Toxic Cooking Show
Misogyny, $800 first dates, simps, and high-value women: Social media has been busy cooking up and feeding us an addictive but toxic slurry of trends over the past few years. Here at The Toxic Cooking Show we're two friends dedicated to breaking down these trends, terms, and taunts into their simplest ingredients to understand where they came from and how they affect our lives. Join us each week as we ponder and discuss charged topics like personal responsibility and "not all men" before placing them on our magical Scale O' ToxicityAny comments or topics you want to hear about write to us at toxic@awesomelifeskills.com
Toxic Cooking Show
Explosive Expectations: Unpacking the Gender Reveal Phenomenon
What if the grand spectacle of gender reveal parties is more than just a harmless celebration? Join us on the Toxic Cooking Show as we dissect this modern phenomenon, born in the late 2000s and fueled by the social media frenzy. From quaint cake and balloon reveals to hazardous explosions and wrestling matches, we scrutinize the bizarre lengths people go to for that viral moment. Let's talk about the logistical nightmares these events create, where even the baby's gender is kept secret from the parents, all for a dramatic reveal.
Gender reveal parties aren't just about pink and blue decorations; they're a breeding ground for enforcing outdated stereotypes and rigid gender norms. We discuss how these events can spiral into dangerous realms, sometimes even igniting forest fires. The societal pressures these reveals place on families are immense, often resulting in harmful expectations and extreme reactions. Remember Jenna Karvunidis, the woman credited with starting this trend? We reflect on her regrets and the broader impact of these celebrations in a world increasingly aware of diverse gender identities.
So, why do these parties persist? We're here to critique and question the necessity of such extravagant displays, often driven by the thirst for social media attention. We explore the cultural and historical contexts of gender preference and how these norms can burden expectant parents. Highlighting the biological complexities of gender, we advocate for a shift toward simpler, more meaningful celebrations that honor a child's individuality. Let's embrace a parenting approach that allows children the freedom to explore their identities without being shackled by stereotypes.
Hi and welcome to the Toxic Cooking Show, where we break down toxic people into their simplest ingredients. I'm your host for this week, lindsay McLean, and with me, as always, my fantastic co-host.
Speaker 2:Christopher Patchett, LCSW.
Speaker 1:Let me start with a question for you.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Have you ever been to a gender reveal party?
Speaker 2:Thankfully no.
Speaker 1:You sound very excited to have never experienced this well, let's see the.
Speaker 2:The only uh um gender that I have to worry about is it's a dog oh yes, that would be our executive producer hanging out.
Speaker 1:So gender reveal parties are actually a fairly new phenomenon, which might also be partially why they are definitely a thing that has come from social media. Like, I don't think these would have existed in a time where you weren't trying to one-up everyone in their neighbor to show how cool you were. The one up everyone in their neighbor to show, like, how cool you were. They appear to have appeared in the late two thousands for people who don't know what a gender reveal party is, for whatever reason. Yes, they are from the U S. Yes, we're very sorry. Look, you want the Levi's, you want McDonald's? You got to take the shit that we produce too. It's just how it works. It is as the name suggests. It's a party where you reveal what set of genitals your baby has, or what you think they have.
Speaker 1:You know there can be mistakes sometimes. The little sonogram isn't always clear, but you can typically find out the expected gender around the 20 week mark of pregnancy, so about halfway through, and so you would do it sometime after that. You're also. This works well because you're definitely starting to show at that point like you're not going to have the huge. I'm about to pop bump, but it's going to be like gently obvious that there's something there to be and typically it is a surprise to the parents. There's somebody who has been given the information ahead of time, some third party who's been entrusted with it, and they're the ones who make sure that the surprise goes off well.
Speaker 1:So it can go or it can range from something as normal, as there's a cake with like a layer in the middle that's pink or blue. You can have cupcakes that maybe have something inside that's pink or blue and obviously, as you bite or cut into it, you see the color and you're like, oh my God, it's a girl, it's a boy, whatever. It can be a balloon that pops and there's confetti. I've seen some wild ones, like two people dressing up as babies and one of them is the girl baby and one of them is a boy baby and they just like duke it out to see who wins and that's the baby. That's the gender that the couple is having.
Speaker 2:It's like you know, okay I I yeah, I've seen the, uh, the wrestling matches.
Speaker 1:I I I hate to admit that I actually do like those look, if I had to have one of these, which I wouldn't, but if I had to, that is the only thing I accept. I I only accept two of my friends dressing up as giant babies and fighting it out in front of us like and they know ahead of time like which one they were supposed to win, like, as as things go. I think that's fun. I've seen ones where it's like grandma was like taken off her wig and it revealed like a blue wig. It's like grandma was like taken off her wig and it revealed like a blue wig. It's like ah, it's a boy. You can also get some kind of weird ones that we'll discuss later, like punching something until colored smoke explodes. Fireworks we really like fireworks and improvised explosion devices. Those are really popular. And people not to be a spoiler, in case you don't know this, but people have died from these.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And massive forest fires have been lit because of people trying to one-up each other and having the biggest and the best reveal of which genitals your baby has. Let's not forget that this is what it's about. It's gross, but I want to bring it back to that, so you know why this is a bad thing.
