One mom shares her ‘gender disappointment’ for the world to see, and people have thoughts
For many moms who share their entire lives on TikTok and other social media platforms, they choose to share in the hopes that they can make other moms not feel so alone and sometimes help them through all the hard times parenting can bring.
Mom, TikToker, and professional hair stylist Autumn Freeman chose to share what happens when “gender disappointment” occurs during a gender reveal she posted to her page. In the viral video, which has more than 11 million views, Freeman shared the first gender reveal video she and her husband shared when they found out they were having a daughter. The next part of the video (which came with the trigger warning about displaying gender disappointment) showed her becoming visibly upset when it was revealed that they were having another girl, and not a boy like she had hoped. Freeman hoped to show the contrast between the two videos and raise awareness about gender reveal disappointment, she said.
“I’m actually sad,” she told her husband, Andy, who tried to comfort her by giving her a hug. “I wanted a boy,” she said. Before Freeman walked off camera, Andy said to her, “It’s okay. She’ll be just as beautiful as the rest.”
In an interview with PEOPLE, Freeman said, “her dismay faded after the reveal, which they filmed last October.” And she explained her initial disappointment.
Freeman told the publication that she had “built up high hopes about welcoming another boy into the family.”
She shared that she had bonded with her 8-year-old stepson Grant, and wanted to “experience that side of motherhood with her own son.”
“In my perfect world I’d have one boy and one girl,” Freeman told PEOPLE. “I actually wanted a boy with Violet, but it was my first one and I was just excited either way…Then with this one, we know it’s our last baby.”
She told PEOPLE she was bummed “for about a week, and then it went away.” As she’s coming closer to her due date, she’s getting excited for the new baby’s arrival and said, “I just told myself the universe is giving me what I need and what I can handle…I’m just meant to be a girl mom.”
As Freeman predicted, sharing this gender disappointment caused quite an uproar with viewers.
“There’s a bunch of haters in my comments that are like, ‘You don’t even love this baby. You don’t deserve this baby,’ ” she told PEOPLE. “That’s not the case at all. It had nothing to do with how I feel about the baby or how much I love it or how much it’s going to be loved. It was just a brief moment, and now it’s gone. I’m ready for my girl.”
Freeman still stands by her decision to share this moment, because based on a few positive comments, she did actually help some people.
“There’ve been so many positive people — maybe even more positive people than negative people — who are like, ‘I’ve gone through this and thank you so much for sharing it,’ ” she said.
Freeman even shared a follow-up TikTok to spotlight some of the most supportive responses. In the caption, Freeman wrote, “Ladies, you are not alone, and you don’t deserve to be shamed!”
She hopes that if her daughter sees this video one day that she’ll appreciate what her mom’s intentions were with sharing it, according to PEOPLE. Freeman said she hoped her daughter might find comfort in her honesty the way so many women on TikTok did.
