--- title: Should You Find Out Your Baby's Sex Before Birth? Gender Roles description: Buying pink or blue clothes before your child is even born may pressure them into specific gender roles canonical: https://time.com/2817841/sex-gender-baby-before-birth/ author: Eliana Dockterman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-06-03T16:17:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:55:24.469Z og:title: The Problem With Wanting to Know Your Baby's Sex Before Birth og:description: Buying pink or blue clothes before your child is even born may pressure them into specific gender roles og:url: https://time.com/2817841/sex-gender-baby-before-birth/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8269813fd16b7c4a/698695f23bc999dd2d1a3e56/174546965.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: 174546965 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Problem With Wanting to Know Your Baby's Sex Before Birth twitter:description: Buying pink or blue clothes before your child is even born may pressure them into specific gender roles twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8269813fd16b7c4a/698695f23bc999dd2d1a3e56/174546965.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Problem With Wanting to Know Your Baby's Sex Before Birth  by [Eliana Dockterman](/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Jun 3, 2014 4:17 PM CUT  Preparing nursery for new born baby Preparing nursery for new born babyPeter Dazeley—Getty Images  by [Eliana Dockterman](/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Jun 3, 2014 4:17 PM CUT Want to find out your baby’s sex before he or she is born? Then you’re probably either a perfectionist or have conservative views about gender, a [new study](http://news.osu.edu/news/2014/06/02/what-finding-out-a-child%E2%80%99s-sex-before-birth-says-about-a-mother/ "undefined") suggests. Researchers at Ohio State University asked 182 expectant mothers to take personality tests that assessed their thoughts on gender roles and parenting perfectionism. More laid-back moms who seemed open to new experiences were less likely than perfectionist moms to ask the doctor about whether their babies would be boys or girls. “These results suggest women who choose not to learn their baby’s sex may not worry about having clothes, toys and colors for their child that match traditional gender expectations,” said Letitia Kotila, lead author of the study, which will be published in the journal _Personality and Individual Differences_. Finding out your child’s sex before their born, the researchers suggest, may push them towards a certain gender identity later. “If you know ahead of time that you’re having a girl, are you layering on all the pink and purple in a way that is going to push an extremely feminine ideal on your child?” Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, another researcher who worked on the study, said. Famed novelist Ian McEwan weighed in on the debate this weekend when discussing how he assigns a gender to characters in his novels. The _Atonement_ author spoke about how his son and partner were expecting a baby but didn’t want to know the gender. He endorsed their decision: “It is above all a person,” he said at a festival, [according to](http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/books/article4106269.ece "undefined") The Times of London “Knowing in advance this social identity which confers a pink and blue fate almost seems like a form of moral kitsch because what you are celebrating is a person. So I rather take the same view of my characters: if it falls out it is a woman or a man, then I go that way.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2817841/sex-gender-baby-before-birth/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2817841/sex-gender-baby-before-birth/"},"headline":"The Problem With Wanting to Know Your Baby's Sex Before Birth","datePublished":"2014-06-03T16:17:04.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:55:24.469Z","description":"Buying pink or blue clothes before your child is even born may pressure them into specific gender roles","url":"https://time.com/2817841/sex-gender-baby-before-birth/","keywords":["Living","Parenting","gender","Babies","Books","sexuality"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8269813fd16b7c4a/698695f23bc999dd2d1a3e56/174546965.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eliana Dockterman","jobTitle":"Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8269813fd16b7c4a/698695f23bc999dd2d1a3e56/174546965.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"174546965","caption":"174546965","creditText":"Peter Dazeley—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/2817841/sex-gender-baby-before-birth/","name":"The Problem With Wanting to Know Your Baby's Sex Before Birth"}}]}] ```