What would be a good 1st present the day you find out the sex of your baby? What would you give your unborn son or daughter for them to keep as their first gift? I find out the sex of my 3rd child on Friday.
For my 1st son, on the day I found out he was a boy, I bought a Case pocketknife which has the year it was made on the blade. I figured he could keep it in the box and pass it on to one of his children or he could take it out and use it. Since we are an outdoorsy kind of family, it fit.
For my 1st daughter, I got her a necklace a cross with the year of her birth engraved on it. Since we are a Catholic-y kind of family, it fit
Oddly enough, eventually my son asked for a necklace with a cross and later my daughter asked for a pocketknife. Go figure.
You should get him/her one of those doodads that go zip when it moves, bop when it stops, and whirrrrr when it stands still. I don’t know just what it is, and in years of searching I’ve given up hope of ever knowing. But definitely one of those.
Oh sure, there are plenty of gender neutral toys, I am sure my new child will get a lot of them by the time her or his babyhood and childhood are over. However, the point of this gift is to commemorate the day when his or her sex was confirmed. In many families, finding out whether you are going to have a daughter or a son is a day of excitement and celebration. This gift will be a symbol of the excitement of the day. It would make sense to have the gift have a sort of gender lean. In addition, it is not necessarily intended for the baby to use once he or she pops out, it is meant as a possible heirloom or maybe even the source of a future family story or two.
So Rigamorole, what gift (if any) would you chose for your hypothetical child to commemorate the day you learned its gender?
I agree that it is kind of a strange concept to me.
When I was born my uncle heard that I was a boy, and ran around the hospital shouting “It’s a baseball player, it’s a baseball player!” When he heard I was actually a girl, he changed his shouts to “It’s a ballerina! It’s a ballerina!”
I, of course, am neither of those things. I’m a humanitarian aid worker. I don’t get why we feel so compelled to shove people into gender roles before they are even self-aware. Kids are going to get shoehorned into those pink and blue confines soon enough. As a parent, I’d consider a big part of my job to do as much damage control as I could before society starts telling them what their genitals mean they are capable of.
As for a gift, I inherited my great-grandfather’s baby ring, and I imagine I would pass that on. I’d probably also continue my family tradition of yearly Christmas tree ornaments.
I haven’t heard of this sort of thing, but then, I didn’t find out genders for mine. (Except the third one - 90% certainty of a boy turned into “Surprise! It’s a girl!” Which was okay, but reinforced my logic for not finding out in advance previously… But I digress.)
Anyway, in my experience, by the time the third one comes along, it would be something like “Here’s a nice stick, kid. Picked it up from our very own yard sometime during the decade we found out you were gonna be a ______. And, while we’re at it, there’s a good chance that your baby book will be very, very incomplete. I know it’s not fair, but I was really really busy. And tired.”
But if you are marking the occasion, how about a personalized dog tag type of necklace. (Shaped like dog tags, come in different metals - silver, gold, etc. - and are made to be engraved.) Seems to me that would suit either gender.
Well I’ve never heard of this, and I just don’t think it’s something I’d do. Not because I’m against different gender roles for boys and girls (I’m actually fine with them) but because buying them something so far in advance seems hasty. If it’s something they wouldn’t use until they’re much older, why not wait to see what kinds of things they like when they are closer to that age?
Wow! Talk about raining on your parade!
Since you’ve already established gender related gifts for the first two, why not do something similar for this one? A different kind of pocketknife for a boy, or a different style cross necklace for a girl. That way it keeps with the traditional idea you’re sort of building here, but it’s individual, too.
Maybe some other kind of tool might work for a boy, but to me it wouldn’t have the same cachet as a pocketknife. It would just be a tool. And different jewelry is hard, since a ring has to be sized, and bracelets are not all that versatile.
Part of this is because I can’t think of anything better that would carry the same weight, but I do also think the ‘traditional’ aspect of it would work.
I am actually in the process of trying to figure out what to get as a present for a baby girl [granddaughter of a gaming buddy of mine so I want something acceptable but not too expensive. Im going with a small box of the maple sugar maple leaf candies because everybody seems to like them, but I am torn as to what to get for the new kid…if she was american I would probably go for one of the cute littlebaby spoons but I am not sure if that would work for british as well]
