December 27, 2017 • 47 mins
E&B break down why the made-for-social-media “gender reveal party” trend is...complicated.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Emily and this is Bridget, and you're
listening to stuff mom never told you. Today, we're going
to break down a made for social media trend that
has been popping up in my new speed more and
(00:26):
more these days. And I'm curious, Bridget. It's something you're
seeing a lot of two and it's one of those
things that seems very innocuous until you take a closer look.
And that's why today we're breaking down and unpacking. You
might even say, what gender reveal parties reveal about us
as a society and our relationship with gender and sex.
(00:51):
So you've seen these, right, Bridget, Oh. Being raised in
the South, I have seen my fair share of them.
People in the South love this kind of thing. Yes,
people in the South love the performative aspects of weddings
and childhood. I feel like, I feel like the way
(01:12):
that social media algorithms are almost designed, it magnifies the
impact of those big life moments like having a child.
And so you know, the most liked image you'll ever
have for a lot of folks is your baby or
your pregnancy announcement or whatever it might be. And now
for for parents who are demarcating those pivot points in
(01:33):
your life, getting pregnant, you know, announcing that pregnancy, or
getting married, or making that transition in your life. When
it comes to your identity, there is a performative aspect
to it because of how social media makes our lives
different nowadays. Don't you think like social media makes our
lives the performance in ways everything about our lives can
(01:54):
be a performance on social media, right, So it seems
natural and understandable that there would be new ends coming
up in our lives that are made for social media.
But this one, to me is very troubling because it's
not just about oh, you found out the gender of
the baby, and the very well intentioned desire to share
(02:16):
that news with the world and share it with your
family and share it with your loved ones, but it
actually says to me that we as a society define
human beings by our gender even before we're born, in
in a way that can be really, in my opinion,
problematic and troubling. I think problematic and troubling, but also
kind of tacky sometimes. Yeah, So let's break down what
(02:39):
you're right. Let's like, let's define what these gender revealed
parties are for anyone who I don't know, is too
cool for Facebook and doesn't have a Facebook account, maybe
or has been living under a rock for the last
ten years or so. A gender revealed party is what
a couple finds out the gender of the baby, but
they keep it under lock and key, so they keep
it a secret, even from themselves. Sometimes the doctors asked
(03:01):
to write and put in an envelope. Then they handed
to a third party who arranges something crafty you might
even say kitchy. Then at some public party with all
their friends and family and maybe live streaming it on
the internet, they reveal whatever it is, whatever crafty thing
that is going to be dyed pink or blue to
(03:23):
tell what the gender of the baby is. So some
of these things you wanna Some of them are really inventive.
That you might make a cake where when the person
cuts into the cake, the inside of the cake is
blue for a boy, pink for a girl. Maybe you
will put some balloons in a box and then when
the parents open the box, either pink or blue balloons emerge. Um,
(03:45):
some of them are even more inventive something I mean, honestly,
some of the gender reveal cakes. If y'all google this
or find them on Pinterest are weirdly related to the
sex organs of your unborn child, which find I find
super creepy. But there are cakes that are decorated to
say stick or no stick over the baby's for the keenista.
(04:10):
Or there's like cakes that say we're here for the sex,
like wink wink, like we're at a party to find
out what the sex is, like I'm here for the
sex like it's a much more exciting party than it
actually is. Can you imagine thinking that you're showing up
for an orgy and it's actually a baby reveal like party? Um?
(04:33):
The only looking at some of the gender reveals. The
only one that I actually was like sort of on
board with was the car burnout where someone does like
doughnuts and I'm parking lot and whether somehow they get
like blue or pink exhaust come out of the I
think it's like dust on the ground or something. I
was kind of I was like that, actually, it's kind
of cool from a logistics standpoint. Then there was the
(04:56):
mom who dyed her hair but she didn't know if
it was dyed pink or blue until the towel came off,
which I thought was creative. I guess inventive for sure.
We would be remiss to mat mention the couple who
were good enthusiasts who pointed a rifle at a target
full of different colored chalks, so when they shot the target,
(05:17):
you would either have red smoke or blue smoke. Yeah.
So if you want your you know, to mark the
beginning of your beautiful journey of bringing your life into
this world with a firearm, I think yeah, I think
that is they nailed that. If that was their intentioned it,
they killed it. Speaking of inventive gender reveals, there was
(05:38):
one that I was just reading about online. They write
at my gender revealed party, and all my guests joined
me at a round table where we gazed into a
large crystal ball. After chanting x X and y X
for half an hour, the smoke bomb I carefully prepared
went off and then Whoopie Goldberg grows from a trapdoor
I very handily had my husband installed in our living room.
(05:58):
Whoopee rose up and Molly, you're having a girl girl.
Everyone cried and we gave will be her check and
she left. Actually that's not a real gender reveal, it's
from a really funny genl essay full of hilarious fake
gender reveal stories, and I really implore you to read
because it's hilarious, right, So it's I mean, I think
it is easy to poke fun at it. It is
(06:21):
easy to think about how outrageous a gender revealed party
you can have, because it does feel like every other
day on Reddit or some Facebook groups somewhere, there's like
a couple that goes viral for whatever insane way they've
decided to reveal their gender. But you know, as yuppy heathens,
single women without children, I think it's important for us
(06:43):
to also acknowledge that while we might sort of poke
fun at this kitchy new trend, it really does belie
something very meaningful and very understandable. It comes from a
really good place for new parents who simply want to
sell rate this milestone in their lives. Yeah, I think
that it's really a throwback to the ceremonial aspects of
(07:06):
bringing a life into this world and making it be
this communal, democratized thing where we all find out, like
the community of people who love this child are all
finding out the gender together. If you take away this
sort of creepy gendered aspects of it, that's kind of
a beautiful thing I can understand, right, And in fact,
a scholar who was writing first Smithsonian Laura Trump, totally
(07:28):
agrees with you and thinks it has something to do
really directly with the medicalization of pregnancy and the totally
natural instinct for in our highly medicalized world to take
back some of the mysticism and ritual that used to
be a bigger part of pregnancy. She writes, the party
is suspenseful because it reveals a secret, egalitarian because everyone
(07:52):
finds out at once, and delicious cake the perfect afternoon
unheard of a decade or two ago, gender revealed. Part
These are the latest manifestation of the conflict between modern
technological pregnancy and its ancient legacy of mystery. That this
all plays out through pink and blue Cake speaks to
the peculiar anxieties and ironies of our time. I think
(08:16):
she's spot on, and I think you even see that
in some of the other rituals that have now risen
in the age of childbearing and social media. Think about
elaborate photo shoots when you have a baby, um, Think
about those monthly pictures that you do where you're demonstrating
your child's growth and talking about like, oh baby whoever
(08:37):
at age two loves this and loves that. Um, I
think that you do see people returning to this highly
ritualistic way of marking bringing a child into the world. Yeah,
I totally agree, And I think we would be remiss
to not acknowledge that there's a financial incentive in the
marketplace for these rituals to become capitalistic endeavors. Right, Like,
(08:59):
we know that the wing industrial complex is real in
this country. So if they can charge four times the
amount for a wedding photographer that they would for any
other photographer, I'm sure that there is a reason behind
the growth and ritualization of childbearing and pregnancy because there's
also a market for that. And so she goes on
(09:19):
to write that the gender revealed party has become just
yet another ritual and for parents, it's a way to
retrieve the mysteries of pregnancy. In the past, the pregnant
woman had little power over her life, but a lot
of knowledge about her body at the time, knowledge that
other people depended on them to reveal. Gender revealed parties
(09:42):
reclaim the privilege of revelation along with some control parents
can orchestrate these parties choose their rituals and plan for
their future with the knowledge that they're likely to survive
childbirth unlike ancient times, even though we do know that
our mortality rate infant more reality rate and maternal mortality
rate in this country is less than ideal. But basically,
(10:05):
it's a reclaiming of the knowledge that used to be
very intimately held by the mother alone or by the
active birth alone, that now doctors have. Doctors have that
power and knowledge. Doctors and science have yielded all of
those outcomes, but by retaining the control over how to
orchestrate your own gender reveal party, it kind of feels
(10:25):
like the parents are reclaiming that power. That's so interesting
and I can't help but think of some of the
older women in my family who are totally ritualistic when
it comes to the gender of babies who are still
in utero, where they'll be like, oh, I, when I
put my hand on your belly, it sits high. That
means it's gonna be a boy, or you if you
are really gassy, it's gonna be a girl. A lot
(10:46):
of the women in my family, they have these ideas
about how you can glean things about the future gender
of your baby in these ways that are not frankly
very scientific, but sort of wedded to this idea of
you know, spirituality and old wives tale. Then oh, well,
you know, when my sister was pregnant, she only wanted
(11:06):
to eat beats. And so no, I totally know what
you mean, because it feels like this familial mythical conversation
that's now playing out on social media, and it's performative.
It's still grounded in science, right, because the doctor gave
you that decision or gave you that conclusion. And here's
the thing, right for our listeners who have had these parties,
(11:27):
we're not trying to come down on you at all,
because these parties seem perfectly innocuous. They seem benign, even
if we are annoyed at them, or even if you're like,
oh great, another blue cupcake. This is cute. I can't
wait to like your image on social media, even if
you do roll your eyes at them. It's not just
(11:47):
that they're all over Pinterest. It's not just that there's
another expectation for parents to get this pinteresty perfect life
on on social media. There's something more troubling to this,
and that is all of the highly stereotyped, gendered expectations
that this weirdly sets your entire family up to be promoting.