Speaker 2:You know. So I didn't realize that it was the parents that gave the information to somebody else. I wondered why it was that the parents were surprised.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so my understanding it may be that, like when you go to and I'm forgetting all the proper words for this, but like when you go to get the, the ultrasound, the technician, they may like put that information like in a, a sealed envelope or something like that, and then you would give that to whoever's in charge of like, arranging you know, the cake or whatever. And so you've already called the baker and you said, okay, we want a gender reveal cake. And then you give them this information. They're the ones who see it, make the cake, deliver it, and that's how it's a surprise to everyone. Or again, it's somebody within the family who opened it, read it was like okay, I know which one of the babies is supposed to win.
Speaker 2:Because I often I was like how the fuck are they surprised about something? Okay, it makes more sense now.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, yep, yep. I mean, I have heard, unfortunately, stories of people who wanted it to be a surprise, like a total surprise. At the end, the technician just like gave it away. It's like, oh yeah, she or he like during the thing, you're like, really. None of those were people who were actually wanted to do a gender reveal party, though. Those were people who were just like I don't really care, you know, I don't want to know, I want it to be like yay at the end, and they were pissed because they were like you serious, but civically told you I did not want to know and you gave it away.
Speaker 1:Oh well, so the this, as I said, started in like the kind of late 2010s. And the best known example the woman who is cited as like the founder the first of these gender reveal parties. Her name is Jenna Carvanitis, I guess, and in 2008,. On her blog High Gloss and Sauce, she posted about the cake that she and her husband had revealing their child's gender, and for her it was important because she'd apparently had several miscarriages before this and this was the first time she'd gotten far enough along in her pregnancy to know what gender they were having. She is the one who is cited left, right and center as starting this.
Speaker 1:And again, when you look at the timing this was when social media was really taking off and blogs were really taking off and the aesthetic of having a cake that you can cut into and reveal this color it's like, oh my god, it fits with social media and I think that's why this has become such a huge thing. It just it fits with social media and I think that's why this has become such a huge thing is because you can just go wild with it. See people lighting giant forest fires by accident, because they've got IEDs that are filled with like some colored powder that accidentally sets off a spark. But in this attempt to get like a really cool photo or really cool reveal or something like that, yeah, people, people die, yay, child, oh god so we'll discuss some of those later too, don't you worry.
Speaker 1:But let's start with kind of the biggest issue that I see with these, like why these are on the toxic cooking show, and that is, of course, as a gender reveal party, it's the gender that we're focused on, so these things are super fucking heavily gendered. And saws for the little trans kids, saws for the little intersex kids. You're a girl now. Hope you don't go on to become an olympian. Not that I'm foreshadowing for a future episode, but you've only got the two genders pink and blue, that's it. And so you see a lot of crap, like the decorations Guns are glitter, pistols are pearls, wheels are heels. You can't have both, you can only have one, and it's super heavy masculine or super heavy feminine, like all of the stereotypes you put on them.
Speaker 1:That's what you see with these parties. Is that you, there's no kind of in between. There's no, you know, gentles Like yes, we're super excited to be having a girl. I'm sure there are people who manage it that way, but the photos that you really see, if you start looking for this, everything for the girl Is just like pink and glittery and bows and cutesy, and stuff for the boys is like Camo and blue and dinosaurs and trucks. You have to say it in that voice too, because it is a boy.
Speaker 2:So I'm guessing this might be where you're going with, but so does that mean that women are not allowed to be archaeologists looking for dinosaur bones and things like that?
Speaker 1:I mean obviously, obviously that's not what women do. Women don't have dinosaurs like you play with barbies and you play with like pink, sparkly things. I'm glad you understand this. Yeah, so this puts like a ton of pressure on if you're having a girl or a boy, that that girl or boy will do girl and boy things. There is no mixing of the two like any which way, as you said, like you know, it starts very young.
Speaker 1:If you're already saying boys have dinosaurs and girls have barbies, that's not to say that your daughter won't eventually grow up to become an archaeologist, obviously, but when you, as the parent, promote this, that means in your household. You are probably the type of people who they're girl toys and boy toys, and girls play with girl toys, and if you're a girl, I'm not going to buy you boy toys, and if you're a boy, I am absolutely not going to buy you girl toys. It gross. There's also and I debated about sending you a video of this and I'll probably send it to you after for you to watch there have been what feels like an unusual number of videos that I have seen related to this, where the dad just goes absolutely fucking berserk in the worst possible way based on what gender the kid is. And I mean, I've seen stuff like where it's a girl and the dad will literally just like smash something, and everyone's just kind of standing there like what? Because he's just like smashing decorations, and literally the same thing if it's a boy.
