Susie O’Brien: Bogan burnout gender reveals are OK if they’re safe

It may not be cake, but gender reveals involving physical violence, watermelon-eating alligators and pipe bombs are far worse than bogan burnouts in Carrum Downs.

Twenty years ago, when I was pregnant with my first child, I had a gender reveal.

It involved peering at a grainy image on a radiographer’s screen, who solemnly pointed out the “boy bit”.

Then, being conscientious first-time prospective parents, we went down to the pub and had a water or two to celebrate.

No arrests. No emergency services. No media reports. No viral videos. No insurance waivers. No eager family members in attendance.

Things sure have changed. Now couples invite everyone they know and spend thousands of dollars creating picture-perfect social media moments dramatically revealing the gender of their unborn child using smoke cannons and low-flying aircraft.

The Carrum Downs gender reveals was safe compared to some other questionable reveals overseas.

These days, even king penguin Pesto has a gender reveal party. Yes, he’s a boy too.

This week we were all amused by a gender reveal in Carrum Downs.

Instead of watching the world’s most boring AFL grand final, a group of 30 adults and children chose to stand in a deserted industrial estate where a father-to-be did burnouts in the street.

Blue smoke billowed from the tyres of his Holden Commodore confirming that his unborn child is also a boy. No one was hurt, but the police turned up, the car was impounded and the father was fined. Police stressed the danger of such manouvers and urged other prospective parents to “have a cake instead”.

It reminds me of a recent gender reveal at the Hampton Hooptie-fest in New Zealand which is described as “three days of total lunacy” and a “test of man, machine and moron”.

Those morons took centre stage in May when a mum and dad-to-be were put in the middle of the circuit while cars did burnouts around them, blowing coloured smoke.

Organisers were forced to admit it was “downright dumb” and put lives in danger, particularly the expectant parents.

Yes, these kinds of events are dangerous and silly, but as gender reveals go, they are not that bad. This is not a statement about the safety of bogan burnouts, but about how far some couples are willing to go in order to reveal the gender of their baby.

As long as the gender reveal is safe, it doesn’t matter how bogan they get, writes Susie O’Brien. Picture: Supplied

It wasn’t as dangerous as the Arizona gender reveal that caused a 47,000-acre wildfire or the one in Iowa that led to the death of a soon-to-be grandmother when the homemade pipe containing coloured gunpowder exploded.

And it wasn’t as hazardous as a gender reveal in Florida which involved an alligator eating watermelon, which exploded to show blue jelly. Pet alligators are embraced as “much-loved pets” and “part of our family” right until they kill someone.

And it didn’t involve any punching, unlike one couple in the US who had a boxing themed gender reveal.

The dad punched the mum, who was wearing a boxing pad, which exploded to reveal pink powder. Although he had to punch her a few times until it worked, the expectant couple were reported to be “delighted” with how it all went.

Personally, I’m not sure swinging punches at your partner is a great way to reveal the gender of your child.

While many gender reveals are dangerous, others are just creepy and weird. One in the US involved a couple dressed in white with their two daughters, also dressed in white carrying umbrellas. The parents then poured coloured paint over their girls’ heads to denote the sex of their third child. But the paint they chose was more dark magenta than pink, which meant it looked as if they were pouring blood over the heads of their kids.

Despite this, the couple still posted the photos on social media, excited their daughters “were part of it”.

Even the woman who started the gender reveal trend back in 2008, US blogger Jenna Karvunidis, says she regrets it.

“Focusing on ‘what’s between their legs’ is a limiting way of welcoming a new human into the world,” she said recently.

Let’s face it. These parties — even the sweet and boring ones rather than those visited by fire brigades — are an exercise in self-absorption with a side order of rampant individualism.

I’d prefer to squeeze my kids’ blackheads than spend an afternoon pinning a penis on a foetus before watching people cry while cutting open a cake.

The latest trend, Instagram tells me, is to hire a sonographer and ultrasound machine and do the scan at home in front of your guests. Yes really. People are inviting their friends and family over, doing the scan in the lounge in the middle of the party and putting the results on the big screen TV as part of the entertainment.

I never thought anything could make a bogan burnout look good.

But give me a Commodore in Carrum Downs over a scan in the living room any day.

Originally published as Susie O’Brien: Bogan burnout gender reveals are OK if they’re safe