The Woman Who Says She ‘Invented’ Gender Reveal Parties Now Has ‘Mixed Feelings’ About It

"Who cares what gender the baby is?"

Gender reveal parties are becoming increasingly popular as more and more parents find elaborate, and sometimes extreme ways of revealing their baby’s gender to the world.

This summer, Shay Mitchell had Power Rangers essentially fight to the death until the pink one came out as the victor – meaning they were having a girl.

Now, over ten years after one of the first gender reveal parties, the self-described inventor of the trend has said her views on the matter have changed.

Jenna Karvunidis is a blogger and mum of three who took to Facebook to discuss the trend.

“A weird thing came up on Twitter, so I figured I’d share here. Someone remembered it was me who “invented” the gender reveal party. I had written about my party on my blog and a parenting forum in July 2008. It was picked up & and an interview with me was published in The Bump magazine and the idea kinda spread from there. I’ve got the article framed,” she explained.

Jenna’s first child was a girl, and the mum now says she’s not sure how she feels about it becoming so popular.

“Anyway, I’ve felt a lot of mixed feelings about my random contribution to the culture. It just exploded into crazy after that. Literally – guns firing, forest fires, more emphasis on gender than has ever been necessary for a baby.”


Of course, what we’ve learned about gender has changed a lot over the years.

Now we know that many people don’t simply slot into one gender or the other, and instead fall on a spectrum. Many others do not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth.

Jenna continued: “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.”

She also shared a photo of her family, in which her eldest daughter Bianca can seen wearing a suit.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Bianca Karvunidis (@bianca_k_actor) on

She said: “PLOT TWIST, the world’s first gender-reveal party baby is a girl who wears suits!”

Of course, gender reveal parties can be fun for some expectant parents and just another way to celebrate a little one’s arrival. But it’s important to remember that what we know about gender and how we define boys and girls is a lot broader and more complex than what we once thought it was.