Speaker 1:But with the girl it's like anger, smash, and with the boy it's like fuck yeah, and he's just like like stabbing balloons this was another one and he like crushes a decoration and the mom-to-be is just kind of like, oh god, yeah I was like whoa, you need to calm down We've seen this before time and time again that obviously the algorithm gives us different things on Instagram, and I'm not surprised as a woman this type of thing is going to come up far more for me than for you, but it just it does feel like I've seen a lot where the dad acts out really negatively, either in a negative, negative way, or in a negative, positive way, like he's so happy he has to like break something.
Speaker 2:It's really weird I mean, I can't tell you how many times that I've gotten so excited that I've burned down my house, or that's why you had to move.
Speaker 1:I get it.
Speaker 2:You know, so pleased with something that Molly did, that I kicked her in the butt, and you know.
Speaker 1:All the time, all the fucking time I know it. All the time, all the fucking time I know it. But you see, like when you have that, you build up this expectation of like it's going to be a boy and I'm a dad and we're going to do boy and dad things together, it's you can't do that with your, your daughter. You couldn't go hunting with her, you couldn't watch sports with her. It completely like cuts you off from your child. Potentially. I think that you're already, and I've never seen a video of the mom acting like this, and I don't know if that's just sheer luck or if it's because moms maybe can better manage their emotions than some of these dads to be, perhaps, but I've never seen them, like, react this way when it was a girl. They're like oh, my God, you know there will be excitement.
Speaker 2:It's and I'm this is going to be an episode that we'll talk about sometime but like, yeah, I remember when I dated a girl, she had two kids.
Speaker 1:One was a boy, one was a girl and, yeah, even being as open as I am, like I remember during that time, like you know, like thinking of, like oh yeah, you know, like with the boy, you know playing soccer and playing catch and you know doing all these other cool things, and then with the girl, like I'd be there with the shotgun at you know, when she's 16, like welcoming her new boyfriend yeah, and I think to a certain extent that's normal and understandable, that you know in your head you may be thinking and you're hoping that's like oh, I hope I have a girl, I hope I have a boy, especially if you you know this is your second or third child and you're hoping that's like oh, I hope I have a girl, I hope I have a boy, especially if you you know this is your second or third child that you're having and, to a certain extent, to be excited or to be a little disappointed about it, I think that's normal.
Speaker 1:But what is not normal is to get so hyped up about it that you break something or one of the ones. Like I mentioned with the punching. It was the wife who she's standing there with like, um, like the kickboxing padding gloves on, or punching gloves on and I guess it's her husband is like punching them to make the colored smoke appear and I don't know if something was wrong. He was hitting really Like you can watch her be like pushed back each time he like slams his fist into the glove. It's like why, why are you doing this? Like you're so focused on yourself and being like a dude that you're literally hurting this person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think that that's probably poor planning altogether.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know why you would decide that's the best way to reveal, but that also sounds like it was a dad who wanted it who was like oh my god, you know you can put this powder in the boxing gloves and when you hit them together it makes this smoke. We should do that.
Speaker 2:Okay, so before you go on, okay, okay, so, before you go on, I do want to point out that you just mentioned it was probably the dad, and what is to say? That the mom is in one of these UFC fighter fan set.
Speaker 1:Oh, I mean mean absolutely, could be absolutely. I'm just basing this off of the fact that the woman in this video was dressed in like a very form-fitting dress. That's not to say she couldn't also love ufc. She looked very feminine and the way that this man was punching was clearly far too hard for her to like. Punch back against like this was not a fair fight. In quotation marks, where you're like right, both of you love this and like both of you plan this and this is something that's fun and exciting for everyone.
Speaker 2:It's like you look a little bit scared and you look like you're not having fun I mean, you know, the only reason why I kind of bring that up is I did date a girl when I was in San Diego and I remember a date that we had was she's like yeah, you know, come over Like you know, like friends, and I were going to watch UFC. And here I am, six foot two, legitimately, you know, big guy like you, you know, shaved head and everything like that. In, even in my 20s I was still shaved head and pretty big. I remember the girl that I dated. She was to look at her.
