Gleam

My sister had three kids with this man. Endured a whole decade of gaslighting, belittling, public shaming and negligence from this man. She had an affair with her best friend's husband because he was the first man in their circle of friends to treat her like a human being worthy of love and his own wife was physically abusive.

After she told her husband about the affair, she started the divorce process, with all of us in the family cheering her on for finally standing up for herself and taking control away from her monstrous spouse. Until she stopped. I don't know who convinced her to stop (one of her in-laws I assume, but I wouldn't put it past local church leadership to protect an abusive dickwad), but she decided to stay with him with conditions that he start to treat her like a real human person with feelings, needs, and desires.

And then she got pregnant for a fourth time with this nightmare of a person, and is now living in a new house big enough to fit the nightmare's parents. (I'm personally rooting for it to be an affair baby because that would be *chef's kiss* drama.) She invited me to the gender reveal and because I still want to be one of the supportive people in her life to help her escape her husband after he backslides into his abusive behaviors, I go.

Baby Bits Party

Because that's what it is. Everyone wants to know if the baby has a penis or a vagina. Because....... reasons. I'm sure they're very important reasons.

My husband and I arrive a little late because we're jetlagged from a trip to Maui (take me back!) We give my sister a souvenir I bought for her birthday, and then her friend who's in charge of the party hands us little papers to guess which of the parents is more excited about the baby, who's going to change more diapers, etc. But my husband and I can only see it as a Who Knows How Much A Piece Of Shit The Father Is quiz.

It was as awkward as a party can be when roughly 90% of the people their are homophobes but want to be nice about it. I haven't mentioned it yet, but my brother-in-law is a raging homophobe who didn't want his daughter to be a flower girl at our wedding because we were getting gay married. Because you know how those gays are around children.

Later, the Friend in Charge (wearing a T-shirt that said "Keeper of the Gender" on it I kid you not) grabbed a video of me and my husband with our guesses of what the baby's bits will be and some life advice for the little one after it's old enough to watch it. The options were Team Boy or Team Girl, and Healthy Baby (all of these options also had a T-shirt on immediate family members). I picked Healthy Baby and my advice was to never stop learning.

All in all, it was staggering to see just how far removed I am from mainstream Utah Mormon culture. The jokes they told didn't land. I felt more like an outsider than I ever have. The thick stench of patriarchy (the Mormon kind), the nice homophobia (avoid eye contact with the gays at all costs!) and not-so-under undertones of misogyny (we *really* hope it's a boy, but it's okay if it's a girl). Friend in Charge saying with just a *bit too much* candor that we shouldn't ruin our lives with children like she and my sister have both done (this woman has three children, by the way.) My sister, who just confronted all of the abuse she put up with says she's already excited for having another baby after this one.

Tldr I did not enjoy my time there.

After Party!!!!

They posted a video of everyone's guesses and life advice on Facebook (and probably more when they actually did the reveal of the baby's likelihood to have a penis but I stopped watching before that). I was able to watch more of that misogyny I mentioned, but what absolutely rocked me was when it was the father's turn to give life advice to *his own child*, he had nothing. No ideas. My sister was quick to help him out though. "Marry a man like your daddy!" she chimed in from the side.

Ex-fucking-cuse me, WHAT? The man who has treated you like an inconvenience *at best* is what you're wishing for your future child??? Other family members voiced their concern, "Wait, but if the baby's a boy they can't marry someone like dad!" This was followed by laughter. Hahaha, so funny, being gay is bad silly!

Moments before I walked in with my husband.

And all I can think of is how much Mormonism is to blame for this shit. I went to a gender reveal party and met a woman who apparently hates her kids but keeps having more (multiply and replenish, people!). Mingled with homophobes who will say in one breath that the baby can't marry someone like daddy if he's a boy, take another breath, and then congratulate me on my wedding. Realized my sister may have suffered major head trauma to have forgotten a decade's worth of abuse and neglect.

The US Physicist Steven Weinberg was quoted in the New York Times as having said:

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

I would like to add that it's not just evil things. Religion will have you harming others, for sure. But it won't stop there. It'll have you harming yourself. And I don't think that's evil. I think that's a tragedy. In my own life, religion drove me to suicidal ideation many, many times. I was better off dead than a sinner. Better off dead than gay. Better off dead than a missionary without any baptisms under his belt. For my sister, she's better off staying with a very abusive, divorcible man than she is divorcing that man and "failing" a marriage. Her friend is better off with way too many kids than she is having no kids and better mental health.

In conclusion (tldr)

Congratulations on surviving to the end!

Gender reveal parties are weird and outdated! Do something else! No one needs to know your baby's parts except for a doctor!

Mormonism is probably ruining your life and/or relationships if you're in it.