It seems like these days, you can’t go a week on any social media platform without seeing some video clip of a young couple’s gender reveal party.  For those of you who may not be initiated, this is an event where families and friends gather at a party or celebration of a couple’s impending paternal designation, and at some point during the event – the sex of the as yet to arrive baby is revealed in some elaborate method that involves the presentation of “baby colors” – that being blue (for males) or pink (for females).

The reveal is done in many different ways – colored smoke bombs, colored confetti, a non-descript cake that is cut to reveal the appropriate gender color – you get the idea.  A whole cottage industry has been invented to accommodate this new – seemingly necessary – event.  I’ve seen it all online.

My question is – why?

Look, I’m all about celebrating an upcoming addition to a family.  It’s a happy time.  Everyone is excited – and I’m sure some people have a preference as to what is coming.  Is it a boy?  Is it a girl?  Guess what?  They already have a celebration for this.  It’s called a “baby shower”.

My take is – does it really matter if it’s either/or?  Ask anyone what their first hope is for the new baby.  Odds are the response will come back “healthy”.  Who cares if it’s a little “Johnny” or a little “Jane”?  (and don’t even get me started on baby names.  These days it might be little “Camster” or a little “Sunset” – yeeeesh).  Quite frankly, there’s nothing one can do to change it.  It’s either a boy or a girl.  It’s not like “oh, we were hoping for a boy, but Miriam had a gazelle.”

This obsession with knowing the sex of a newborn goes back many, many years (although the gender reveal party is a recent phenomenon).  I still recall the sonograms of my wife’s growing abdomen when we had our children back in the early 2000’s.  They would place the pictures in an appropriately colored photo sleeve, but did you really even know from those early photos?  Honestly, I could barely tell if my wife was having a baby or assembling a giant lobster in there, judging by those grainy black-and-white images.

We insisted on NOT knowing the sex of our babies (no color on the sleeve, please), and were looked upon as some sort of carnival side-show.  “You don’t want to know?” came the eventual question from the puzzled sonogram tech.  No, we don’t, would come the reply – which was viewed as if we had some sort of mental illness.

What color will you do the baby’s room?  How do you know what clothes to buy?  Well, last time I checked – a newborn couldn’t give a flying fart as to what color “onesie” they were in.  I have also never had a lot of feedback from an infant on the interior decorating choices of their bedroom or nursery.  I’ve found that they spend most of their time in those early days screaming at the ceiling and filling their diapers with deposits that required a call to the EPA for assistance in the clean-up.  As to colors – you know what?  There are quite a few to choose from besides blue or pink.  Have you heard of green?  How about yellow?  Look in a box of Crayola crayons if you need some help.  There are plenty of ideas in there.

Call me old-fashioned, but life seldom hands one a truly genuine and joyous surprise.  Our take was that childbirth was certainly one of those times – and hearing “it’s a girl” in the delivery room (twice in our case) seconds after our daughters arrived qualified as two of those situations.

As to the colors of my children’s rooms and clothing in those early days?  Well, I think we managed just fine, thank you (and we didn’t even resort to wrapping some flowered headband around our daughters’ heads or piercing their ears at six weeks – another set of pet peeves of mine).  We actually spoke to people who saw our babies and would say “it’s a girl”, when asked – which seemed to work out great.

So, if you’re planning a gender reveal party (or have been invited to one) – hey – you do you.  Just try not to set fire to anything in your backyard – and I don’t even want to know what you’re going to do if you’re having twins (of different genders).

That sounds expensive – all the way around.