Speaker 2:She was like the girly girl and I was thinking like you know, like, okay, you know, probably just go to her friends. And you know, like, like, okay, you know, we'll probably just go to a friend's. And you know, like, some drinks, some chips, you know, and shit like that. But when I was over there, like I mean, you know, like we were like the couple that, like you know, like we just kind of like, you know, like, always hang out like you know, like kind of like just yeah, no, push, yeah, fuck him up, fuck him up. I'm like, yes, so, okay. So, after watching the video, yeah, like even the guy had to give in one more punch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that was kind of going a little bit too excessive yeah, again, in this instance, I don't think she was a wrestling fan or boxing fan, unfortunately. So yeah, again, I can see why people may be feeling certain ways about stuff. You're excited, you're a little disappointed. I ever found a video of my dad doing this to my mom, like as a gender reveal, or even worse, the ones where the dad's just like fuck and it's like really angry about, like, visibly angry. I legitimately don't know how I would feel, because I have a sister like we're we're two girls. Can you imagine what that would do to you if you ever found that? Or if you were going back through baby photos or something and you see that there was clearly a party and you're like but there's no video. There's no video of like that part. Why did we not get a video? And your mom has to be like well, your father acted out, so we deleted that video.
Speaker 2:So we deleted that video. There is Knowing your parents. I would actually pay. I would pay to see your dad in boxing gear.
Speaker 1:My father hates all sports. Yeah, no, it's not. But in general I mean, imagine like finding that out Like finding this information, or you're on the internet at some point and you stumble across.
Speaker 2:You know, in 20 years from that you stumble across a video and you're like those are my parents, holy shit, those are my parents that. And then how about that? Like especially the, the angry dad, like you know, like uh, oh, it's a girl, damn it, damn it.
Speaker 1:and then be like fuck, like he didn't even want me yeah, yeah, the ones where they're just like really angry I mean that, you know, with the punching is bad, but the ones where the dad's like smashing stuff or just acting out. Yeah, imagine finding that as a 16 year old or something, because you're scrolling on whatever's going to be popular in the future and you stumble across it. Or, worse, your classmates find that.
Speaker 2:Oh God, oh God yeah.
Speaker 1:You're never going to live that one down. No, thank you. So yeah, it puts these extreme expectations on an unborn child that you know if it's a girl, they're clearly they're never going to do anything with you because they're going to be too busy shopping and makeup and you girly things. I don't understand these things and I don't want to understand these things. I want to be able to bond with my daughter or, for that matter, with my wife, cause maybe my wife likes these things. That's for women to do. I want nothing that I, you know, want someone who's going to go hunting with me and only a boy can go hunting with me or play sports with me or drink beer with me. Only boy, right, right, of course.
Speaker 2:Because, yeah, girls can't play sports.
Speaker 1:No, girls can't play sports. It's not fun. If your son plays soccer, that's exciting, but somehow when your daughter plays soccer it's not the same. You know it's not the same. And even if she competes at like a high level of something, it's like well, but it's not football. You know, if I'd had a boy, he would play football. You sure about that. You, you real sure about that? You never know.
Speaker 2:Kevin Klein.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the top is all off too. The woman, jenna, who kind of first started this trend. She's actually since expressed a lot of regret about it. In 2020, I think it was she wrote an article talking about it and saying you know, she's since obviously kind of learned about people who are asexual, transgender, kind of anything other than the super binary norm and how this kind of might make them feel like Again the expectations that were placed on them before they were literally even born, based off of what the sonogram showed, and how that affects them later. And and and and.
Speaker 1:To top it all off, the child that she was announcing in 2008, a daughter, has since decided to be. In the article she said gender non-conforming Goes by. She, her, her, didn't specify the kid is also was like 11 at the time, 11 or 12, so she was still young, but apparently you know she likes to wear suits and and do things like that and mom is totes okay with that. She's like, yeah, you do you babes like I'm happy for you, but she has been able to see why pushing that on her maybe from the beginning, being like it's a girl with pink and sparkly and that type of thing. When you now have a daughter who's like absolutely not I'm wearing a suit for the family photo. I was like, yeah, it looks good Like you got her a good suit.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that, but also yeah, yeah, that, but also uh, yeah, yeah it's, it's definitely you're already doing.
Speaker 1:you are putting a lot on the kit, yeah, yeah, when you hype it up so much that you have to again. Guns or glitter these two things do not need to go together, or they can together. You can have a glittery gun that's not going to stop the gun from shooting you. Fyi, a pink glittery gun, as long as it's a real weapon, will still shoot you just as good as a plain one. But it's got glitter and so therefore it's only for girls. Boys can't have that. It is, it is.
Speaker 2:So that it is uh so curiosity. I had, uh, went into a gun shop here. So for people who don't know, I am as city as city can get. I grew up just outside of Philly, lived in San Diego, lived in Los Angeles, moved back to Philly, lived in New York and I just recently moved to West Virginia.
Speaker 1:What's the population?
Speaker 2:Population Uh, it is so. The nearest city is Charleston, which is a population of 30,000. The town that I live is just outside and it is population of 7,000.
Speaker 1:Okay, we're still in the thousands.
