Gender of children

[NoNoNoOohmaybe]

Following on from a thread (but not a taat no no).

Does the gender of your child matter?

I'm intrigued by this? I only wanted one. I didn't care cos in my head I'd mould them into my critical thinking,emotionally intelligent dynamo. I had boy/girl twins. They're amazing, my girl is always on the go and very fucking loud, my boy is empathetic and (obsessively) bookish. But they're not what imagined; better and worse and all in between.

Does gender matter that much?

Gender is a construct, so no

Biological sex doesn't really matter either

Next

Ummm. There are lots of people with very firm opinions on these topics.

Many of them, and particularly the loudest and most insistent, are hate-filled morons who don’t care about the question as such but want to force you to agree to their views.

Tactics employed range from argument, through manipulation and threats up to calling the police and / or suing you in a civil court.

This isn’t a discussion for any sane person with a life to get too deeply involved in.

Their sex matters when I'm just about to sit on a toilet seat without watching what I'm doing

I'd love my DCs anyway. I love them for the people they are. I don't love them because of their sex, but because society is full of gender expectations for their sex, it does shape a little of the way they develop. Their personalities and interests are unlikely to be completely identical if they were of the opposite sex.

Having two children of the same sex, I do wonder what it would be like having children of the opposite sex, but all those thoughts are very superficial. I came from a clear line of eldest daughter of eldest daughter of eldest daughter of eldest daughter and that's at an end, but it doesn't really matter or mean anything.

@NottonightJosepheen I don't understand people who yearn for a child of a particular sex

Have a friend with 4 sons, they want a daughter, last time on the roundabout for them, what's not to understand?

I had AND because I wanted a dd and was in a total spin in case I didn't. If I could explain it I would, but I can't. I was a gibbering wreck from the minute I got pregnant. I do not know what I would have done if she was a boy, but I purposely didn't find out at the 20 wk scan.

*Not tonight" that's one experience. You can still understand that someone else might want to have a mixture.

But also that's what they've said outwardly. DH is one of all boys. He always told me (and others have said the same) that his DM said how delighted she was to have only boys, had no longing for a girl, hadn't minded either way. One day we we talking and I mentioned that. She looked suddenly really sad, which isn't like her at all, and said, no, she had been devastated that her last 2 weren't girls and really had longed for one. I don't think she's admitted that to anyone else.

I do think sex matters and I can understand why parents can suffer from gender disappointment.

Put plainly there are observable differences between the sexes at a population level. In many cases it is still to be definitively proven whether these differences are due to biology, socialisation or a mix of both. The irrefutable truth though is that the differences do currently exist. No individual male/female is guaranteed to have traits that are associated with their sex, yet statistically it is more likely that they will follow certain trends e.g. boys will be more aggressive and physical etc

If you are an expectant parent that has little interest in boistorious, rough and tumble play and doesn't enjoy football then I can understand why being told you are having a boy could be disappointing. Not because your child is guaranteed to have those traits that you wouldn't choose, but because the odds of them having those traits are greater.

I'm not sure I understand what your asking when ask if it matters? Matters in relation to what?

If your expecting one of them to one day get pregnant and have a baby then it matters more than anything else in the world that they're female for obvious reasons.

Whether it matters to you or not what sex your baby is only you know the answer. Some people have a preference for boy or girl but you usually find that when the time comes and they didn't get what they expected that they find they really weren't that bothered at all.

@Witchend that is lovely that your MIL convinced your DH and his brothers that she only wanted boys.

What @Bumpitybumper said, put it better than I could

I have 2 clos(ish) in age opposite sexes. People sometimes say this is the jack pot- Both DH and I are one of same sex pairs, sometimes I feel bad that they have missed out on having a same sex sibling.

Before having children I wanted one of each gender. My first was a son and he was so loving and affectionate that I hoped I would have another boy despite always wanting a girl so that when she was older she would be into clothes, hair and make up we as I am and I envisaged lots of happy shopping trips etc.

My second was a girl and at first I was worried that she would come between me and my son but that was soon forgotten and we became close just as close.

