I look up from my work as a gaggle of my middle school students barge into my classroom and line up like a team of teenage vigilantes, fists on hips, chins raised defiantly.
“Mrs. Kibbie,” addresses their leader, “have you found out yet?”
“Guys, I told you — I don’t know the gender of the baby.”
My ears are assaulted by a chorus of seriously’s and are you kidding me’s.
“I thought your husband knew,” another accuses me. “You said last time he knew and he ended up telling you.”
“Yeah, last time he found out and it was supposed to be a secret from me,” I replied, sticking my pen in my hair bun. “And he lasted about 12 hours.”
“OK, but it’s been weeks. Hasn’t he cracked yet?”
“To his credit, no,” I laughed to another cacophony of groans. “I’m not going to find out until the birth.”
“Kibbie, COME ON!”
If you can believe it, this interaction about my baby’s gender is one of the least annoying I’ve had recently
My husband and I decided to keep the gender a secret from me and my daughter, but he would know and be the sole keeper of the knowledge. As I told the students, last time we planned the same thing and he couldn’t keep the secret. This time, however, he’s done very well.
We decided to do so in honor of my mom, who had no clue if I was a boy or a girl back in the day. It really doesn’t bother me not to know — my only anxiety about having a boy this time is just that I need to do some research on raising a young man vs. a daughter. But there would be time for that, and plenty of boy moms assured me I’d figure it out.
So I’m fine with it, my husband is fine with it, my daughter is having a fun time guessing, but man, I can’t believe how annoyed people get when I tell them I’m not finding out the gender!
Here are some common quotes from folks when they ask the gender and I tell them I’m not finding out, and my thoughts in response:
“Well, how are you going to decorate the nursery?”
The baby will not explode if it has a yellow or green nursery.
“I have a whole pile of baby boy clothes at my house you could have if you just knew the gender!”
Are they going to expire within the next month? If not, just wait and you can dump them off after I get home from the hospital!
“I was going to make a quilt, but now I’m not sure how to design it!”
This will be a fun challenge for you then: How to not trap a gender identity into a quilt.
“You know you’re going to get a bunch of gender-neutral clothes and toys, don’t you?”
I am aware that this is a possibility and have managed to accept it… somehow… sighs dramatically, hand on forehead
“I don’t know if I can wait that long to find out!”
Uh, too bad?
Good thing I have no problem whatsoever with being a frustrating person! Like most pressure put on pregnant people, this is just ridiculous, and I’m choosing to ignore it, and you should too. I’m too excited about having a surprise now to try to pry into my husband’s head and figure it out. Besides, at this point, I’m just going to honor the secret to be stubborn — and that’s my pregnant mama prerogative!
