Gender Reveal Parties-Seriously?
September 9, 2020
A fad is a fad. A fad that is ridiculous, dangerous and destructive is a gender reveal party.
Thanks to this concept, over 10,000 acres have burned in Southern California at this writing, not to count past disasters that included a death. The person who popularized the trend has herself since condemned it.
In case any readers have managed to live their life without hearing of this trend, a “gender reveal” party is an event at which parents-to-be announce the gender of their unborn child. Not in words, though (how passé!) but rather through some kind of activity that reveals the color blue or pink to the guests. For example, a party might involve cutting a cake to expose either pink or blue coloring.
If only that were all. Instead, what might have been nothing more than an opportunity for people with good taste to mock those without it has become the cause of death and destruction.
The trend, begun in 2008 with a colored cake, has grown to include explosives, which are used to spray colored powder before the view of beaming family and friends, the color, naturally, being the surprise element. However, these events have generated more surprises than just the gender of a fetus.
On the morning of Sept. 5, a family gathered at a park in Yucaipa, a city in Southern California’s Inland Empire, for a gender reveal party. Their firework started the El Dorado Fire, which has consumed over 10,000 acres and forced evacuations.
This feels like a recap of the 2018 incident in which explosives used at a gender-reveal party in Arizona started a 45,000-acre wildfire that cost upwards of $8 million.
And, most tragically, in Iowa in 2019 an unborn child lost its grandmother when a homemade explosive device, intended to shoot powder, was accidentally turned into a pipe bomb. A piece of metal from this struck the woman in the head and killed her instantly.
This is so outrageous that if I heard it from a non-American I would assume it was malicious propaganda trying to discredit our nation. Sadly, it is true, and it needs to stop.
Not only have these events led to death, destruction, and mayhem, the message as a whole is flawed.
The sex that a child is assigned at birth is a small part of who they are. Even if they do grow up to identify with that gender, lavishing so much focus on what genitals you can see in the ultrasound puts an unnecessary spotlight on that and even before birth strengthens the expectations imposed on people based on gender.
When everything revolves around whether the cake or the powder is pink, we ignore everything else that makes up a child. And when we destroy tens of thousands of acres to show what gender we expect our child to be, we are idiots.
Evie • Oct 4, 2020 at 3:33 PM
I agree that the fact that a gender reveal party caused so much damage to our world is a messed up thing to think about. Although they did not mean to set a huge fire, these people must be feeling guilty for what they have done but it is not like they can change any of it. What happened in the past is done and now we can learn from past mistakes to make sure the future of our environment can be safe.
Gracie Szejda • Sep 30, 2020 at 9:13 PM
The unfortunate event that took place is now impossible to undo, although motivates changes needed to make. I agree with the point that gender reveal parties are dangerous. I do understand though, that the idea of starting a massive fire was probably never something the host ever imagined, but seeing the damage and having no guilt is a shame.
Jolie Barnard • Sep 30, 2020 at 5:07 PM
I agree. It may be the parents’ choice to throw a gender reveal party, but I definitely feel like it’s unnecessary. Especially with how people have caused so much destruction with “inventive” gender party reveal ideas. There’s plenty of ways to do it without massive safety hazards and it just seems like a bizarre thing for people to take to such an extent.
Aaliyah Silva • Sep 28, 2020 at 7:14 PM
I agree that these parties are completely unnecessary. Like, why do we need to know the genitals of a baby so much? These parties have already caused too much harm. Harm to the environment and people amongst its path. As well, as the harm to the child who may feel pressured to conform to their sex due to these parties.
Taylor White • Sep 27, 2020 at 9:44 AM
I agree. I don’t think that gender reveal parties should have gotten to the point where it takes a forest fire to know what the gender is. I agree with you when these gender reveals have become out of hand and have created more destruction than they should.
Drew • Sep 14, 2020 at 1:20 PM
Is the idiot who started this fire getting any sort of punishment. These kinds of fires kill, so will there be with any sort of manslaughter charges or just fines? Fines don’t teach people lessons unfortunately.