Gender reveals are becoming so popular now, it's almost unbearable. People are going to the extreme just to let people know whether their child will be born a boy or a girl. Obviously this trend was only intensified as social media became more prominent, and now it seems like people only want to go viral rather than share a special moment with their family and friends.
Jenna Karvunidis, a mom of three, was the first person to really go viral with a gender reveal, and she's largely credited with starting the trend. She baked a cake with pink icing inside to let her family and friends know she was expecting a girl. Karvunidis told Buzzfeed that she wasn't trying to start anything major, though. It was just a way of shaking things up.
"I was more the tipping point and gave a party structure to what people have likely been celebrating since ultrasounds were invented," she said. "I just gave form to having the doctor put the news in an envelope and revealing it through cake icing at a party."
Karvunidis wanted to make it clear that she wasn't the first person to ever do a gender reveal, it just so happened that hers was the one that went viral. A lot of people are starting to criticize the trend now, mainly because they feel that assigning gender roles at birth can be detrimental to a child's development. Karvunidis spoke about the "controversy" on her Facebook page after someone on Twitter remembered it was her who popularized the trend.
A weird thing came up on Twitter, so I figured I'd share here. Someone remembered it was me who "invented" the gender reveal party. I had written about my party on my blog and a parenting forum in July 2008. It was picked up & and an interview with me was published in The Bump magazine and the idea kinda spread from there. I've got the article framed!Anyway, I've felt a lot of mixed feelings about my random contribution to the culture. 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? I did at the time 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.
PLOT TWIST, the world's first gender-reveal party baby is a girl who wears suits!
Edit: if you want to see more of Bee’s looks, her Instagram is @bianca_k_actor (I run the account, so if anyone tries to slide into a 10-year-olds dms I will end you 😁)
Her post has gone completely viral (almost like the gender reveals themselves!) and Karvunidis wants people realize there are other things about your child that you should care about than their gender.
"I just feel like there are a thousand details more important about a person than their gender," she told BuzzFeed. "It’s a bad detail to hang on for a baby, and just because it’s the first thing we know about our kids, it’s not the most important by far."
Karvunidis wants to make something clear though: parents who do decide to do gender reveal parties shouldn't take heat for it. There's already enough parent-shaming in the world.
"Parents get enough flak for every move they make as it is. I just urge people to pivot to a pregnancy reveal," she said. "It can happen sooner, and everyone still gets cake."
I definitely see where Karvunidis is coming from. Pregnancy reveals are always more fun because of the pure emotion!