(12:11):
And we're going to uncover some of the troubling repercussions
that can come from gender reveled parties being mainstream. After
a quick word from our sponsors, all right, we're back,
and we are diving into why gender revealed parties make
(12:33):
us a little uncomfortable and why we should all think
a little bit more about them before we just blindly
follow this sort of made for social media trend amongst
parents to be So, what's wrong with gender revealed parties? Well,
first of all, they should really be called sex revealed
parties if anything, because they tend to conflate gender and sex.
(12:54):
So gender and sex are different things. A doctor doesn't
actually know your gender. If anything, a doctor's look get
an image of your genitalia and saying this is your sex.
But the two things are different. I mean, you shouldn't
be conflating them. Right, So we know that people who
happen to be born the vast majority of us who
happen to be born with a gender identity. Let's say,
in my case, I identify as as a woman as
(13:16):
female that aligns with your sex organs. Not everybody is
born that way, right, That's what SIS identity is, right,
That's what we talk about when we say sis, is
that alignment between your sex organs or what a doctor
tells you you are in terms of male or female
and your identity, your sense of your own gender that
(13:37):
you have as an identity. Now, trans folks and intersex
folks whose sex organs aren't immediately identified as definitely in
one of the category or the other, you know, there's
a whole spectrum not only to your sex organs, but
obviously to gender in a in a highly sort of
gender fluid environment that we're now coming to embody and
(13:59):
embrace as a society. And I think anything that pushes
back on this notion that a doctor looking in between
an infant's legs seeing genitals and saying it's a girl
or it's a boy, anything that pushes back on that idea,
I think is good. And I gender revealed parties do not.
You make it very clear that what you are is
what's in between your legs and that's all there is
(14:19):
to it. And we know that's not true exactly, So
imagine you're born with what a doctor deems to be
male sex organs, and you identify as female, and you
spend your entire life trying to figure that out and
trying to get the rest of your loved ones to
figure it out with you. But mom and dad already
had the gender revealed party, and it's a boy, and
(14:41):
on that cake there was a football and or whatever,
you know what I mean. Like, on the that party,
we sort of dreamt about all the things that you
were going to do with your son as you grew up.
And coming to grips with that dissonance between expectation and
reality is hard enough as it is. Like parents of
trans know this better than anyone, but a gender revealed
(15:03):
party misrepresents or mistakes rather sex organs deemed by a
doctor in utero for gender identity. And that's a problem.
That's a problem for all of us who are just
trying to be accepted for who we are. And I
think even beyond that, I think that for kids and
for parents, it really illustrates to this kid that your
(15:26):
gender matters to your parents, and I don't think that
we should be enforcing that idea in kids. It matters
to everybody, like everyone shows up to your entire your
your entire community is very invested in like your gender identity.
I think that is setting a kid up for a lot,
even before this kid is born. And it makes you wonder, like,
(15:46):
why are these parties important to us? Why do these
parties exist? We are so fixated on gender as a
way to understand a person that we're already gendering people
before they're born. Smithsonian's Laura Troup again rites as the
French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir said, one is not born,
but rather becomes a woman. A person's gender identity may
(16:08):
not match the sex they were assigned at birth, and
gender roles are culturally constructed notions. And this idea that
you can predict an unborn child's gender is really not
possible based on an in utero snapshot of their reproductive
organs alone. I think that's so spot on. And as
Marty Seroy writes over at Huffo, uh Si Roy is
(16:30):
a mom of three kids, and she also is a
therapist who works with the parents of trans children. She
really makes it clear that we should be letting children
have more autonomy over how they decide their own gender expressions.
She writes, children will reveal their own gender identity and
or expression at some point along the way, whether that
is sis, gender, gender nonconforming, gender creative, a gender, gender fluid,
(16:52):
or gender queer. And gender is also totally separate from
romantic or sexual attraction. Those are just three of many
varying factors that make up a human being, none of
which are strictly binary, as much as we may have
been brought up to believe so. Really it's about pushing
back on this notion that it's one or the other,
and that when your doctor tells you it's a girl
or it's a boy, that that means something right that
(17:14):
you should be celebrating and investigat right away, because it
doesn't allow for your kid to later have real control
over how they express their gender. It's just a weird emphasis,
that's what it is to me. It's not that it's
totally unimportant, because I get it. If you're a parent,
you want to know who is coming along to join
your family and what can you know? You can know
(17:37):
very few things. But it's salience is what I find
troubling when we celebrate that, when we make it into
such a production we give people permission to project all
of these expectations on your onborn child based on gender,
not even gender based on sex alone. And so when
you're unpacking this quote from Marty, she's talking about gender identity,
(18:01):
gender expression, and sexual attraction as being free really kind
of important things that your kid's going to figure out
and express to you on their own. And maybe that
expression could go on to be hampered if your kid
grows up in a house where a gender revealed party
picture is framed on the mantle from the day they're born. Yeah,
that would be really tough. That would be to It
would make it tougher. I would say to like, have
(18:23):
a trans kid who feels like it's okay to not
have the gender identity that matches your sexual organs, you
know what I mean. It gives them permission to define
themselves and not to mention the children who are born
with intersex traits. According to the United Nations, one point
seven percent of children born are born with intersex traits,
(18:44):
meaning that their genitalia doesn't fit neatly into a male
or female binary. For example, on Gabby Totally, the Belgian
supermodel recently revealed she has x Y chromosomes more typically
found in men and had internal undescended test ees at birth.
That makes her part of the population who is born
with intersex traits. And that's all biology, right, We're talking
(19:08):
about biology. We're talking about chromosomes. So how does a
gender reveal party account for that. It doesn't. It doesn't.
It doesn't allow for anything other than one or the other.
And so that's the number one most problematic component about
gender reveled parties. If you're going to have one, at
least call it a sex reveled party. So we're not
conflating gender insex. But beyond that, there's another really concerning
(19:32):
trend that is not true at every gender reveled party
but is very much commonplace if you look at pinter
sports about gender reveled parties, and that is that these
parties tend to encourage a weirdly intense amount of gender stereotyping.
We're talking things like pistols or pearls, toys or tiers,
(19:53):
guns or glitter wheels or heels, things that make it
clear that, oh, if I have a boy, it's going
to like x y z, and if I have a girl,
she's going to like x y ze. Only guns or glitter.
You can't like both? What if you like both toys
and tis? There are a weird array of themes like
this online when you Google you know themes for your
(20:14):
gender reveil Party, which basically allude to this concept that
you can predict the preferences the tastes of your unborn
child based on their sex organs alone. So basically, god
forbid you should have a girl who likes baseball or
throwing a football around, or a little boy who likes
dressing up in heels. Yeah, this feels so relevant for me.
(20:36):
I was definitely a little girl who didn't necessarily like
a lot of girly things. But I grew up in
a traditional household where girls liked this and boys like that,
and I always just felt very confused by the things
I was supposed to like but had no interest in.
Did you post an Instagram photo recently? A little bridget
tab the tiny sad Dancer was a tiny dancer. I
(21:00):
did ballet. I had like ballet in my room even
before I could identify it as Bellatian. Like, I was
like born into a very specific gender mold that was
always confusing. It's confusing now, and it's not picture. I
was like, what am I doing here? Just like when
I was given a I grew up just outside of
(21:22):
Yukon so Go Huskies, but I was given a Yukon
Huskies cheerleader uniform by my dad, who was very proud
of this purchase for Halloween one year. And I was
there's a photo of me like this with my hands
up holding pom poms, Like, really, this is what I
have to be for Halloween this year? This is so lame.
And you had a similar look at that adorable Instagram
(21:44):
bridget the sad tiny dance, sad, serious, solemn, tiny dancer
Dressica Princess. It wasn't my vibe, right, And so there's
this great article from USA Today that really points to
some research out of the University of California, Santa Cruz
that at activities that formally mark gender, like gender reveal parties,
increase the likelihood of gender stereotyping. There was research done
(22:09):
by Rebecca Bigler, a psychologist at the University of Texas.
She had school children wear red and blue T shirts
and had teachers referenced the colors as they might gender,
So good morning reds and blues, and really identify the
children based on the color T shirt that they wore.
Over time, the study found that kids developed biases preferring
(22:31):
their own colors, just as they did with gender. Quote,
when you put things in a category, we naturally want
to make meaning of that category, said leaper, girl and boy.
If those categories exist, there must be reasons for that,
and we start to think about them differently. Well, this
reminds me so much of my experience, and I was
(22:51):
teaching in the classroom setting. They actually trained us to
use terms when addressing the class that we're not gendered.
And so if I'm ever even now that hasn't taught
in years, but even now, when I'm referencing a large
group of people who are mixed gender, I'll say things
like good morning friends, or hello comrades, things like that.
That because it doesn't you say girls and boys or
(23:14):
ladies and gentlemen and you're in you're in the classroom,
changes the dynamic of a classroom. And I've seen it
total abst true. And it also makes me think, you know,
all those gender reveal I don't know if they're parties
or celebrations or online videos or whatever that have another
child present. So let's say mom and dad are revealing
the gender of your unborn brother or sister. The little
(23:35):
girls are always wanting a girl and the little boys
are always wanting a boy. And they I've seen videos
where like the little girl weeps and cries and goes
into hysterics when she finds out it's going to be
a boy, and vice versa. And so this is like
this weird. Uh. It's like before the child is even born,
you're drawing a line between their brother and them, or
(23:58):
their sister and them, and you know what, it just
seems like not exactly a bridge to a relationship. And
to me, I just it just feels unnecessary. I think
there are ways of celebrating the bringing of a new
child into a family that mark information that you find
out about it that this kid that don't kind of
stoke these weird gender divisions before these kids have even met.
