Reilly acknowledges that the parties might not be for everyone—and, indeed, gender reveals have suffered fierce backlash for conflating gender with sex and enforcing rigid cultural norms. But Reilly is among the defenders who argue that the new tradition is about more than whether a baby will grow up to be a square-jawed macho man or a dainty lady. They’re meant to celebrate the mother, he says. In fact, some researchers agree with that assessment—and say the discussions around gender in America today might have helped bring about the tradition’s rise in the first place.

We had nigh reached gender-reveal saturation before the backlash came. As gender-reveal parties became more popular, each subsequent proud parent seemed to want to out-do the others. A restaurant introduced “gender reveal lasagna”—complete with pink or blue ricotta—which was immediately decried as “a nightmare” and “not okay.” When one man used an alligator he owned in a gender reveal, one person wished the creature would have bitten his hand. Most recently, a gender reveal that involved a hippo at a Texas zoo chomping down on a watermelon was deemed “the worst” reveal ever by one Twitter user.

To be sure, some of the responses are understandable. Some couples have moved on from blue and pink to more cringeworthy themes like “guns or glitter,” committing more firmly to gender stereotypes. Critics point out that the parties leave too little room for intersex or third-gender people, and that they trap babies in a pink-or-blue binary before they’re even born. Some of the talk among the gender-reveal entrepreneurs also isn’t going to earn them a Ph.D. in feminist theory anytime soon. “What are the two things a little girl dreams of?” Reilly asked me rhetorically at one point. “Getting married and having kids.” (I, for one, never dreamed of either.)

Read: Dads prefer sons, moms prefer daughters

On top of that, some gender reveals are outright dangerous: One in the Arizona desert last year sparked a wildfire that caused $8 million in damage. And they can carry a whiff of tacky social-media performance. The point is a “surprise,” but is there really any doubt the parents would be happy with either gender? In fact, the only people allowed to show disappointment are the couples’ existing children, as evidenced by the many gender-reveal videos in which a young boy bursts into tears at the sight of pink cake or balloons.

Despite all this, the myriad ways gender reveals are practiced do undermine some of these critiques—and show that the reveals can be meant for more than social-media fame. Some gender reveals are wrapped into a baby shower, meaning parents bring gender-neutral gifts to the party. And some people who have had gender reveals say social-media sharing helps spread the word to family members who live far away. Elizabeth Clarke, a mom of four in Wichita Falls, Texas, had a friend wrap a large box and fill it with helium balloons for the gender reveal of her youngest daughter. Clarke and her husband Facetimed all the faraway grandparents, aunts, and uncles, then opened the box. In this case, her older children were the ones who wanted to do the reveal.