Gender reveal videos are a dime a dozen on the internet. You know the drill: expectant parent(s) hold a party, during which they find out the gender of their new child among family and friends.
he reveal, often done with coloured confetti, smoke guns, cakes or balloons, is as much a surprise to them as everyone else. Call it an excuse for a party or yet another annoying American import. Either way, they’re fast gaining popularity. And there’s one gender reveal video in particular that can’t have failed to pass you by.
In it, a US-based mother, her partner and two daughters (aged 3 and 1) are finding out the gender of their third child. As they found out they were expecting another daughter, Mum and her young daughters were evidently overjoyed.
The same couldn’t be said for Dad, who looked not just a bit disappointed, but truly hacked off. He then began cursing and stormed off in a major huff, leaving his family looking a bit bewildered.
As is the internet’s wont, the backlash wasn’t long in coming. After 45 million views on TikTok, the unnamed father was slammed as ‘ugly’ and an ‘a**hole’ for having his gender reveal tantrum. And it’s true, there’s something uneasy and ugly in his reaction. People can’t stop thinking about what his reaction says to his little girls: about them, about their gender and about the innate appeal of boys.
“I cannot imagine having a father that was disappointed in me before I was born,” said one poster.
The less said about the ridiculousness of gender reveal parties, the better. Even the woman who threw the first one in 2008 — Jenna Myers Karvunidis — regrets starting them, noting the ‘aggressive energy’ that comes with being so caught up with the sex of a foetus.
Not only are gender reveals narcissistic and showy (and another excuse to rinse your nearest and dearest out of gifts), they also reinforce several ideas about babies and gender that we should be trying to dismantle, not reinforce.
But here’s the thing. “It’s a boy!” or “It’s a girl!” are often the main pieces of information revealed about a new arrival, not whether they have hair or are healthy, or are a good latch. A baby’s gender, with its pink balloons or blue blankets, is still the biggest part of a new arrival.
Whether it’s politically incorrect to admit as much, gender disappointment is a real and legitimate feeling. It may not feel right or appropriate to admit to a preference, but the reality is that many parents do, especially if they’ve raised one or more child of a certain gender already.
For a while, I became obsessed with watching these gender reveal videos on Instagram and TikTok, especially if there were other children already in the family. More often than not, there was a mum attempting to put on a good face, but clearly wilting at the news of yet another boy, or a dad jumping in elation at the prospect of a first son.
I’ve never felt gender disappointment, but I do remember the moment when I was told by a health care professional that I was having a daughter. The baby was active in the womb to the point of mania.
I somehow convinced myself, for some weird reason, that I was having a boy. The news that I was having a girl was a joyful surprise.
With my own mother gone eight years by then, I had missed the closeness of a mother-daughter relationship and here I was about to experience it all over again.
Gender disappointment rarely boils down to ‘boys are better’ or ‘girls are lesser’. People can hope for whatever kind of family they like, but as we know now, nature doesn’t always let mere mortals have their way.
Spend €45bn on inequality, Elon
People seem to be going baloobas over the fact that Elon Musk has lined up $45bn in financing to buy Twitter.
The buyout means that founder Jack Dorsey will walk away from the social media platform with $978m, while CEO Parag Agrawal is in line for a relatively ‘modest’ $38.7m payday.
Musk has referred to Twitter as the ultimate “digital town square”, presumably making him now one of the world’s foremost town criers.
Power, especially when it’s cut with male ego, is certainly one hell of a drug. And as people are fond of noting, $45bn is quite the price to pay for a glorified ego boost.
There is much talk of the future of freedom of speech now that the platform will be under Musk’s steerage, but let’s step back for a second and look at those eye-watering figures.
Think of the amount of good in the world that $45bn could make happen.
The tragedy, the hardship, the inequality, the social malaises that could be tackled with that kind of money.
As has been pointed out this week, Musk once noted that he would offer $6bn to solve world hunger and help 42 million survive 2022 if the UN could explain how they would spend his money, which amounts to just two per cent of his wealth.
Alas, the UN are still waiting. It never ceases to amaze me how, when it comes to multi-billionaires and plain common decency, never the twain shall meet.
The price is wrong for Primark
Primark is about to go posh… or at least, their prices are.
The retail giant revealed inflation is forcing them to raise their prices as early as this autumn.
Without an online outlet, Primark has definitely suffered financially throughout two years of a pandemic, but surely messing with their USP — as in, being the one place where everyone can afford a decent haul — is dancing with disaster?
And with competitors coming on stream faster than you can say, ‘got a whole lot of things for Christmas’, is now the right time to be tampering with a good thing?