(24:22):
It's weird. It's just a weird emphasis. Like I said,
it's not that you're having a party about your own
born kid. That's fine, baby showers, fine, whatever, But it's
this emphasis on gender does nothing more than give everybody
a permission slip to stereotype and not to mention. The
USA today article goes on to say, quote, you know
what toys to buy, how to decorate the room, what
(24:45):
clothes you get, as opposed to buying different things and
seeing what the child likes. A girl gets a doll,
a boy gets a baseball. That takes the guessing out
of it. So basically, even having expectations as a parent
can set you up to have Balarie the slippers in
your little girl's room before she even knows what they are, right,
And not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but it
(25:06):
is a limiting factor if you're already making assumptions for
your unborn child as to what toys are gonna like,
so what interest they're going to have, And those gender
norms can have lifelong ramifications. Those stereotypes can get instituted
from day one, no earlier, from like in utero, before
the child's even born. And I think it doesn't leave
(25:27):
room for kids to figure the stuff out for themselves.
And if you grow up thinking that my mom wants
me to be a ballerina and you don't really have
an interest in being a battering your princess, you you're
you might feel some pressure to do something that you
don't really want to do because you feel like you
have to. And I think that we should be giving
kids the space to figure out who they are. And
(25:50):
we have so much time for society to put crap
on them, and it seems like a lot to start
them out handing them more gender expectations. Yes, Laura Tropp
ends her Smithsonian piece perfectly by saying, a ritual that
sexes and genders a person before they are born places
limits rather than offers possibilities on who they may become.
(26:14):
And I think you're totally right. The final big issue
that I have with gender revealed parties is actually directly
related to one of its purported benefits. So one of
the supposed benefits of this ritual that we've developed in
the age of social media is that it's egalitarian, right,
it's democratic, everybody gets to find out at the same time.
(26:35):
But with everybody finding out at the same time comes
this new form of observation, which is, what is the
reaction of mom and dad? Is dad disappointed that he's
having a girl? What does that mean? You know? Is
the toddler sibling crying hysterically because it's a boy? What
does that mean? And honestly, why would you do that
(26:59):
to yourself, hope for your family, because now it becomes
a meta performance. It's not just the performance of finding out,
it's the performance of finding out and looking right with
your reaction. I can't even imagine the pressure, But I
had never heard of people having a disappointed reaction about
having a girl or a boy, But it makes perfect sense.
I can imagine setting up one of these parties, not
(27:22):
realizing how invested you maybe are, and having a girl
or a boy, thinking it's going to be this cute thing,
cutting the cake and seeing blue when you wanted pink,
or pink when you wanted blue, and being blindsided by disappointment,
and thinking I have to pretend to be at the
fake it. I have to pretend to be happy, otherwise
I'm gonna look like a bad mom. Before my kids
(27:43):
even born, I could see I'm the kind of person
who I could see myself doing all these things and
thinking you will be fine, and then in the moment
being like, oh wait, actually I have feelings, but everyone's
looking at me, so I'm just gonna smile, but really
I feel weird. Yeah, it's like you you might be
surprised by your reaction in and you really never know
how you're going to react to such big news. What
(28:04):
if you're disappointed or nervous, service hits you in a
way that you didn't expect. That's that's the fear of
like having those fields and those feels not being socially
acceptable and peaches and cream and perfectly happy all the time.
And beyond that, some of the adults who come to
gender reveal parties are kind of encouraged cheer on team
Blue or team Pink. Now, this again is not at
(28:26):
every party, and we I mean we haven't men to
that many of them ourselves, but oftentimes guests are asked
to come wearing their guests, but their guests of what
the baby is, Team blue or team Pink can quickly
turn into their vote or their cheer, you know, their hope.
As this article in the Halfon Post goes on to say, ultimately,
(28:48):
team Pink and Team Blue are pitted against one another,
sometimes for prizes once the big gender reveal happens. Beyond that,
these announcements like that it's a girl announcement can some
being met with these stupid, annoying sexist reactions from your
party guests, like bridget, you're having a girl. That's payback
(29:09):
for how terrible a teenager you were, or you know,
get out the shotgun, dad, because you're having a girl.
You have to protect your unborn daughter's body because that's
your job, even before she's born. Basically, these weird reactions
that either you have or your party guests have are
just another wrinkle to the gender stereotyping and the downside
(29:33):
quite frankly, to having a gender real party. Yeah. I mean,
first of all, the shotgun thing is its own gross
thing that I wish would go away in our culture
for good. But also I mean I want to push
back on that slightly and that I have a friend
who has nothing but sons, and it's wanted a daughter.
And when he found out he was like a daughter,
(29:53):
it was clearly like a big thing for him. But
my thing is like, it doesn't have to turn into
this gross, t liable thing with teams trying to show like, oh,
I hope it's a boy. I hope it's a boy.
I hope it's a girl. Hope it's a girl. It's
okay to want a you know, a daughter that's what
you want, or a son that that's what you like.
That's fine, but it doesn't have to turn into this gross,
(30:16):
weird thing with people competing for quote unquote what they
want and attaching it to all these gross gender tropes. Yeah,
it always makes you feel like, whose right is it
to want a baby boy or a baby girl? You
know what I mean? Like, don't we want a healthy
baby above all else when it comes to everything. And
(30:36):
that's what I remember. It just came back to me
just this moment. But when I was ten and eleven,
my mom had two more kids, my baby brother and sister,
and she used to get that question all the time,
is it a boy or a girl? And she said,
you know, I just hope it's a healthy baby. That's
all I hope for. And she ended up with weirdly
symmetrical pairing of two boys and two girls one year apart,
each in a decade in between the two pairs, which
(30:58):
is weird in its own right. But this idea that
it's okay for ever to ask and or project their
desires onto your unborn child is perpetuated and or maybe
encouraged a little bit when we have parties that center
on the gender of your on more child. I also
just feel like I want to speak for the pregnant
people out there. I think that people should just back
(31:20):
off a little bit, Like I think that like pregnant people,
people who are pregnant people touch your stomach without asking
Strangers ask questions they would you would never ask. I
almost wondered if these parties help create a climate where
it's everybody's business what's going on inside a pregnant person's womb. Yes,
I think that's a really great point. Hashtag back off,
(31:40):
I'm cooking a baby. Yeah, it's none of your business.
Like I'm busy here, I'm busy unless you're getting up
out of the seat on the metro or the subway
to let me sit down. Don't talk to me exactly exactly.
Somebody has to put that on a T shirt for
pregnant people out there. I know we will be the
first to buy them for all our pregnant friends. Yeah,
not to mention if you're the aren't themselves who has
(32:02):
a negative reaction at your own gender revealed party? The
judgment that can come from that is just unbelievable, kind
of like all the judgment that pregnant women get probably
every day. And we're going to talk about what that
feels like, what that phenomenon is it's known as gender disappointment.
In just a quick moment after this word from our sponsors,
(32:32):
and we're back and bridget just like you. Before doing
research for this episode, I had never heard the term
gender disappointment. But just like postpartum depression, which so many
women suffer through in silence and in isolation after giving birth,
gender disappointment is one of those unspoken phenomenons that many
(32:54):
women who are pregnant can experience that instantly makes them
feel like a bad mom. So I have to read
these couple of paragraphs from this great piece by so
Lady Win on Romper dot com. Here's how she opens
her story. She says, it's a girl. The snographer said.
I can still remember the excitement I felt as I
lay on the bed with goog all over my just
(33:14):
about to pop pregnant belly at my twenty week ultrasound.
My partner and I held hands and I stared up
expectantly at the screen, waiting to hear what our baby
was going to be. But when the pornographer said those
three words, my brain glitched. Really, I asked, my voice
too high, too loud, injected with false enthusiasm, I looked
(33:34):
to my partner to see what he thought. Like always,
I couldn't quite read his reaction. I had been positive
one sure, there had been no doubt in my mind
that I was having a baby boy. But there, in
black and white was the proof that I was not.
I had gender disappointment, and as the feeling settled over me,
it left me feeling so many emotions, ashamed and confused,
(33:58):
but mostly terrified. As we drove home from our ultrasound,
I continue to put up a happy front. We called
my parents from the car and told him the exciting news,
and I wondered aloud to my partner at all the
things I could do with our daughter. But in my
head and in my heart, all I could feel was
a horrible shame, shame that I was disappointed with my
child for something she had no control over. I wondered
(34:21):
what kind of mother could be disappointed in their child's gender,
and the only answer I could come up with was
a bad one. That is heartbreaking. And even though I
had never heard of gender disappointment before, it does make
sense when you get very invested in the idea of
having you know, a boy or girl or whatever, it
does make sense and having a kid. I imagine it's
(34:44):
very emotional. You're gonna have intense feelings, feelings that maybe
you don't expect to have exactly, and you're making expectations
about the life of your child. Right, it makes sense
in our world today and maybe forever to feel a
sense of fear over your child, and especially over bringing
(35:06):
a little girl into this world. Right, this is not
an easy place. This is not a fair, just world
where girls are treated the same as boys, where women
are treated the same as men, And to feel fear
for that or disappointment in that make some logical sense. Right.
