These days you can know what gender your
future child will be before it is even born. And so some people throw one of
those silly gender reveal parties, where they tell all the invited guests
whether the fetus is a boy or a girl. But the information is delivered with great
fanfare. Dozens of pink or blue balloons might be released into the air. Or maybe
a plane might fly overhead pulling a banner that says IT’S A BOY or IT’S A
GIRL. There might even be fireworks involved somehow.
You can even purchase items for
gender reveal parties. For instance,
there are gender reveal smoke bombs and confetti cannons.
These days you can also find
out a lot of other things about your future child before it is even born
besides gender. You can find out whether or not it will be crippled and if so
how. You can find out if the kid will be crippled for the same reason I am. And
when that happens, people don’t start thinking about having festive events to
celebrate their fetus. People instead start thinking about aborting the damn thing.
That’s how a lot of
fetuses that will eventually become people with Down Syndrome get aborted. I don’t think
there ever has been such a thing as a Down Syndrome reveal party. No, the best a
fetus like that can hope for is that the mom will quietly continue with the
pregnancy.
Throwing a Down Syndrome
reveal party would be considered by polite society to be tastelessly disrespectful. The proper etiquette
for an occasion like this would be to have a somber event that’s more like a
funeral. Everybody shows up and offers their condolences. No confetti cannons
or fireworks or anything like that. That could be seen as making light of tragedy. If there are any theatrics at all, it might be releasing
black balloons into the air.
Giving birth to a regular, standard-issue baby is looked upon as one of those joyous occasions in life that's worthy of high celebration. But giving birth to a crippled baby is something
else altogether.
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