Speaker 2:So I've gone from Brooklyn, New York which Brooklyn by itself, not all of New York city, but just Brooklyn is 2 million. The entire city of New York city is 8 million. So I went from a city of 8 million, a borough of 2 million, to a town of 7,000.
Speaker 1:to a town of 7,000.
Speaker 2:How are you feeling? So far I'm liking it. But I did go into a gun shop, just curiosity, and there were guns for women, the little petite-like guns, the cutesy pink guns, you know. The rest of the guns are the AK-47s and the manly man guns, big assault rifles and ammo up the ass.
Speaker 1:That's why I like to store mine.
Speaker 2:I keep a couple up there and then you have the little cutesy pink gun With the cutesy accessories and you know how to be able to have it In a slender place when it doesn't give you too much pudge and anything like that.
Speaker 1:So this is where I moved yep, yep, everything can be gendered, which is a shame because we speak english, which I very much appreciate, is not a gendered language. Like you can hide that, and when all the other languages I speak have gender, and so you always get stuck with it one way or another and I'm just like, I'm so glad I speak english too. It's a. It's a beautiful thing. So, as I mentioned before, there's also the uh element of destruction and death that goes along with these. Thank you to social media for making us feel like we always have to be like the biggest and best at everything and to show our love and show how excited we are. These things have literally killed and destroyed. Before, in 2017, there was the sawmill fire in arizona. That was thanks to a gender reveal party. Um, they shot something that contained tannerite and something else and it exploded. The cost equivalent in today's money it was $10.2 million. To put that out, it burned an area bigger than all of DC. No one died in that one, but holy shit.
Speaker 2:And you do know for a fact that if she, if they grow up in that, in that town, then you know damn well that somebody's well you realize that you count the town 10 million dollars, I mean even you're just gonna look at your name because, like the name, the names are out there for the parents, at least dad's name is.
Speaker 1:If you know your dad's name some of you ever look that up like this information is going to be there that, like your birth, your gender reveal, started this huge fire. Congrats, then this one is really actually quite sad. In 2019, uh, grandma to be was killed because they had basically accidentally created an improvised explosion device and it went off and she was decently far from it, but the shrapnel went so far it it went through her and kept on going, like that's how bad it was and she died, obviously. I mean shrapnel literally like entered and exited her body.
Speaker 2:You know, it blows my mind Like you know, like what the hell. But then again, you know, I now live in the midst of what the hell are people thinking?
Speaker 1:But I do look at this.
Speaker 2:But to have something explosive anywhere near a pregnant woman, that you're trying to celebrate the birth of gender but essentially celebrating a life that's being created.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and now we're missing grandma. Now we're missing grandma because you decided you were going to make your own little thing at home that you could shoot at or explode or whatever, to do this. Good job, guys. Good job. Don't worry, we still have more on the list. There's the 2020 El Dorado fire in California. A firefighter did die from that 42 million in damage as well, from that $42 million in damage as well, from that one. Well, I mean.
Speaker 2:California has always been a little bit more expensive. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It actually did burn a smaller size, I think for this one. I didn't note it down here, but even so I know. For that one I definitely saw on the news people's houses were burned, all of that type of thing. So maybe only quote unquote one person died, but you had people who lost everything in this fire. Just gone, God, there's more, there's more.
Speaker 2:Why is it, whenever we say there's more, it's never?
Speaker 1:good. It's never a good thing. It's never more puppy videos. So in 2021 in new york, dad to be was killed in an accidental explosion. And also in 2021, there was another instance of somebody being killed by shrapnel at a party. I don't know who this person was, I couldn't find out what their relationship was to mom or dad or anything like that, but they were at this party in Michigan, this gender reveal party, and somebody it was like a little cannon or something that they had bought online and it was supposed to just like, you know, with the smoke and it. It exploded and they were killed.
Speaker 1:Oh yep, and and this, don't worry, this is your last one for now. There will be more eventually, 2023,. There was a plane that was supposed to be dropping pink powder to reveal the there was going to be a baby girl, and the plane crashed during the party and the pilot died on the way to the hospital oh, when they, you know, it's funny because like, yeah, you know, like, um, that's the.
Speaker 2:That's, the biggest problem with social media is that everybody has to one-up each other and everything like that. You know, I remember and I'm so grateful that this was like a very, very short trend, was the wedding proposals. And I'm thankful that we don't have to do it on the Docks of cooking show, because thankfully somebody finally wised up and said like, yeah, this is kind of making the rest of us look bad oh, don't worry, there's still over the top wedding proposals that happen oh god don't you worry oh
Speaker 2:they just don't show up on your algorithm uh, yeah, because, like I, I remember watching one of them and thinking, like you know, like it was a guy that was proposing to his partner and it was like a flash mob that happened in like home depot, where, where he worked, where his partner worked yeah, I would literally die of embarrassment if my boyfriend oh to be fair, I work from home, but if anyone proposed to me out in public I would just keel over dead you could kind of tell that I mean he looked excited and everything, but you could just kind of tell that he was like why?