Your emotional response is not in your control, and so
(35:27):
I think it's important that it be okay for us
to have these conversations and for you to have that
moment as a parent, to reconcile your expectations with your
actual emotional response. And I don't want to have that
moment with all of my friends and families present, cheering
on team Pink versus Team Blue, and having like a
professional photographer there to capture your fake smile if in
(35:49):
fact this moment does turn out to be a heavier
one than you or maybe expecting. Yeah, And I feel
like it's natural for us to have this investment in
this idea of our future child's life. You know, I
really want a kid who's going to be a rock
star athlete, or I really want a kid who's gonna
I can take to dance lessons. You know what I
mean to live through and relive some of your own childhood.
(36:11):
Makes sense, But then when we conflate gender with those hobbies,
it becomes a weird sense of disappointment before the kid
even has a chance to disappoint you. Totally thinking about
my own mom. My mom was very poor when she
got married, so she never got a chance to have,
you know, a real dream wedding. She just didn't have
(36:32):
a wedding. And she was like, oh, I wanted to
have I was so excited to have a girl so
that I could plan the wedding I never had. And
I get that. I think that's how are you doing
living up to her expectations? Not great? She's uh, she
does send me some bridal magazines from time to time.
She's my mom. It's she's the sweetest, but like she
(36:54):
badly wants all of her children to be like married
and happy, and we kids whose weddings that she will
also be planning somehow, But yeah, I get it. I
get you know I I for a while was very
invested in the idea of having a boy and raising
him to be this kick ass ally and feminist she
(37:16):
respects women and is surrounded by strong, assertive women who
goes on to be the kind of guys that you
hope all guys will be. Right. I wanted to raise
that guy to be the guy who like gives his
buddies crap when they say sexist things, and I wanted
to I was really really invested in that idea. Part
of me is like, oh, that's natural. It's natural to
think about what your kid's life is going to look like.
(37:38):
But you sort of don't realize how that can saddle
a kid with expectations before they're even born, right exactly.
And I think at the end of the day, you
don't know what your reaction is going to be until
they say it's a girl or it's a boy, or
until the moment of birth. If you choose to wait
for the information, By the way, would you choose to
wait or would you find out? I would choose to wait, same, Yeah,
(38:00):
why that wait? You would choose to wait? Yeah? That
is not at all what y'all if y'all know Emily.
Emily is a planner. Emily likes details. Emily likes to
like data, checks data. Emily is the kind of person
who if you're like, let's get a drink, she likes
to know where we're gonna go. She's already looked at
the menu. She was what she wants to send your
(38:22):
Google calendar. That's kind of girl, Emily. That surprises you
on gender, it surprises me. I would think that you
would want to if you were having a kid, you
would want to know, Okay, it's gonna be you girl,
I'm gonna have a birth plan. Yeah, you were gonna
I would not think that you would have everything planned out,
you would know the gender because you're gonna start looking
at schools like you're already Like, I would imagine that
(38:42):
you would have everything planning. I think a little bit
of surprise, good old fashioned surprise, can go a long way,
because sometimes too much information is real Like, basically, I
don't want any information that forces me to stress out unnecessarily,
and that's what gender information I think would do for me.
That's interesting, And this sounds a little bit dumb, maybe
(39:03):
but I know I talked earlier in the show about
my aunties who like to rub pregn like our pregnant
family members bellies and say like, oh, it feels like this,
it's a boy. It feels like I kind of want that.
I want, I want. I want a little of that. Yeah,
I think a little of that is is good. I'm
I'm someone who likes surprises. I like things that are impulsive.
(39:26):
I like things to not be super planned. And I
like the idea of my great aunt rubbing her hand
on my tummy and saying she thinks someone have a
girl because of some crazy book that's not really a
real I want that. Yeah, there is something old school
in a great way about that. I think. Yeah, it
definitely brings back some like is it like spiritual predictions
(39:52):
or some like some of the fun of pregnancy before
it got super medical. Although thank you medicine, right, because
that stuff keeps us alive too. But I think that's
the thing, and I keep underscoring this is that I
don't think that these kinds of celebrations are wrong inherently,
because I do think things that remind us that hard
birth is fun or can be cute, or can be
(40:15):
something that you make a a that's important for your
chosen community or your family or whatever things that mark
that I think are good, which is where I've come
a long way on marriage. By the way, it's a
communal celebration of what is important to you, and for me,
I don't think gender should be on that list. I agree.
I think we're celebrating what's important to us when we
(40:35):
have parties and when we have traditions like this. If
you are making gender this salient, this significant, you might
actually be setting your kid up for stress and disappointment,
and you might be setting yourself up for stress and disappointment.
So if you're gonna have one of these reveal events,
how can folks do that in a way that's not
so problematic? Well, I think at the end of the day, one,
(40:58):
let's not read so much into sex and what that
means about our unborn humans. How about that, Let's say
it's a girl, it's a boy referring to sex organs.
Let's call it what it is like. Even though I'm
here for the sex cake wins out as compared to
the pistols or pearls cake in my book, because at
least you're talking about what you're talking about, which is
the baby's sex organs, and then maybe let's ease up
(41:21):
on the over the top gender stereotypes that come along
with a lot of these parties. So if you're going
to have one of them, maybe we don't say, oh,
are you going to be going to football games or
dance recitals for life? Because guess what you don't know? Yeah,
something about that. There's this comedian that I'm obsessed with
when I follow on Twitter. He has a baby that
is the most adorable baby you'll ever see in your life.
(41:42):
He is adorable. There's a hashtag woke baby if you
ever want to see him on Twitter. Um. But I
once tweeted at him. I accidentally miss gendered his baby.
I said, Oh, your baby is so cute, she's adorable,
and he tweeted back at me, Oh, it's actually a
boy parentheses as far as I know. And I loved
that so much. I thought that was such a cool
handling it, where it's like, yeah, my my baby's gender
(42:05):
is important to me, so I want to make sure
that you have it correct. But I want to underscore that,
like I don't actually really know the situation because it's
a baby, and it will in due time, you know,
they will be able to express their own gender identity exactly.
And that's the other thing I want all of our
parents listening, and all of our maybe someday parents like
(42:27):
ourselves listening to think about which is your kids genders
up to them. It's not up to their doctor. It's
not up to somebody taking a peek between their legs
and deciding which binary category to put them in. UM
And instead of over emphasizing the importance of that determination,
maybe we celebrate life and birth and health instead of
(42:48):
anyone characteristic And just so you know, if you're listening
and you've experienced symptoms of what we've called gender disappointment,
just know it's okay. It happened. And I think the
most important thing is to know you're not alone. It
doesn't make you a bad parent, and that you should
talk about it. Don't keep it inside, don't plaster a
fake smile on your face, don't engineer situations where you
(43:09):
would have to fake smile through what I'm comfortable situation
in public to begin with, It's okay, yes, And you
have to be able to talk through those emotions with
someone you trust and get more support if you need it,
especially right after birth, when an estimated fifty to seventy
of new mothers suffer from what's called the baby blues
(43:31):
in the days after childbirth. And then, of course there
are the more intense feelings, not just the baby blues,
but things like anger and resentment towards your child, thoughts
of hurting yourself or your child, insomnia, fear of losing
control or losing your mind, or uncontrollable crying, all of
which can be a sign of postpartum depression, a less
common but still very serious condition that affects ten to
(43:54):
twenty of women. So if you're feeling that way, you're
not alone. But it's important not to suff for silently,
because if we suffer silently, one, we don't give ourselves
a chance to feel better, and to you don't know
who out there is also suffering. And if you make
it seem like, oh, mom's got it all under control,
everything is fine, everything is good, you're not contributing to
(44:16):
a community where it's okay to talk about these things. Yes,
so true, and know that it's pretty curable, right like,
with proper treatment and support, this is a very recoverable
situation you find yourself in. So don't let the fear
of being a bad mom prevent you from getting the
help you need. Because you're not a bad mom. There's
a human Yeah, now listen. I know it sounds like
(44:37):
this might be PC culture run amuck. You know that's
my favorite phrase, your favorite, and that we're not trying
to just come down on social media trend because we're
overly politically correct. It's not that these parties tend to
be tacky or that they can often be a little
bit weird as a participate. It at one of these
(45:00):
parties to be celebrating the sex organs of someone's unborn child.
It really is about the bigger ramifications. So we're not
here to tell you how to have your baby. We're
not here to tell you how to celebrate your pregnancy.
I just hope that all of us, as parents or
maybe someday parents, can be mindful about how gender revealed
parties actually say more about us than it says anything
(45:24):
about the life of your future child. To add on
to that, I think we should be mindful of what
they say about us and what they're putting on these kids.
I think that really comes down to them and how
they're faring. So, if you're someone who is into gender
revealed parties, just be critical and be willing to self
reflect on what they say about our culture and what
(45:45):
that means and what the significance of your unborn child's
gender is to you or what that means to you. Yeah, well,
we'd love to hear from you listeners. I would love,
love love to hear some of those very inventive gender
or or I guess we were calling it sex reveal parties.
Now have you dyed your hair? Did it involve bloody
(46:07):
goldberg coming out of a crystal ball? What did it
look like? Yeah? And if you've always had a little
bit of discomfort over this concept of gender revealed parties,
did today's episode make sense as to why? We'd love
to hear what you think, especially from my mom listeners
out there, especially from our parents listeners out there, um
who have already navigated this kind of a choice moment
(46:28):
in their life. What what what did we miss? What
would you consider? What do you think a salient about this?
We can't wait to hear what you think, So get
in the conversation with us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast.
