fingernails. Christians often point to Psalm 139:13-14 to defend life in the womb, and for good reason. The psalmist writes, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” It’s a lovely and poetic reminder of the careful attention God pays to each of us before we’re born.
As Paskin argues, one benefit of gender reveal parties is that they celebrate someone that baby showers typically ignore: the father. “Dads are welcome at these parties and they seem to have gotten really into them,” she said. “And isn’t their involvement in a domestic, pre-birth social occasion something that both progressives and conservatives can agree is a good thing?” It is.
Paskin also spoke with Carly Gieseler, an associate professor at York College CUNY who studies gender reveal parties, and Gieseler points out that the father's role is sometimes taken to an unfortunate extreme. Some reveals, she notes, involve the man exclusively: dad chugs a beer, only to crack open his bottle and release a pink or blue ball, leaving mom as an afterthought. But this is easily avoidable. Gender reveal parties are built to celebrate both parents during a time when we often forget to celebrate fatherhood as well as motherhood, and the reveal should include both parents.
Further, gender reveal parties uphold inherently conservative views of gender, something which Paskin argues is a defect in the parties but which many Christians embrace. “Whatever the thrower’s intentions, these parties now have a political signification and it’s implicitly conservative,” she said “There are willfully conservative gender reveal parties, ones that intentionally assert the immutable connection between biological sex and gender identity.” She’s right, but that’s not a bad thing.
These parties remind us that gender, and our gender differences, are worth celebrating. It is beautiful and wonderful to be a girl, and it is beautiful and wonderful to be a boy. Life is worth celebrating, and God has made that life possible because of our gender differences.
Still, a common and fair critique of gender reveal parties is that they nearly always depend on gender stereotypes. After all, for understandable reasons, blue means boy and pink means girl. “Who cares what gender the baby is?” asked Karvunidis in a Facebook post. “I did at the time [of her first gender reveal party] because we… 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. PLOT TWIST, the world's first gender-reveal party baby is a girl who wears suits!”
But of course parents, family, and friends should care about a baby’s gender because, while it doesn’t determine everything about us, gender is an important part of who we are and how God made us. Throwing a party to reveal it isn’t saying that our genitals (as if gender were only about genitals) determine our worth or potential, nor is it enforcing stereotypical gendered expectations on the baby. It’s a chance for parents and loved ones to celebrate the life and personhood of their son or daughter, and that includes his or her gender. And there is nothing at all ironic or even unfeminine about a girl whose gender celebration changed the world choosing to wear suits. Still, as gender stereotypes and unfair expectations are common in some Christian circles, parents should be cautious about leaning into stereotypes in their reveals. Luckily, that's easy to avoid, and, as Paskin notes, stereotyped gender reveals are not indicative of future parenting styles.
It’s easy to scoff at gender reveals gone wrong and cringe when couples use an alligator (yes, an actual alligator) to tell the world whether they’re having a girl or a boy, and we probably should continue to call out people who are putting others in danger with their elaborate stunts. Gender reveal parties may not be for every family, but celebrating unborn babies is a really good thing and Christians should keep doing it, especially if dessert is involved. But leave the gators of out this.
Chandler Lasch is the editor of RealClearReligion. She is a graduate of Hillsdale College, where she studied history and journalism, and lives in Southern California.