Speaker 1:Yeah, why are we doing this?
Speaker 2:Please just make it stop. Just ask me, just say, will you marry me? And I'll say, yes, we can leave it at that. We don't have to make a production out of this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, people just they get caught up, they have these great ideas and they want to celebrate. And I think that there are gender reveal party ideas that I don't hate If I saw them. If I was invited to a gender reveal party and I trusted the people enough, I would go knowing that they would do something like my sister was telling me as friends of hers. Like my sister was telling me as friends of hers. They were blindfolded and she was wearing a t-shirt and each of their hands was put into a thing of paint, like pink or blue paint, whichever one it was for the baby, and then somebody guided their hands to like put them on the t-shirt and then they opened their eyes. They could see like, oh, yeah, it's going to be a little boy or a little girl, whatever.
Speaker 2:Okay, cute, cute, but more often than not, these are definitely being done for the likes, for the views, for the attention.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, yeah, fucking social media it is. I mean, I really do think it's no coincidence that this appeared at that time, because obviously we've been able to figure out the gender babies for quite some time. It can be controversial because there are a lot of cultures where, unfortunately, women and girls are less desirable. And so I mean you have laws in place in China and I think in India, if I'm not mistaken prohibit you from doing that, because there is a lot of cultural norms. It's like, oh, a daughter is less desirable, and so if you find out you're having a daughter, you may abort, or you may like start playing and be like nope, give her up away for adoption, get rid of it somehow. And so they've had to put this in place.
Speaker 1:And you know, this is not that this is not promoting that in any way, but it is putting a lot of pressure on which one is it going to be? I think people, especially dads, forget it's actually the dad who has, like it's you that decides the baby's gender. It's not me, it's not my eggs, oh, king Henry VIII, it is not under my control. And so, unless you want to do something like IVF, where you've already picked stuff out and that makes it sound like. Then they can tell already what gender it's probably going to be, and so theoretically you could then say we really want a daughter, we're going to take that, or we really want a son there. Most people don't have the tens of thousands of dollars that that would cost Also unnecessary.
Speaker 2:You know, and the thing is, I think a lot of people forget about XY chromosome, the XX chromosome. That is like seventh grade biology. There are times where XYX there are different I hate using word, but you know this is the proper word. Uh, you know mutilated, different. Uh, you know cells. There's also the psychology proponent of it. There's also the testosterone and estrogen you know, component to the body's chemicals. It's not as simple as the 7th grade biology of. Oh well, you're going to have the XX or the XY.
Speaker 1:With all of that in mind, where do you see us going from here? What can we do to fix this? Um stop it you know, that's it, folks, we're done or at the very very least make it basic.
Speaker 2:If you do want to have that surprise for yourself, then more power to you. If you want to see two grown-ass people in baby suits wrestling, duke it out. When I have kids.
Speaker 1:You're going to be one of those babies.
Speaker 2:I hope you know, just be prepared, you're going to get that call. Hey, do you have a baby outfit laying around?
Speaker 1:Go ahead and buy one now.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I mean, but if you're going to do it, do it for yourself, you know, don't do it for the likes, don't do it for the views, don't do it for, you know, the fame, because all that shit like, if it comes down to that, you want to do this for your family. Do it for your family.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Don't have to burn down an entire city. You know, to reveal a gender, the very basic blue or pink cake and that is definitely going to be something that we talk about here in the upcoming episode is the expectations that we place on boys and girls you throughout their lives yep but you know, if you want to start off like you know, like if you know if you're having a kid before we do cover that topic, uh, stick with the bluer pink cake.
Speaker 2:Uh, once you hear our uh take on, take on the other bullshit, then come up with something new. But yeah, keep it basic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was thinking about what I would suggest for this and that was basically what I came down to as well. Just don't, just don't. Because we already have baby showers, which is where we celebrate like, oh, it's a baby that's coming, and those are for whatever reason. They don't have to be, but they tend to be very feminine and very like it's just women who are there. The men are never involved, and I don't understand why. Just combine it all into what? Because the whole point of the baby shower is, you know it's much closer to when you're due. You're celebrating the baby, people are giving you presents that you're going to use with the baby diapers, clothing, that type of thing. So usually, by that point, if you wanted to know the baby's gender, you know the baby's gender, the baby's gender. We already have a baby party in place that does not involve exploding things and killing people and burning hundreds upon hundreds of acres of forest and houses. We already have that in place, like, let's just do it like that and, as you said, if you do want it to be kind of a surprise or to find out, like, do it within the family. It doesn't need to be this whole big production of you putting it out there, because you never know.