Find us in the comments section of our Instagram and
stuff Mom Never Told You And as always we love
to get your listener mail at mom Stuff, how stuff
(46:49):
works dot com. On the Road
Hey, this is Emily and this is Bridget, and you're
listening to stuff mom never told you. Today, we're going
to break down a made for social media trend that
has been popping up in my new speed more and
(00:26):
more these days. And I'm curious, Bridget. It's something you're
seeing a lot of two and it's one of those
things that seems very innocuous until you take a closer look.
And that's why today we're breaking down and unpacking. You
might even say, what gender reveal parties reveal about us
as a society and our relationship with gender and sex.
(00:51):
So you've seen these, right, Bridget, Oh. Being raised in
the South, I have seen my fair share of them.
People in the South love this kind of thing. Yes,
people in the South love the performative aspects of weddings
and childhood. I feel like, I feel like the way
(01:12):
that social media algorithms are almost designed, it magnifies the
impact of those big life moments like having a child.
And so you know, the most liked image you'll ever
have for a lot of folks is your baby or
your pregnancy announcement or whatever it might be. And now
for for parents who are demarcating those pivot points in
(01:33):
your life, getting pregnant, you know, announcing that pregnancy, or
getting married, or making that transition in your life. When
it comes to your identity, there is a performative aspect
to it because of how social media makes our lives
different nowadays. Don't you think like social media makes our
lives the performance in ways everything about our lives can
(01:54):
be a performance on social media, right, So it seems
natural and understandable that there would be new ends coming
up in our lives that are made for social media.
But this one, to me is very troubling because it's
not just about oh, you found out the gender of
the baby, and the very well intentioned desire to share
(02:16):
that news with the world and share it with your
family and share it with your loved ones, but it
actually says to me that we as a society define
human beings by our gender even before we're born, in
in a way that can be really, in my opinion,
problematic and troubling. I think problematic and troubling, but also
kind of tacky sometimes. Yeah, So let's break down what
(02:39):
you're right. Let's like, let's define what these gender revealed
parties are for anyone who I don't know, is too
cool for Facebook and doesn't have a Facebook account, maybe
or has been living under a rock for the last
ten years or so. A gender revealed party is what
a couple finds out the gender of the baby, but
they keep it under lock and key, so they keep
it a secret, even from themselves. Sometimes the doctors asked
(03:01):
to write and put in an envelope. Then they handed
to a third party who arranges something crafty you might
even say kitchy. Then at some public party with all
their friends and family and maybe live streaming it on
the internet, they reveal whatever it is, whatever crafty thing
that is going to be dyed pink or blue to
(03:23):
tell what the gender of the baby is. So some
of these things you wanna Some of them are really inventive.
That you might make a cake where when the person
cuts into the cake, the inside of the cake is
blue for a boy, pink for a girl. Maybe you
will put some balloons in a box and then when
the parents open the box, either pink or blue balloons emerge. Um,
(03:45):
some of them are even more inventive something I mean, honestly,
some of the gender reveal cakes. If y'all google this
or find them on Pinterest are weirdly related to the
sex organs of your unborn child, which find I find
super creepy. But there are cakes that are decorated to
say stick or no stick over the baby's for the keenista.
(04:10):
Or there's like cakes that say we're here for the sex,
like wink wink, like we're at a party to find
out what the sex is, like I'm here for the
sex like it's a much more exciting party than it
actually is. Can you imagine thinking that you're showing up
for an orgy and it's actually a baby reveal like party? Um?
(04:33):
The only looking at some of the gender reveals. The
only one that I actually was like sort of on
board with was the car burnout where someone does like
doughnuts and I'm parking lot and whether somehow they get
like blue or pink exhaust come out of the I
think it's like dust on the ground or something. I
was kind of I was like that, actually, it's kind
of cool from a logistics standpoint. Then there was the
(04:56):
mom who dyed her hair but she didn't know if
it was dyed pink or blue until the towel came off,
which I thought was creative. I guess inventive for sure.
We would be remiss to mat mention the couple who
were good enthusiasts who pointed a rifle at a target
full of different colored chalks, so when they shot the target,
(05:17):
you would either have red smoke or blue smoke. Yeah.
So if you want your you know, to mark the
beginning of your beautiful journey of bringing your life into
this world with a firearm, I think yeah, I think
that is they nailed that. If that was their intentioned it,
they killed it. Speaking of inventive gender reveals, there was
(05:38):
one that I was just reading about online. They write
at my gender revealed party, and all my guests joined
me at a round table where we gazed into a
large crystal ball. After chanting x X and y X
for half an hour, the smoke bomb I carefully prepared
went off and then Whoopie Goldberg grows from a trapdoor
I very handily had my husband installed in our living room.
(05:58):
Whoopee rose up and Molly, you're having a girl girl.
Everyone cried and we gave will be her check and
she left. Actually that's not a real gender reveal, it's
from a really funny genl essay full of hilarious fake
gender reveal stories, and I really implore you to read
because it's hilarious, right, So it's I mean, I think
it is easy to poke fun at it. It is
(06:21):
easy to think about how outrageous a gender revealed party
you can have, because it does feel like every other
day on Reddit or some Facebook groups somewhere, there's like
a couple that goes viral for whatever insane way they've
decided to reveal their gender. But you know, as yuppy heathens,
single women without children, I think it's important for us
(06:43):
to also acknowledge that while we might sort of poke
fun at this kitchy new trend, it really does belie
something very meaningful and very understandable. It comes from a
really good place for new parents who simply want to
sell rate this milestone in their lives. Yeah, I think
that it's really a throwback to the ceremonial aspects of
(07:06):
bringing a life into this world and making it be
this communal, democratized thing where we all find out, like
the community of people who love this child are all
finding out the gender together. If you take away this
sort of creepy gendered aspects of it, that's kind of
a beautiful thing I can understand, right, And in fact,
a scholar who was writing first Smithsonian Laura Trump, totally
(07:28):
agrees with you and thinks it has something to do
really directly with the medicalization of pregnancy and the totally
natural instinct for in our highly medicalized world to take
back some of the mysticism and ritual that used to
be a bigger part of pregnancy. She writes, the party
is suspenseful because it reveals a secret, egalitarian because everyone
(07:52):
finds out at once, and delicious cake the perfect afternoon
unheard of a decade or two ago, gender revealed. Part
These are the latest manifestation of the conflict between modern
technological pregnancy and its ancient legacy of mystery. That this
all plays out through pink and blue Cake speaks to
the peculiar anxieties and ironies of our time. I think
(08:16):
she's spot on, and I think you even see that
in some of the other rituals that have now risen
in the age of childbearing and social media. Think about
elaborate photo shoots when you have a baby, um, Think
about those monthly pictures that you do where you're demonstrating
your child's growth and talking about like, oh baby whoever
(08:37):
at age two loves this and loves that. Um, I
think that you do see people returning to this highly
ritualistic way of marking bringing a child into the world. Yeah,
I totally agree, And I think we would be remiss
to not acknowledge that there's a financial incentive in the
marketplace for these rituals to become capitalistic endeavors. Right, Like,
(08:59):
we know that the wing industrial complex is real in
this country. So if they can charge four times the
amount for a wedding photographer that they would for any
other photographer, I'm sure that there is a reason behind
the growth and ritualization of childbearing and pregnancy because there's
also a market for that. And so she goes on
(09:19):
to write that the gender revealed party has become just
yet another ritual and for parents, it's a way to
retrieve the mysteries of pregnancy. In the past, the pregnant
woman had little power over her life, but a lot
of knowledge about her body at the time, knowledge that
other people depended on them to reveal. Gender revealed parties
(09:42):
reclaim the privilege of revelation along with some control parents
can orchestrate these parties choose their rituals and plan for
their future with the knowledge that they're likely to survive
childbirth unlike ancient times, even though we do know that
our mortality rate infant more reality rate and maternal mortality
rate in this country is less than ideal. But basically,
(10:05):
it's a reclaiming of the knowledge that used to be
very intimately held by the mother alone or by the
active birth alone, that now doctors have. Doctors have that
power and knowledge. Doctors and science have yielded all of
those outcomes, but by retaining the control over how to
orchestrate your own gender reveal party, it kind of feels
(10:25):
like the parents are reclaiming that power. That's so interesting
and I can't help but think of some of the
older women in my family who are totally ritualistic when
it comes to the gender of babies who are still
in utero, where they'll be like, oh, I, when I
put my hand on your belly, it sits high. That
means it's gonna be a boy, or you if you
are really gassy, it's gonna be a girl. A lot
(10:46):
of the women in my family, they have these ideas
about how you can glean things about the future gender
of your baby in these ways that are not frankly
very scientific, but sort of wedded to this idea of
you know, spirituality and old wives tale. Then oh, well,
you know, when my sister was pregnant, she only wanted
(11:06):
to eat beats. And so no, I totally know what
you mean, because it feels like this familial mythical conversation
that's now playing out on social media, and it's performative.
It's still grounded in science, right, because the doctor gave
you that decision or gave you that conclusion. And here's
the thing, right for our listeners who have had these parties,
(11:27):
we're not trying to come down on you at all,
because these parties seem perfectly innocuous. They seem benign, even
if we are annoyed at them, or even if you're like,
oh great, another blue cupcake. This is cute. I can't
wait to like your image on social media, even if
you do roll your eyes at them. It's not just
(11:47):
that they're all over Pinterest. It's not just that there's
another expectation for parents to get this pinteresty perfect life
on on social media. There's something more troubling to this,
and that is all of the highly stereotyped, gendered expectations
that this weirdly sets your entire family up to be promoting.
