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Back in 2008 blogger Jenna Karvunidis baked what may have been the first gender reveal cake.
She then blogged about her excitement at making it far enough into her first successful pregnancy (after numerous miscarriages) to learn the baby's gender and was soon after interviewed by TheBump.com. The concept took off, big time.
Also read: Would you choose a gender-neutral X on your baby's birth certificate?
Ten years later blue or pink cakes have converted to balloons, guns, smoke bombs, forest fires and even the occasional alligator, as gender reveals swept expecting parents up in a frenzy of increasingly quirky and competitive parties.
Jenna, however, has revealed she has mixed feelings about her "random contribution to the culture."
But in a recent Facebook post, she shared that there is "more emphasis on gender than has ever been necessary for a baby."
"Who cares what gender the baby is?" She wrote. "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."
Jenna's post is more than ironic
She revealed that her daughter, possibly the world's first gender reveal party baby, is in fact a girl who wears suits.
Jenna also told US news outlets that while she's "glad gender reveal parties brought joy to some people... that joy has been at the expense of non-binary and trans people."
The mom of three girls told her Facebook fans "I don't want to parent shame - Bottles! Breasts! Co-Sleeping! Cribs! We can fight all day about everything. Instead, let's just pause and consider other viewpoints. Like, that gender reveal parties are cancelled."
You can meet the famous baby here:
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Read more:
The difference between sex and gender: When do children develop their gender identity?
Meet the family who are raising their children gender-neutral
