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Woman shares 6 reasons why she's lying to her family about her baby's gender

Sometimes it's better not to know.

via Kelly Sikkema/Unsplash

A couple holding up a photo of their baby.

Is it ever acceptable for someone pregnant to lie to their family about the baby’s gender? A woman on Reddit who is 11 weeks pregnant made the case for why she was going to tell her parents and her in-laws that she is about to have a baby boy, even though NIPT testing revealed she was having a girl.

The woman already has 2 boys, ages 2 and 4.

The woman laid out 6 reasons why she and her husband want to tell their parents they are having a boy. Many of them revolve around the fact that her mother-in-law has been pressuring them to have a girl—which is ridiculous because it’s not something the couple can choose.

Here are the 6 reasons the couple want to conceal the truth about the child they are expecting:

1. Mother-in-law’s pressure

“My MIL literally yelled “NOOOOOOOOO” when we told her the gender of our second boy (having kept the first a secret). She has also told me multiple times I need to give her a granddaughter,” the woman wrote.

2. Her boys may get jealous

“MIL will start sending clothes (she lives in a different country to us) as soon as she finds out, and we are conscious of how our two boys will feel about things arriving for the new baby and not them,” the woman wrote.

babies, pregnant woman, redditA couple holding a pregnany woman's belly.via John Looey/Unsplash

3. No favoritism

“I want to avoid the drama and upset of MIL treats unborn baby girl more favourably than she did my boys (she already shows extreme favouritism to her favourite niece over other girls and boys in the family and sees nothing wrong with it,” the woman wrote.

4. Don’t want mother-in-law to fly out

“We want to avoid MIL coming to our country for the birth (she came a few months later for our boys) as we want to get settled and think if it’s a girl, she will want to come ASAP,” she wrote.

5. Birth pressure

“Our eldest was born ‘code blue’ and required resuscitation, and before him, we had a miscarriage, and I’m worried about the added pressure on me to birth the first granddaughter from our parents,” she wrote.

6. Surprise!

“We think it would be really exciting once born if she’s a big surprise for both sides as she will be the first granddaughter on both sides,” she wrote.

The woman concluded her post by asking if she and her husband would be in the wrong for lying to their family. “We are worried, though, that by telling our parents she’s a boy when she isn’t, they will buy gendered clothing or that they will be mad at us for lying for six months. Is this going to backfire on us?” the woman asked.

babies, pregnancy, familyA pregnant woman sitting on a chair.via Jefferson Santu/Unsplash

An overwhelming number of commenters thought that the woman and her husband would be wrong if they lied to their family about the baby’s gender.

"It's bad juju to start your little girl's life by lying about her. Just tell everyone their sh**y behavior means everyone is on an information diet. It'll drive them crazy, so you'll get your revenge that way. The previous behavior makes them ***holes, but if you lie, you will be as well. Congratulations, but don't lie,” Secretly_S41ty wrote.

"I read the whole post and still don't understand why you think lying is the right call. Not telling them gender would work. Telling them the gender but establishing boundaries (you're not visiting us until __, do not send more than __ articles of clothing) would work. Lying to them is...well, disrespectful. It sounds like MIL is over the top, but I don't think a lie is the solution,” FacetiuosTomato added.

A few supporters thought the story’s real villain was the mother-in-law, but they still didn’t like the idea of lying.

"You are just trying to avoid craziness and favoritism. That's understandable. I think the other persons suggested not saying the gender at all, and being surprised at the end is best. If this is what you want to keep the baby's gender secret, this neutral response is best,” AgateCatCreations076 wrote.

“I'd simply just tell everyone you are waiting until the baby is born to find out the sex and request that nobody buy anything as you already have plenty of things from the boys. If she assumes it's another boy from that comment, then so be it,” Dazzling-Landscape41 added.

After reading the comments, the couple changed their minds and decided against lying to their parents. Instead, they’ve chosen to keep their gender a secret and enforce strict boundaries with their family.

“We will be saying we don’t know and addressing any hopes for a girl with a request to stop pressuring us to have a girl and that we better not witness any gender disappointment if it’s a boy, and if it’s a girl, we better not see a different reaction or treatment than to the boys, ever,” the woman wrote.

Ultimately, it’s unfortunate that some women have to deal with pressure from their families about childbirth, especially when it’s something out of their control, such as gender. But it’s nice that the woman and her husband received some sound advice from people on Reddit who didn’t think it was right to stoop to their mother-in-law’s level by lying. They also made a great point about not bringing their child into this world around a lie.

Sometimes, when things get heated with family, it’s easy to miss the forest from the trees. The good news is that some thoughtful folks online helped the couple navigate a tricky situation.

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Family

What habitual liars should know about their brains.

They say each lie is easier than the last.

Let's try it out.

I had a bagel for breakfast this morning. I am completely happy with my diet. My loan and rent payments are — deep breath — entirely reasonable. I am totally fine with ... how this political season ... has ... gajsdfasdjfklsadf.

Photo from iStock.

Damn it. I can't do it.

But there is a well-known idea that little white lies can eventually snowball into giant ones. (For reference, consider any romantic comedy movie, ever.)

So scientists from University College London decided to see if lies really spin out of control like we think they do.

To test this, they made people play a lying game, and scientists watched their brains.

The game was pretty simple: The player's task was to look at a jar of pennies and try to tell a friend how many pennies there were. They'd each get a prize based on their guesses. Sometimes the prizes would be better if they cooperated, but sometimes the player would get better prizes if they lied to their friend.

While this was all happening, the scientists used a type of brain scan called an fMRI to watch the activity in the person's brain.

If the player lied, a region of their brain called the amygdala would light up on the scans.

The amygdala is kind of like an emotional control booth in our brains. It lights up whenever something makes us feel an intense emotion, such as learning your child bought an alligator.

Photo by iStock.

The scientists saw that same emotional center light up when a person told a lie.

But the amygdala didn't always stay lit up and that's the interesting part of this story.

Each time a person told a self-serving lie, their amygdala reacted a little less. And larger drops in activity predicted an increase in the size of the person's lies.

So if the amygdala controls emotion, and we see less activity after repeated lying, that means...

Repeated lies might blunt the brain's emotional response.

At least, that's what the scientists are speculating. (They're a little cautious about making a big statement just yet.) They think that the first time we lie, our amygdala produces a strong emotional response, such as shame or guilt. The more you lie, however, the less the amygdala protests. Basically, the more you lie, the easier it is for you to keep lying.

However, the scientists didn't see the same pattern when the lie actually benefited the player's friend — just when it screwed them over.

So those little white lies we tell to protect our friends? Those stay with us. But the lies we tell to serve ourselves? Those can get so easy, we don't even feel them.

Scientists think this could also teach us new things about decision-making in general too, but they need to do a bit more research on that line of thinking.

"We only tested dishonesty in this experiment, but the same principle may also apply to escalations in other actions such as risk taking or violent behavior," study author Neil Garrett said in a statement.

Let's try this lying thing again...

I did not eat pizza last night. I am definitely not currently bingeing my way through Luke Cage. The traffic in my city is — eye twitch — fine. Just fine. And I am definitely not freaking out about climate change. Nope. Not at all.

I did it! Take that, amygdala.

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