(12:11):
And we're going to uncover some of the troubling repercussions
that can come from gender reveled parties being mainstream. After
a quick word from our sponsors, all right, we're back,
and we are diving into why gender revealed parties make
(12:33):
us a little uncomfortable and why we should all think
a little bit more about them before we just blindly
follow this sort of made for social media trend amongst
parents to be So, what's wrong with gender revealed parties? Well,
first of all, they should really be called sex revealed
parties if anything, because they tend to conflate gender and sex.
(12:54):
So gender and sex are different things. A doctor doesn't
actually know your gender. If anything, a doctor's look get
an image of your genitalia and saying this is your sex.
But the two things are different. I mean, you shouldn't
be conflating them. Right, So we know that people who
happen to be born the vast majority of us who
happen to be born with a gender identity. Let's say,
in my case, I identify as as a woman as
(13:16):
female that aligns with your sex organs. Not everybody is
born that way, right, That's what SIS identity is, right,
That's what we talk about when we say sis, is
that alignment between your sex organs or what a doctor
tells you you are in terms of male or female
and your identity, your sense of your own gender that
(13:37):
you have as an identity. Now, trans folks and intersex
folks whose sex organs aren't immediately identified as definitely in
one of the category or the other, you know, there's
a whole spectrum not only to your sex organs, but
obviously to gender in a in a highly sort of
gender fluid environment that we're now coming to embody and
(13:59):
embrace as a society. And I think anything that pushes
back on this notion that a doctor looking in between
an infant's legs seeing genitals and saying it's a girl
or it's a boy, anything that pushes back on that idea,
I think is good. And I gender revealed parties do not.
You make it very clear that what you are is
what's in between your legs and that's all there is
(14:19):
to it. And we know that's not true exactly, So
imagine you're born with what a doctor deems to be
male sex organs, and you identify as female, and you
spend your entire life trying to figure that out and
trying to get the rest of your loved ones to
figure it out with you. But mom and dad already
had the gender revealed party, and it's a boy, and
(14:41):
on that cake there was a football and or whatever,
you know what I mean. Like, on the that party,
we sort of dreamt about all the things that you
were going to do with your son as you grew up.
And coming to grips with that dissonance between expectation and
reality is hard enough as it is. Like parents of
trans know this better than anyone, but a gender revealed
(15:03):
party misrepresents or mistakes rather sex organs deemed by a
doctor in utero for gender identity. And that's a problem.
That's a problem for all of us who are just
trying to be accepted for who we are. And I
think even beyond that, I think that for kids and
for parents, it really illustrates to this kid that your
(15:26):
gender matters to your parents, and I don't think that
we should be enforcing that idea in kids. It matters
to everybody, like everyone shows up to your entire your
your entire community is very invested in like your gender identity.
I think that is setting a kid up for a lot,
even before this kid is born. And it makes you wonder, like,
(15:46):
why are these parties important to us? Why do these
parties exist? We are so fixated on gender as a
way to understand a person that we're already gendering people
before they're born. Smithsonian's Laura Troup again rites as the
French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir said, one is not born,
but rather becomes a woman. A person's gender identity may
(16:08):
not match the sex they were assigned at birth, and
gender roles are culturally constructed notions. And this idea that
you can predict an unborn child's gender is really not
possible based on an in utero snapshot of their reproductive
organs alone. I think that's so spot on. And as
Marty Seroy writes over at Huffo, uh Si Roy is
(16:30):
a mom of three kids, and she also is a
therapist who works with the parents of trans children. She
really makes it clear that we should be letting children
have more autonomy over how they decide their own gender expressions.
She writes, children will reveal their own gender identity and
or expression at some point along the way, whether that
is sis, gender, gender nonconforming, gender creative, a gender, gender fluid,
(16:52):
or gender queer. And gender is also totally separate from
romantic or sexual attraction. Those are just three of many
varying factors that make up a human being, none of
which are strictly binary, as much as we may have
been brought up to believe so. Really it's about pushing
back on this notion that it's one or the other,
and that when your doctor tells you it's a girl
or it's a boy, that that means something right that
(17:14):
you should be celebrating and investigat right away, because it
doesn't allow for your kid to later have real control
over how they express their gender. It's just a weird emphasis,
that's what it is to me. It's not that it's
totally unimportant, because I get it. If you're a parent,
you want to know who is coming along to join
your family and what can you know? You can know
(17:37):
very few things. But it's salience is what I find
troubling when we celebrate that, when we make it into
such a production we give people permission to project all
of these expectations on your onborn child based on gender,
not even gender based on sex alone. And so when
you're unpacking this quote from Marty, she's talking about gender identity,
(18:01):
gender expression, and sexual attraction as being free really kind
of important things that your kid's going to figure out
and express to you on their own. And maybe that
expression could go on to be hampered if your kid
grows up in a house where a gender revealed party
picture is framed on the mantle from the day they're born. Yeah,
that would be really tough. That would be to It
would make it tougher. I would say to like, have
(18:23):
a trans kid who feels like it's okay to not
have the gender identity that matches your sexual organs, you
know what I mean. It gives them permission to define
themselves and not to mention the children who are born
with intersex traits. According to the United Nations, one point
seven percent of children born are born with intersex traits,
(18:44):
meaning that their genitalia doesn't fit neatly into a male
or female binary. For example, on Gabby Totally, the Belgian
supermodel recently revealed she has x Y chromosomes more typically
found in men and had internal undescended test ees at birth.
That makes her part of the population who is born
with intersex traits. And that's all biology, right, We're talking
(19:08):
about biology. We're talking about chromosomes. So how does a
gender reveal party account for that. It doesn't. It doesn't.
It doesn't allow for anything other than one or the other.
And so that's the number one most problematic component about
gender reveled parties. If you're going to have one, at
least call it a sex reveled party. So we're not
conflating gender insex. But beyond that, there's another really concerning
(19:32):
trend that is not true at every gender reveled party
but is very much commonplace if you look at pinter
sports about gender reveled parties, and that is that these
parties tend to encourage a weirdly intense amount of gender stereotyping.
We're talking things like pistols or pearls, toys or tiers,
(19:53):
guns or glitter wheels or heels, things that make it
clear that, oh, if I have a boy, it's going
to like x y z, and if I have a girl,
she's going to like x y ze. Only guns or glitter.
You can't like both? What if you like both toys
and tis? There are a weird array of themes like
this online when you Google you know themes for your
(20:14):
gender reveil Party, which basically allude to this concept that
you can predict the preferences the tastes of your unborn
child based on their sex organs alone. So basically, god
forbid you should have a girl who likes baseball or
throwing a football around, or a little boy who likes
dressing up in heels. Yeah, this feels so relevant for me.
(20:36):
I was definitely a little girl who didn't necessarily like
a lot of girly things. But I grew up in
a traditional household where girls liked this and boys like that,
and I always just felt very confused by the things
I was supposed to like but had no interest in.
Did you post an Instagram photo recently? A little bridget
tab the tiny sad Dancer was a tiny dancer. I
(21:00):
did ballet. I had like ballet in my room even
before I could identify it as Bellatian. Like, I was
like born into a very specific gender mold that was
always confusing. It's confusing now, and it's not picture. I
was like, what am I doing here? Just like when
I was given a I grew up just outside of
(21:22):
Yukon so Go Huskies, but I was given a Yukon
Huskies cheerleader uniform by my dad, who was very proud
of this purchase for Halloween one year. And I was
there's a photo of me like this with my hands
up holding pom poms, Like, really, this is what I
have to be for Halloween this year? This is so lame.
And you had a similar look at that adorable Instagram
(21:44):
bridget the sad tiny dance, sad, serious, solemn, tiny dancer
Dressica Princess. It wasn't my vibe, right, And so there's
this great article from USA Today that really points to
some research out of the University of California, Santa Cruz
that at activities that formally mark gender, like gender reveal parties,
increase the likelihood of gender stereotyping. There was research done
(22:09):
by Rebecca Bigler, a psychologist at the University of Texas.
She had school children wear red and blue T shirts
and had teachers referenced the colors as they might gender,
So good morning reds and blues, and really identify the
children based on the color T shirt that they wore.
Over time, the study found that kids developed biases preferring
(22:31):
their own colors, just as they did with gender. Quote,
when you put things in a category, we naturally want
to make meaning of that category, said leaper, girl and boy.
If those categories exist, there must be reasons for that,
and we start to think about them differently. Well, this
reminds me so much of my experience, and I was
(22:51):
teaching in the classroom setting. They actually trained us to
use terms when addressing the class that we're not gendered.
And so if I'm ever even now that hasn't taught
in years, but even now, when I'm referencing a large
group of people who are mixed gender, I'll say things
like good morning friends, or hello comrades, things like that.
That because it doesn't you say girls and boys or
(23:14):
ladies and gentlemen and you're in you're in the classroom,
changes the dynamic of a classroom. And I've seen it
total abst true. And it also makes me think, you know,
all those gender reveal I don't know if they're parties
or celebrations or online videos or whatever that have another
child present. So let's say mom and dad are revealing
the gender of your unborn brother or sister. The little
(23:35):
girls are always wanting a girl and the little boys
are always wanting a boy. And they I've seen videos
where like the little girl weeps and cries and goes
into hysterics when she finds out it's going to be
a boy, and vice versa. And so this is like
this weird. Uh. It's like before the child is even born,
you're drawing a line between their brother and them, or
(23:58):
their sister and them, and you know what, it just
seems like not exactly a bridge to a relationship. And
to me, I just it just feels unnecessary. I think
there are ways of celebrating the bringing of a new
child into a family that mark information that you find
out about it that this kid that don't kind of
stoke these weird gender divisions before these kids have even met.
