Another one... gender reveal turns fatal

[MissMillie]

This time it was the expectant father.

Almost makes you wish for the days when people were okay with being surprised.



https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gender-reveal-device-explodes-killing-expectant-father/ar-BB1dWBc0?ocid=msedgntp

A New York man died and his brother was injured on Sunday when a small explosive device meant to be used as part of a gender reveal party malfunctioned and exploded.

In a statement, New York State Police said they responded to reports of an explosion in Liberty, N.Y., and found that 28-year-old Christopher Pekny and his brother Michael Pekny, 27, had been building the device at the time of the accident.

Peter Pekny, Christopher and Michael's older brother, told The Washington Post that Michael Pekny suffered a shattered kneecap in the blast but is expected to fully recover. Christopher Pekny was planning a gender reveal party to celebrate the birth of his first child, according to the Post.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. In my experience, I have found the gender reveal phenomenon to be almost manic.

Case in point:

My friend was 71 years old and was involved in a head-on collision and his neck was broken, but somehow he was still alive. He was rushed to the regional hospital's ER and released to rehabilitation about 10 days later.

His daughter, who lives in the next state (3-1/2 hours each way by car) was pregnant and wanted the entire family to be at Thanksgiving at her house for the gender reveal announcement. Not even a month after the car accident. (And the daughter was a physical therapist and KNEW about jiggling unstable parts of the body.)

Now, common sense would demand that my friend refrain from going anywhere, but his wife, a registered nurse, and his daughter insisted that this poor man be bundled up and driven to this get-together.

Here are the details: Man with a broken neck in a neck collar, driven 7 hours in Thanksgiving Holiday Traffic, as a passenger, with his wife driving with a right drop foot, without medical clearance.

And top it off: Once he arrived at his daughter's home, he was put in a chair and roundly ignored by everyone: his wife, his daughter, his son, his grandchildren.

The Gender Reveal party was a "success" for the daughter.

My friend went on to have successful neck/back surgery. Yes, he's not entirely healed at this point. But he still hasn't experienced the entire situation where his survival was put in jeopardy for a meaningless gesture.

[oswaldactedalone]

2. Ridiculously stupid

and so self-indulgent. I'm old enough to remember when you didn't know until delivery and we survived quite well.

[Arkansas Granny]

3. How do you explain this to the child when he/she asks "How did my daddy die?"

[genxlib]

4. I have a theory

Old style baby showers were brutally awful parties with cutesy games and lame themes.

Somewhere along the line, women decided that they should not have to do this alone and men got invited into the mix.

Men realized how brutally awful these parties were and next thing you know...pyrotechnics were added to the mix.

And yet, they are still awful. Only now they are deadly too.

[obamanut2012]

5. I know for a fact this is true for at least one couple

A cousin refused to allow her MIL, etc. to have a baby shower, because she said they were boring as hell and she also thought they were sexist for the reason you said. So, they made it all-inclusive, with her husband and his male friends and relatives. Her MIL held the "normal" regular boring as hell activities, and halfway through, her husband left and came back with a keg and fireworks.

[4Q2u2]

8. Man Killed in Gender Reveal Party

In Upstate NY couple of weeks ago.
All the other guys at the party were jealous he got to leave early.

[GulfCoast66]

11. Early in my marriage I was coerced into attending a couples shower

When we got there(early) a football game was on and I was offered a beer. I thought, ok this won’t be so bad.

After other couples started arriving the game went off, the beer went away and normal shower activities broke out. As we got in the truck to leave I told the wife I had just attended my last shower.

Now the wife skips the them as well. Just sends a present.

[genxlib]

12. This is basically the conversation that I had with my wife

If you hate them...end them.

Don't drag us into your misery.

Fortunately, this seems to be a largely Millennial thing so I missed the worst of it.

[Siwsan]

6. As silly as I think these reveal parties are, they can be done WITHOUT explosives!

It's like everyone is trying to outdo whatever others have done, before, and it's reckless. I have little doubt that most of these catastrophic result comes from amateurs following instructions they found on the internet.

[Mariana]

14. Most of them are done without explosives. nt.

[Siwsan]

17. That's good to know!

[Croney]

7. I attended a gender reveal party this past Saturday.

My great-nephew (who once lived with me for a year) and his wife are young and rather poor. The party was a Facebook Live, done in a garage. They had a few balloons.

The reveal looked like a store-bought kit--you dropped fizzy balls into a big glass pot and waited to see if the water turned blue or pink.

It was blue. It was over. It was enough.

[vercetti2021]

9. What the hell's with explosives?

can't you just light a smoke bomb? Or something like small that doesn't require you blowing your fingertips off?

[madaboutharry]

10. Do these people not release what they are doing?

They are making an explosive device. Maybe there needs to be legislation to make this use of explosive material illegal.

I personally think these parties are dumb. I don't get it. Most people want to know the gender of their baby and I totally get that, but I don't get the elaborate and dangerous gimmicks.

[CTyankee]

13. My daughter staunchly refused to find out the gender of her 3 daughters.

She thought it ruined the surprise when the baby is born.

My other daughter did too until she had her ultrasound and the technician performing the test said "He looks fine."

[hauckeye]

15. Geez. I had amniocentesis for both pregnancies because I was older

Both times they just called me at work to tell me the gender. This was the 90’s and there were no gender reveal parties. I wouldn’t have had one anyway.

[Blue Owl]

16. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the whole gender reveal party thing

Especially when fireworks are part of the thing!