For over a decade, gender reveal parties have been a huge trend amongst parents-to-be. But they may not be as popular as they once were, according to a UK survey.
Simply put, a gender reveal party is when soon-to-be parents gather their family and friends so they can all find out the baby’s sex together. This is often revealed in ‘fun’ ways, such as cutting a cake or popping a balloon to reveal a colour – this tends to be pink for a girl and blue for a boy.
Some of the most outrageous gender reveals include reality TV star Charlotte Crosby’s recent reveal that saw a plane flying over with a pink contrail, signifying to family and friends (as well as anybody in that area) that Charlotte is having a girl.
In September 2021, a US couple revealed their baby’s sex by setting off a smoke-generating device, revealing blue smoke. They did this in El Dorado on a hot, dry, windy day which unfortunately started a huge wildfire, blackening 32 square miles and injuring thirteen people. This fire devastatingly saw one of the many firefighters losing their life. The couple was charged with thirty crimes, including involuntary manslaughter.
There is very much a love-hate relationship when it comes to gender reveals – we wanted to find out if they are still as popular as they used to be, or is this trend officially over? We surveyed the UK public to find out.
Gender reveals are officially… over
Kathryn’s survey revealed that over half of the UK public would not have a gender reveal – 46.5% of the public think gender reveals are silly, and 19% would rather find out their baby’s sex privately. Despite this being such a huge trend in recent years, just 13% of respondents say they would have a gender reveal – one in five of the UK public aren’t sure if they’d have one.
Males are more in favour
Although most males wouldn’t have a gender reveal and think they’re silly, surprisingly, our data shows that males are more likely to have a gender reveal party than females – 7.5% of males said they would have one whilst just 5.4% of females said they would. More male respondents said they love gender reveals, whilst more women said they’d have one mostly for the sake of their family and friends.
More women wouldn’t have a gender reveal as they’d rather find out privately.
Boomers are anti-gender reveals
This survey revealed that those aged 65 and over were very much against gender reveals, with 11.46% stating that they think they’re silly. This age group also stated that they wouldn’t have a gender reveal as they would rather find out privately. Gender reveals have only been popular for the last thirteen years, so it’s not surprising that older generations haven’t, or wouldn’t have, a gender reveal.
Despite the majority of all of the age groups selecting ‘No, I think they’re silly’ as their answer, more respondents aged 25-34 said that they loved gender reveals, and those aged 18-24 were more likely to have one, mostly for their family and friends.
A thing of the past
Overall, it is clear that gender reveals are a thing of the past, even the woman who apparently invented gender reveals has said she regrets it and cringes when she sees them. Los Angeles blogger Jenna Karvunidis threw a gender reveal for her daughter in 2008 – The Bump magazine interviewed her and featured the party in a story, this resulted in Jenna being credited with helping to popularize the gender reveal trend.
In 2019 Jenna posted on her blog’s Facebook page saying: “Who cares what gender the baby is? I did at the time because we didn’t live in 2019 and didn’t know what we know now — that assigning focus on gender at birth leaves out so much of their potential and talents that have nothing to do with what’s between their legs.”