Speaker 1:People have been wrong before, sonograms have been wrong. It looks like one thing, and so that's what they tell you. They're like, oh yeah, you know, it looks like you're having a boy, and then you're like, whoa, it's a boy, and you, you know having a boy. And then you're like, woo, it's a boy, and you, you know, post that everywhere. And then whoopsies came out, a girl, because we thought that he had a little something extra, but he didn't. That was his, her hand. You know it's, it can happen, it's rare, but it does. And the sheer expectations that it places on you and on your child, before they are even born, about what they are going to like and what type of person they're going to grow up to be, I just don't see why we need to do it. You just don't. And even if your kid starts out as you have a girl and she starts out as super girly, she could change. I used to love, love pink. I thought pink was great. My bedroom used to be painted pink as a child.
Speaker 1:Um, if you looked at me now, you would probably not guess that but my cousin has a daughter who for a while was obsessed with like pink and dresses and frilly stuff. And she apparently like spoke to her mom about I was like what do I do? Because I wanted to grow up to be, you know, an independent thinker. And mom, about I was like what do I do? Because I wanted to grow up to be, you know, an independent thinker. And mom was like yeah, just like chill.
Speaker 1:And sure enough, that kid is in high school now and she's I have not seen a photo of her in pink in years. She moved away from it. She was given that opportunity to explore as she wanted to. She was like cool, I loved my dresses for a little while and now I don't. And her mother doesn't put this expectation, like, but you're a girl and like you know, when you look back at photos of when you were born, everything is pink and sparkly and unicorns and fairies and stuff like that, because that's what girls like. It's like you can like whatever you want to like. That's okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't see a good way to do it. I think it's completely unnecessary. It's built for social media. It will only. It just puts more stress on you too. Right like now, you've got to organize the second party and make sure everything goes well. And the other part that I hate about it is if there are already other kids.
Speaker 1:There's one video that sticks in my mind where, like, mom and dad have a balloon it's like a black balloon and you have to pop it and the confetti will come out and so they're trying to get their little girl to pop the balloon. She looks maybe like four or five and she gets freaked out about she doesn't want to do it and she's like having a meltdown. She's like don't pop the balloon. This is a small child, um. And in the ensuing drama over it, somebody lets go of the balloon, the balloon flies away and there's part of me that's like, oh no.
Speaker 1:But the other part is like you're putting this stress on the kid, like she doesn't understand what's going on, or the videos of them announcing it. And there are other kids and the kid just like because they hear they're getting a brother or sister. They don't understand. That's not something that you can control and you have built it up to them. You, as the parents, have failed because you've built it up of like oh, you're a little boy, don't you want a brother to play dinosaurs and trucks with? Because if you have a little sister, she's just going to hang out with mommy, like you have, consciously or unconsciously, been pushing that on them and that's why they're like I don't want to have a little sister. That's gross, ew. And now I have a meltdown. And now that meltdown is immortalized, immortalized forever on the internet.
Speaker 1:Just how I want my kid so on the scale of toxicity, how would you rate gender reveal parties? Do you think that they are a green potato? Make you a little sick if you eat them, but it's not that bad in the end. Also, don't eat green potatoes. Are they a death cap mushroom 50 50 chance of killing you or maybe leaving you alive even if they are cooked. Or is this delicious but deadly 100% of the time? Antifreeze.
Speaker 2:I would say I'm kind of going in between low death cap and medium death cap, so low plus death cap.
Speaker 1:Explain yourself, come on.
Speaker 2:This is the beautiful thing about it, this being a two person podcast.
Speaker 1:we can make shit up on the spot. You know like how we came up with the three-tiered system and then promptly added like sub tiers inside of it, and now I'm taking this step further and doing a sub tier of a sub tier.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I mean, I, I definitely think that you know, it would be just how you were kind of saying about, like, all the things of the revealing party itself. Okay, you know, like it could definitely be, you know, if you tone it down and things like that. Like, you know, like it might not be so bad, um, but the people who are trying to one-up everybody and trying to okay, you know, you now destroyed an entire town, you know, for you know a blue or pink colored smoke or you know whatever.
Speaker 1:Worth it.
Speaker 2:So worth it, so worth it, so worth it. So okay, you know, like you tone it down, great, but then you also have all the effects of, because now is not just the reveal party itself, but everything that comes after it. Like you know, like I mean, these unborn children are gonna be 16 at some point. You know these again. Like you know, like if something bad did happen, especially if you're going up a town, like where I live now, like I've only been here three weeks, uh, I've been here three weeks and uh, gone to the bars a couple times and I've already ran into people I ran into the first time around. So you know, it's not something where where, like, you're getting lost into a city, you know, and you just blend in, you're now going to be known as oh hey, how's it going there?
