At some point over the last decade or so it became simply unbearable to find out the gender of one’s baby from a doctor.
No, it had to be sussed via an extravagant, tasteless event at which the expecting parents slice open a cake or smash a piñata to reveal pink or blue insides.
Well, the woman credited with popularizing gender reveal parties now wishes she never made them a thing.
“For the love of God, stop burning things down to tell everyone about your kid’s penis,” wrote Jenna Karvunidis recently after a pyrotechnic gender reveal in California started a wildfire that has already burned 12,474 acres and remains only 18% contained.
In 2008, Karvunidis threw a party to reveal her baby’s gender to her family by cutting into a pink cake. She posted the pageantry on her blog and, alas, the gender reveal party was born.
This isn’t the first time Karvunidis has expressed regret about the way in which these things have taken off. In 2019 she questioned how the practice might affect transgender and non-binary individuals.
It also isn’t the first incident of fire. In 2017, a blaze broke out at an Arizona sawmill when a gender reveal party combined blue powder and an explosive. Several “burnout” parties, which involve cars producing clouds of blue or pink smoke, have resulted in flaming vehicles.
So, why are we still doing this? Instagram, probably. Let’s hope we leave this trend where it belongs: in 2020.