(24:22):
It's weird. It's just a weird emphasis. Like I said,
it's not that you're having a party about your own
born kid. That's fine, baby showers, fine, whatever, But it's
this emphasis on gender does nothing more than give everybody
a permission slip to stereotype and not to mention. The
USA today article goes on to say, quote, you know
what toys to buy, how to decorate the room, what
(24:45):
clothes you get, as opposed to buying different things and
seeing what the child likes. A girl gets a doll,
a boy gets a baseball. That takes the guessing out
of it. So basically, even having expectations as a parent
can set you up to have Balarie the slippers in
your little girl's room before she even knows what they are, right,
And not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but it
(25:06):
is a limiting factor if you're already making assumptions for
your unborn child as to what toys are gonna like,
so what interest they're going to have, And those gender
norms can have lifelong ramifications. Those stereotypes can get instituted
from day one, no earlier, from like in utero, before
the child's even born. And I think it doesn't leave
(25:27):
room for kids to figure the stuff out for themselves.
And if you grow up thinking that my mom wants
me to be a ballerina and you don't really have
an interest in being a battering your princess, you you're
you might feel some pressure to do something that you
don't really want to do because you feel like you
have to. And I think that we should be giving
kids the space to figure out who they are. And
(25:50):
we have so much time for society to put crap
on them, and it seems like a lot to start
them out handing them more gender expectations. Yes, Laura Tropp
ends her Smithsonian piece perfectly by saying, a ritual that
sexes and genders a person before they are born places
limits rather than offers possibilities on who they may become.
(26:14):
And I think you're totally right. The final big issue
that I have with gender revealed parties is actually directly
related to one of its purported benefits. So one of
the supposed benefits of this ritual that we've developed in
the age of social media is that it's egalitarian, right,
it's democratic, everybody gets to find out at the same time.
(26:35):
But with everybody finding out at the same time comes
this new form of observation, which is, what is the
reaction of mom and dad? Is dad disappointed that he's
having a girl? What does that mean? You know? Is
the toddler sibling crying hysterically because it's a boy? What
does that mean? And honestly, why would you do that
(26:59):
to yourself, hope for your family, because now it becomes
a meta performance. It's not just the performance of finding out,
it's the performance of finding out and looking right with
your reaction. I can't even imagine the pressure, But I
had never heard of people having a disappointed reaction about
having a girl or a boy, But it makes perfect sense.
I can imagine setting up one of these parties, not
(27:22):
realizing how invested you maybe are, and having a girl
or a boy, thinking it's going to be this cute thing,
cutting the cake and seeing blue when you wanted pink,
or pink when you wanted blue, and being blindsided by disappointment,
and thinking I have to pretend to be at the
fake it. I have to pretend to be happy, otherwise
I'm gonna look like a bad mom. Before my kids
(27:43):
even born, I could see I'm the kind of person
who I could see myself doing all these things and
thinking you will be fine, and then in the moment
being like, oh wait, actually I have feelings, but everyone's
looking at me, so I'm just gonna smile, but really
I feel weird. Yeah, it's like you you might be
surprised by your reaction in and you really never know
how you're going to react to such big news. What
(28:04):
if you're disappointed or nervous, service hits you in a
way that you didn't expect. That's that's the fear of
like having those fields and those feels not being socially
acceptable and peaches and cream and perfectly happy all the time.
And beyond that, some of the adults who come to
gender reveal parties are kind of encouraged cheer on team
Blue or team Pink. Now, this again is not at
(28:26):
every party, and we I mean we haven't men to
that many of them ourselves, but oftentimes guests are asked
to come wearing their guests, but their guests of what
the baby is, Team blue or team Pink can quickly
turn into their vote or their cheer, you know, their hope.
As this article in the Halfon Post goes on to say, ultimately,
(28:48):
team Pink and Team Blue are pitted against one another,
sometimes for prizes once the big gender reveal happens. Beyond that,
these announcements like that it's a girl announcement can some
being met with these stupid, annoying sexist reactions from your
party guests, like bridget, you're having a girl. That's payback
(29:09):
for how terrible a teenager you were, or you know,
get out the shotgun, dad, because you're having a girl.
You have to protect your unborn daughter's body because that's
your job, even before she's born. Basically, these weird reactions
that either you have or your party guests have are
just another wrinkle to the gender stereotyping and the downside
(29:33):
quite frankly, to having a gender real party. Yeah. I mean,
first of all, the shotgun thing is its own gross
thing that I wish would go away in our culture
for good. But also I mean I want to push
back on that slightly and that I have a friend
who has nothing but sons, and it's wanted a daughter.
And when he found out he was like a daughter,
(29:53):
it was clearly like a big thing for him. But
my thing is like, it doesn't have to turn into
this gross, t liable thing with teams trying to show like, oh,
I hope it's a boy. I hope it's a boy.
I hope it's a girl. Hope it's a girl. It's
okay to want a you know, a daughter that's what
you want, or a son that that's what you like.
That's fine, but it doesn't have to turn into this gross,
(30:16):
weird thing with people competing for quote unquote what they
want and attaching it to all these gross gender tropes. Yeah,
it always makes you feel like, whose right is it
to want a baby boy or a baby girl? You
know what I mean? Like, don't we want a healthy
baby above all else when it comes to everything. And
(30:36):
that's what I remember. It just came back to me
just this moment. But when I was ten and eleven,
my mom had two more kids, my baby brother and sister,
and she used to get that question all the time,
is it a boy or a girl? And she said,
you know, I just hope it's a healthy baby. That's
all I hope for. And she ended up with weirdly
symmetrical pairing of two boys and two girls one year apart,
each in a decade in between the two pairs, which
(30:58):
is weird in its own right. But this idea that
it's okay for ever to ask and or project their
desires onto your unborn child is perpetuated and or maybe
encouraged a little bit when we have parties that center
on the gender of your on more child. I also
just feel like I want to speak for the pregnant
people out there. I think that people should just back
(31:20):
off a little bit, Like I think that like pregnant people,
people who are pregnant people touch your stomach without asking
Strangers ask questions they would you would never ask. I
almost wondered if these parties help create a climate where
it's everybody's business what's going on inside a pregnant person's womb. Yes,
I think that's a really great point. Hashtag back off,
(31:40):
I'm cooking a baby. Yeah, it's none of your business.
Like I'm busy here, I'm busy unless you're getting up
out of the seat on the metro or the subway
to let me sit down. Don't talk to me exactly exactly.
Somebody has to put that on a T shirt for
pregnant people out there. I know we will be the
first to buy them for all our pregnant friends. Yeah,
not to mention if you're the aren't themselves who has
(32:02):
a negative reaction at your own gender revealed party? The
judgment that can come from that is just unbelievable, kind
of like all the judgment that pregnant women get probably
every day. And we're going to talk about what that
feels like, what that phenomenon is it's known as gender disappointment.
In just a quick moment after this word from our sponsors,
(32:32):
and we're back and bridget just like you. Before doing
research for this episode, I had never heard the term
gender disappointment. But just like postpartum depression, which so many
women suffer through in silence and in isolation after giving birth,
gender disappointment is one of those unspoken phenomenons that many
(32:54):
women who are pregnant can experience that instantly makes them
feel like a bad mom. So I have to read
these couple of paragraphs from this great piece by so
Lady Win on Romper dot com. Here's how she opens
her story. She says, it's a girl. The snographer said.
I can still remember the excitement I felt as I
lay on the bed with goog all over my just
(33:14):
about to pop pregnant belly at my twenty week ultrasound.
My partner and I held hands and I stared up
expectantly at the screen, waiting to hear what our baby
was going to be. But when the pornographer said those
three words, my brain glitched. Really, I asked, my voice
too high, too loud, injected with false enthusiasm, I looked
(33:34):
to my partner to see what he thought. Like always,
I couldn't quite read his reaction. I had been positive
one sure, there had been no doubt in my mind
that I was having a baby boy. But there, in
black and white was the proof that I was not.
I had gender disappointment, and as the feeling settled over me,
it left me feeling so many emotions, ashamed and confused,
(33:58):
but mostly terrified. As we drove home from our ultrasound,
I continue to put up a happy front. We called
my parents from the car and told him the exciting news,
and I wondered aloud to my partner at all the
things I could do with our daughter. But in my
head and in my heart, all I could feel was
a horrible shame, shame that I was disappointed with my
child for something she had no control over. I wondered
(34:21):
what kind of mother could be disappointed in their child's gender,
and the only answer I could come up with was
a bad one. That is heartbreaking. And even though I
had never heard of gender disappointment before, it does make
sense when you get very invested in the idea of
having you know, a boy or girl or whatever, it
does make sense and having a kid. I imagine it's
(34:44):
very emotional. You're gonna have intense feelings, feelings that maybe
you don't expect to have exactly, and you're making expectations
about the life of your child. Right, it makes sense
in our world today and maybe forever to feel a
sense of fear over your child, and especially over bringing
(35:06):
a little girl into this world. Right, this is not
an easy place. This is not a fair, just world
where girls are treated the same as boys, where women
are treated the same as men, And to feel fear
for that or disappointment in that make some logical sense. Right.