Speaker 2:Little fire starter. You know like and, and you're seven years old and being like, what the fuck are you talking about? You know, uh, now, that's a cutesy name for this person and you know when they're. You know 12 or 13 and they're finally googling, like you know, their parents, or they're googling themselves and um, oh shit yeah that's why they've been calling me little fire starter for the past 12 years or that's why mommy and daddy aren't actually together.
Speaker 1:You always kind of would. And then you stumble across the video, like I showed you of him and the punching and the boxing thing. You're like, yeah, she ever divorced him at some point. That's the type of shit that would still be around, would be brought up in court to be like this is why this man is unhinged. And you stumble across, you're like, oh, I get it now.
Speaker 1:Oh fuck, I need therapy. So I would say that this is a death cap. I'm going to give it a solid death cap, not just for how destructive they can be, because, in fairness, I mean, there are clearly tons of these things that happen all of the time and we don't destroy shit every time there's a gender reveal party, but when it goes wrong, it does appear to go very wrong. You don't hear about this type of thing with a baby shower like I've never heard of a baby shower killing anyone. If people there are going to be very conscious about you know what you're eating, or stuff like that Like nobody would go to a baby shower and be like let's have sushi, or something like that, where mom's like, oh no, if you do like, I think people would kind of rally together and be like, nope, not that you, just you don't hear about that type of thing for a baby shower, cause they're clearly they don't bring out this hype and this need to one-up everyone, this like super destructive manner. So there's, there's that. That's bad enough.
Speaker 1:I think that you get, they force you to think in this very binary, very flat binary of pink girl, blue boy there. It doesn't allow for anything in between. It doesn't allow for any kind of other sort of expression of gender, even if you have a girl and she's like you know, yeah, I'm a girl, very much identifies that. But I really like to play soccer, I'm very outdoorsy and, yes, I like unicorns, but like I like unicorns, you play soccer, um, it, just it. Even that gets cut out because that's not fun and cute and girly. And if you have a boy who's not very manly, you're already putting this expectation that he has to do this because, see, he's got guns, he's got wheels, he's got god. What was the other one? Pistols, more guns, pistols or pearls? Whoever came up with these deserves to be shot.
Speaker 2:With the glittery gun.
Speaker 1:I just don't think that that is helpful. I don't think that contributes meaningfully to your baby's upbringing and to your family, and I think, if anything, it kind of can drive a wedge in there. If you as the dad or as the mom too, like both parents, are implicated in this, if you're very much like, well, the girl is with me and we do girly things, and the boy's with dad and they do like boy things together, you're cutting yourself off from your child and having a relationship with them and maybe finding out that you know, yeah, your girl is really into your daughter, is really into some type of sport that you can do with her, or your boy really likes cooking, and so you guys do that together. I'm like that's your way of bonding. You're going to miss that because you were so obsessed with like one or the other. And again to transgender kids like that don't exist. Xxy chromosome doesn't exist. We're just going to pretend like none of these things are here, that we're just going to whatever genitals there are that are visible and that we think we can identify. We're going to base stuff of that, just it's. It's not necessary.
Speaker 1:I had this discussion at one point with somebody. I was like, yeah, I probably wouldn't want to know the gender of my kids until they were born. I just I don't think it's necessary, let it be a surprise. They were like what wouldn't you want to know? Not really, because it doesn't change anything like the first year of life, like the clothing that they're going to wear is the same, the diapers are the same. There's not a lot of changes that we use like, oh, I need to get boy specific or girl specific?
Speaker 1:things I'm now picturing huggies like banana hammock, uh diapers I do think at a certain point there may be some that are like a little more well-designed for boys, because you've got to tuck it a certain way so they don't pee all over you. But you know, in general, the stuff that you have, whatever you have for that newborn baby, you can keep using it for any kids you have, and so I would rather just get pretty stuff that's gender neutral, so that however many kids and whatever gender they are, they can all wear it and we don't have to keep buying more stuff and contributing to capitalism and consumerism. Why do that to yourself? So, yeah, get rid of gender reveal parties. That's what we suggest. So you should tell us what you think about gender reveal parties. Uh, hopefully you agree with us. If not, you're wrong.
Speaker 1:Uh, you can write to us at toxic, at awesome life skillscom, or, of course, we are very, very active on social media. You can find us there. We're on instagram. We're on tikt. We're on Instagram. We're on TikTok. We're on Facebook, we're on X, we're on threads. We're there. You can follow us and we do post sometimes. We'll see.
Speaker 2:We're about as active as a fat guy on the couch.
Speaker 1:I think he may be more active.
Speaker 2:Doesn't have to get up to go to the bathroom every now and then.
Speaker 1:It's so true. In any case, that has been the Toxic Cooking Show this week. We hope you guys have a great week and we'll see you next time. Bye.
Speaker 2:Bye.