They are adults now and we are still close.

I am glad I had one of each but equally I’m sure that I would have been happy if it had been two the same. I think though that I would have had a third child to see if I could have a different gender than the first two.

@Bumpitybumper has put it so well. I find it quite irritating when people get on their high horse about this.

When I was pregnant with dc1 I secretly wanted a boy - not because of any preference for boys intrinsically, nor any ridiculous notion that a boy or girl would be a certain way pre puberty unless we socialised them to, but because I didn't want to duplicate my complicated and uncomfortable, though not out and out awful, relationship with my mother. I thought it would be easier to avoid that if the pressure of a "mother-daughter" relationship wasn't hanging over us.

Obviously I had a girl, and she's perfect That meant I "got over" that hang up about the relationship to a degree and didn't care which sex my subsequent children were. I do think having a girl made me more determined to think or overthink parenting decisions in an effort to avoid being like my mother, and I wonder if I'd have been as hung up on that if my first had been a boy. Ultimately the difference, at the baby and small child stage at least, would have been mostly in my head.

I do think that when biological sex of offspring matters emotionallys to an expectant mother it is sometimes linked to their own relationship with their birth family, and whether or not they want to replicate that.

I have two boys. We are done having babies so it is what it is. DH and I both would have liked a daughter in a 'it would be nice' kind of way. It never really mattered that much to us though and once we found out at both scans they were boys, that was that.

We do jokingly talk about having another and DH said he would only ever consider it if we were guaranteed a daughter. He's from a long line of males though so can't see it happening.

It is sad sometimes to think I won't be able to experience things I did with my own parents. Like being parents of the bride, my daughter giving birth etc. And I'll probably be considered to be a cantankerous old MIL in 20 years time. But 🤷‍♀️

I don't think it would change their personality if my DC were boys or girls if that's what you're asking. As someone who was always a bit of a 'tomboy' my kids have ended up with similar interests to my own and I think that would probably still be the case if they were girls. But who knows.

NottonightJosepheen I'm sorry to say that you really have no idea if your parents or your sister genuinely have no small desire to have experienced parenting a boy. One thing I know about families is that it's possible to find out things about your parents or siblings years later that you never could have imagined. I find the confidence with which you state that they never yearned for a boy to be quite startling. I could never claim to know someone else's mind so clearly.

I think there is a danger that as a society we are making having a preference regarding the sex of your child a taboo. This will just make those struggling with the issue feel that they are somehow abnormal or wrong to experience gender disappointment. I am genuinely concerned that this could impact a new mother's mental health as she feels compelled to hide her true feelings for fear of judgement or condemnation.

I think it's much healthier to acknowledge that there are legitimate reasons why a parent might have a preference regarding the sex of their child, but that it would be wrong for this to affect how they parent or to penalise their child in any way just because it is the non-preferred sex. I know a few women for example that are fantastic mothers to their children but express some disappointment that they didn't have a girl/boy. It's not the same as saying they don't want the child they have.

@Bumpitybumper Well said. I have two boys (one newborn) and won't be having any more babies. I love them both very much. However, I also really wanted a daughter. Not sure how I am going to deal with this as I don't feel like I can talk to anyone about it!

You can't have children outside the influence of society, so it's pretty likely that your child is going to live up to some sex stereotypes. I don't think I really had a preference for either sex but because I was so close to my sister growing up and I don't know any brother-sister pairs who are close in the way we were, I always wanted to have two children of the same sex fairly close in age (and fondly imagined that if I had one of each I would keep going until there were at least two :o) Now I have two boys but ten years apart so they probably won't be close in that way, though they do have a clear bond.

TBH though parenting is partly what you make it. I would have dreaded standing in the cold watching sports matches for my boys so I haven't particularly encouraged them to do sports (that's not to say that I would have prevented it if they turn out to love them, but so far DS1 is not interested).

I do admit to feeling a bit lost when it comes to the (rapidly approaching) boy adolescence, though. But that's life, isn't it? I haven't had templates to deal with screen time or bilingual parenting but those are issues that have come up that we've had to deal with.