Your emotional response is not in your control, and so
(35:27):
I think it's important that it be okay for us
to have these conversations and for you to have that
moment as a parent, to reconcile your expectations with your
actual emotional response. And I don't want to have that
moment with all of my friends and families present, cheering
on team Pink versus Team Blue, and having like a
professional photographer there to capture your fake smile if in
(35:49):
fact this moment does turn out to be a heavier
one than you or maybe expecting. Yeah, And I feel
like it's natural for us to have this investment in
this idea of our future child's life. You know, I
really want a kid who's going to be a rock
star athlete, or I really want a kid who's gonna
I can take to dance lessons. You know what I
mean to live through and relive some of your own childhood.
(36:11):
Makes sense, But then when we conflate gender with those hobbies,
it becomes a weird sense of disappointment before the kid
even has a chance to disappoint you. Totally thinking about
my own mom. My mom was very poor when she
got married, so she never got a chance to have,
you know, a real dream wedding. She just didn't have
(36:32):
a wedding. And she was like, oh, I wanted to
have I was so excited to have a girl so
that I could plan the wedding I never had. And
I get that. I think that's how are you doing
living up to her expectations? Not great? She's uh, she
does send me some bridal magazines from time to time.
She's my mom. It's she's the sweetest, but like she
(36:54):
badly wants all of her children to be like married
and happy, and we kids whose weddings that she will
also be planning somehow, But yeah, I get it. I
get you know I I for a while was very
invested in the idea of having a boy and raising
him to be this kick ass ally and feminist she
(37:16):
respects women and is surrounded by strong, assertive women who
goes on to be the kind of guys that you
hope all guys will be. Right. I wanted to raise
that guy to be the guy who like gives his
buddies crap when they say sexist things, and I wanted
to I was really really invested in that idea. Part
of me is like, oh, that's natural. It's natural to
think about what your kid's life is going to look like.
(37:38):
But you sort of don't realize how that can saddle
a kid with expectations before they're even born, right exactly.
And I think at the end of the day, you
don't know what your reaction is going to be until
they say it's a girl or it's a boy, or
until the moment of birth. If you choose to wait
for the information, By the way, would you choose to
wait or would you find out? I would choose to wait, same, Yeah,
(38:00):
why that wait? You would choose to wait? Yeah? That
is not at all what y'all if y'all know Emily.
Emily is a planner. Emily likes details. Emily likes to
like data, checks data. Emily is the kind of person
who if you're like, let's get a drink, she likes
to know where we're gonna go. She's already looked at
the menu. She was what she wants to send your
(38:22):
Google calendar. That's kind of girl, Emily. That surprises you
on gender, it surprises me. I would think that you
would want to if you were having a kid, you
would want to know, Okay, it's gonna be you girl,
I'm gonna have a birth plan. Yeah, you were gonna
I would not think that you would have everything planned out,
you would know the gender because you're gonna start looking
at schools like you're already Like, I would imagine that
(38:42):
you would have everything planning. I think a little bit
of surprise, good old fashioned surprise, can go a long way,
because sometimes too much information is real Like, basically, I
don't want any information that forces me to stress out unnecessarily,
and that's what gender information I think would do for me.
That's interesting, And this sounds a little bit dumb, maybe
(39:03):
but I know I talked earlier in the show about
my aunties who like to rub pregn like our pregnant
family members bellies and say like, oh, it feels like this,
it's a boy. It feels like I kind of want that.
I want, I want. I want a little of that. Yeah,
I think a little of that is is good. I'm
I'm someone who likes surprises. I like things that are impulsive.
(39:26):
I like things to not be super planned. And I
like the idea of my great aunt rubbing her hand
on my tummy and saying she thinks someone have a
girl because of some crazy book that's not really a
real I want that. Yeah, there is something old school
in a great way about that. I think. Yeah, it
definitely brings back some like is it like spiritual predictions
(39:52):
or some like some of the fun of pregnancy before
it got super medical. Although thank you medicine, right, because
that stuff keeps us alive too. But I think that's
the thing, and I keep underscoring this is that I
don't think that these kinds of celebrations are wrong inherently,
because I do think things that remind us that hard
birth is fun or can be cute, or can be
(40:15):
something that you make a a that's important for your
chosen community or your family or whatever things that mark
that I think are good, which is where I've come
a long way on marriage. By the way, it's a
communal celebration of what is important to you, and for me,
I don't think gender should be on that list. I agree.
I think we're celebrating what's important to us when we
(40:35):
have parties and when we have traditions like this. If
you are making gender this salient, this significant, you might
actually be setting your kid up for stress and disappointment,
and you might be setting yourself up for stress and disappointment.
So if you're gonna have one of these reveal events,
how can folks do that in a way that's not
so problematic? Well, I think at the end of the day, one,
(40:58):
let's not read so much into sex and what that
means about our unborn humans. How about that, Let's say
it's a girl, it's a boy referring to sex organs.
Let's call it what it is like. Even though I'm
here for the sex cake wins out as compared to
the pistols or pearls cake in my book, because at
least you're talking about what you're talking about, which is
the baby's sex organs, and then maybe let's ease up
(41:21):
on the over the top gender stereotypes that come along
with a lot of these parties. So if you're going
to have one of them, maybe we don't say, oh,
are you going to be going to football games or
dance recitals for life? Because guess what you don't know? Yeah,
something about that. There's this comedian that I'm obsessed with
when I follow on Twitter. He has a baby that
is the most adorable baby you'll ever see in your life.
(41:42):
He is adorable. There's a hashtag woke baby if you
ever want to see him on Twitter. Um. But I
once tweeted at him. I accidentally miss gendered his baby.
I said, Oh, your baby is so cute, she's adorable,
and he tweeted back at me, Oh, it's actually a
boy parentheses as far as I know. And I loved
that so much. I thought that was such a cool
handling it, where it's like, yeah, my my baby's gender
(42:05):
is important to me, so I want to make sure
that you have it correct. But I want to underscore that,
like I don't actually really know the situation because it's
a baby, and it will in due time, you know,
they will be able to express their own gender identity exactly.
And that's the other thing I want all of our
parents listening, and all of our maybe someday parents like
(42:27):
ourselves listening to think about which is your kids genders
up to them. It's not up to their doctor. It's
not up to somebody taking a peek between their legs
and deciding which binary category to put them in. UM
And instead of over emphasizing the importance of that determination,
maybe we celebrate life and birth and health instead of
(42:48):
anyone characteristic And just so you know, if you're listening
and you've experienced symptoms of what we've called gender disappointment,
just know it's okay. It happened. And I think the
most important thing is to know you're not alone. It
doesn't make you a bad parent, and that you should
talk about it. Don't keep it inside, don't plaster a
fake smile on your face, don't engineer situations where you
(43:09):
would have to fake smile through what I'm comfortable situation
in public to begin with, It's okay, yes, And you
have to be able to talk through those emotions with
someone you trust and get more support if you need it,
especially right after birth, when an estimated fifty to seventy
of new mothers suffer from what's called the baby blues
(43:31):
in the days after childbirth. And then, of course there
are the more intense feelings, not just the baby blues,
but things like anger and resentment towards your child, thoughts
of hurting yourself or your child, insomnia, fear of losing
control or losing your mind, or uncontrollable crying, all of
which can be a sign of postpartum depression, a less
common but still very serious condition that affects ten to
(43:54):
twenty of women. So if you're feeling that way, you're
not alone. But it's important not to suff for silently,
because if we suffer silently, one, we don't give ourselves
a chance to feel better, and to you don't know
who out there is also suffering. And if you make
it seem like, oh, mom's got it all under control,
everything is fine, everything is good, you're not contributing to
(44:16):
a community where it's okay to talk about these things. Yes,
so true, and know that it's pretty curable, right like,
with proper treatment and support, this is a very recoverable
situation you find yourself in. So don't let the fear
of being a bad mom prevent you from getting the
help you need. Because you're not a bad mom. There's
a human Yeah, now listen. I know it sounds like
(44:37):
this might be PC culture run amuck. You know that's
my favorite phrase, your favorite, and that we're not trying
to just come down on social media trend because we're
overly politically correct. It's not that these parties tend to
be tacky or that they can often be a little
bit weird as a participate. It at one of these
(45:00):
parties to be celebrating the sex organs of someone's unborn child.
It really is about the bigger ramifications. So we're not
here to tell you how to have your baby. We're
not here to tell you how to celebrate your pregnancy.
I just hope that all of us, as parents or
maybe someday parents, can be mindful about how gender revealed
parties actually say more about us than it says anything
(45:24):
about the life of your future child. To add on
to that, I think we should be mindful of what
they say about us and what they're putting on these kids.
I think that really comes down to them and how
they're faring. So, if you're someone who is into gender
revealed parties, just be critical and be willing to self
reflect on what they say about our culture and what
(45:45):
that means and what the significance of your unborn child's
gender is to you or what that means to you. Yeah, well,
we'd love to hear from you listeners. I would love,
love love to hear some of those very inventive gender
or or I guess we were calling it sex reveal parties.
Now have you dyed your hair? Did it involve bloody
(46:07):
goldberg coming out of a crystal ball? What did it
look like? Yeah? And if you've always had a little
bit of discomfort over this concept of gender revealed parties,
did today's episode make sense as to why? We'd love
to hear what you think, especially from my mom listeners
out there, especially from our parents listeners out there, um
who have already navigated this kind of a choice moment
(46:28):
in their life. What what what did we miss? What
would you consider? What do you think a salient about this?
We can't wait to hear what you think, So get
in the conversation with us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast.
Find us in the comments section of our Instagram and
stuff Mom Never Told You And as always we love
to get your listener mail at mom Stuff, how stuff
(46:49):
works dot com. On the Road
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