What on earth is wrong with having a boy??

[NCBabyBoy]

DS is 11 months and I love him more than I thought humanly possible! I am starting to get annoyed with all the posts about wanting girls. What is wrong with boys?? I always (from a very young age) thought I would have a daughter first (until my sister had a girl) and am amazed at my little boy every day. I realise I would be equally amazed every day had he been a girl. What is this widespread preference for wanting girls? I genuinely do not get it!

I would have dreaded a boy, having 2 girls.

If you'd have had a boy, I guarantee you would have adored him. I've spoken to so many mums who said similar things, and then enthused their love for their boy baby when they had them.

I would quite like a girl because I have about ten girls names good to go and not one single boys name and I'm worried I'll be stood in front of the registrar on Day 21 saying 'I don't know, what's your name? Let's just use that?'

I don't think that's quite what you mean though...

Yes zebra, probably. Or the poor kid would've always (been made to) feel second-best . I think what bothers me as well as the sexism is that the clear sex preference moves dangerously close to sounding like the parental love is conditional...

It's innate - (possibly PND possibly excepted, where gender is unlikely to be a factor) -you love that little bundle you gave birth to. And boys clothes are really cute too

@Croquembou I totally sympathise - in our case that would've meant DS being called Rose . You have 42 days so don't worry

When I was pregnant with my twins I wanted 2 girls, dh wanted 2 boys, we have one of each.

My little boy is amazing, and I was so, so wrong when I said I didn’t want a boy. My husband has said he was also wrong when he said he didn’t want a girl, I think it was just fear of the unknown for us.

If we were to have any more, I’d be delighted with either sex, I have no real preference as long as they’re healthy.

My 2 boys could not be more different to each other in every way. I suppose because of that I don’t see any that there are any particular “boy” traits.

As for badly behaved boys in class yes you do get those of course and they do seem more prevalent than girls but my old son has always been impeccably behaved in school and very studious and has no time for the badly behaved ones either. And there are girls as well who are badly behaved not just boys.

Unbelievable that people can be so rude. Never in a million years would I even think that let alone voice it.
Surely people only want your baby to be a healthy child.

It all comes down to gender stereotypes and wanting a girl so they can dress them in pink and dresses and all that sexist bs. Boys are seen as less fun for some reason either way its the sort of thing only uneducated people trouble themselves with anyone with half a brain knows a boy can wear pink if he likes or dress and a girl doesn't have to be dressed head to toe in pink with the garish bow just so she doesn't get mistaken for a boy baby I've yet to come across people in my social circle that think this way and they are all educated professionals

For most of the world’s population there is a strong preference for boys. Read a newspaper about what happens to girls and women who have girls in places like China and India.

I hear lots of negative things about girls (I have two). One colleague said she was glad she’d had a boy because her husband had an “heir.” They are not nobility so WTAF does that mean And people constantly tell me how horrible teenage years will be with my DDs and that boys are so much easier.

So I’m really surprised at this post as I don’t observe it much.

Oh I have to admit, my DS2 would have undoubtedly been one of those "horrible boys" that mums of girls objected to. He's nearly 15 now and vastly improved since starting secondary school

But I hear v unfair things about girls too - I spoke to a teacher who basically called the little girls in her class "little bitches" - I kid you not. She whispered it, but I was and just look at the way society treat young girl victims of violence/sexual violence. The Rotherham girls etc? Not good.

I had a preference for a girl, although I find it hard to articulate why. Definitely not anything pink or fluffy: I was a tomboy and am not 'girly' in the slightest, and my DD does not wear frills or dresses. I suppose it's because it was just me and my mum growing up, and we have such a close bond, that whenever I thought about having children, I just saw myself with a daughter automatically. We are also only having one so I did kind of hope it would be a girl.

That said, now she's here I know that had she been a boy I would have been head over heels in love anyway and it wouldn't have mattered.

The most tedious sort of woman seems to want daughters in the assumption that they will be able to 'stereotypical girl things' together, as if their daughter will be an equally tedious mini me rather than an autonomous human being.

I don't think it's about stereotypes, at least not for many women. I'm having a boy and super excited about it but I admit that I did originally want a girl. (I only plan to have one child, so that's no daughter for me).

It's never been anything to do with wanting to do stereotypically girly things, or a belief about the way girls are, for me - I'm not stereotypically girly and I don't believe most people adhere to gender stereotypes at all. But there are certain things that people of the same biological sex understand about their shared experience that others don't. Periods, sexism, the pay gap, expectations on women, questions regarding the role of women as wives or mothers, or biological sex v gender, relationship perspectives, pregnancy, motherhood - these are all things I can talk to my mum about out and we understand each other in a way I don't share with my dad, or other men.

That's why part of me wanted a daughter - not because I like pink (which I don't, btw).

Complaining about belief in stereotypes and then stereotyping women who want daughters as tedious gender conservatives has a certain irony.

We're TTC at the moment for our first and I've always dreamed of having a boy!

Don't get me wrong - regardless of gender I would be thrilled just to know we'd have our first.

But I know what you mean, a couple of months back at work someone mentioned how all woman dream of having little girls and they've never heard of any woman ever wanting a boy. She couldn't be more wrong :)

I have 2 sons, never had a longing for a daughter, they are my children. End of.
Now a GM of girl/boy twins. The amount of folk who assumed I'd be all about the girl was unbelievable.
I wasn't, they are my Grandchildren. End of.

Complaining about belief in stereotypes and then stereotyping women who want daughters as tedious gender conservatives has a certain irony.

Hear, hear.

So, not sure this is relevant (perhaps is) but providing a perspective from an Asian country here - the desire for boys is so entrenched that the country has had to ban and criminalise prenatal sex determination. It’s still practised in code (so, in return for money, a doctor might signal to the parents to be that it’s X or Y sex). Female foetuses are regularly aborted and female infants abandoned. There are actual words in the dictionary for local language that stand for “the burden of having a daughter”. Whilst such things more common in rural areas there, in urban “erudite” families too it is entrenched. Huge problems with dowry, “honour killings”, and sex selective abortion. Some states have a skewed sex ratio now :/

All this to say that the world is so full of stark contrasts. When I see the pining for girls here I cannot help but feel heartbroken for girls - both born and never born - in that country.

Anyway perhaps tangential but just wanted to speak about it a bit :)

My son is the light of my life - he is an adult now and we've never had a bad day in his entire life. How anyone could not want a boy, is beyond me.

@Thoughtlessinengland thank you for your post. I tried to reference this issue also. In countries with a combined population of well over 2bn the cultures there shame and even punish baby girls and women who give birth to baby girls.

I remember Barack Obama giving a speech at some international summit and he was talking about how he has two daughters and he is so happy with them, people don't need to pressure families to have boys only. The image of a powerful leader saying it's good to have daughters is really quite radical in a lot of the world.

I wanted a girl because I have been treated terribly by men, and it frightens me to raise someone who will grow up to be a man. This is compounded by the fact that neither my brother nor my step brother are particularly well rounded individuals, and both have traits I would not want in a son, particularly with their attitude to women. I feel I have no idea how to successfully raise a decent boy/man, but I'm doing my best. Fortunately his fathermy husbandis generally decent, so he has a great role model there.

I find raising my daughter much easier, partly because the challenging parts of her personality don't remind me of all the things I dislike in myself (my son is so very like me), partly because I personally find it easier to be raising someone who is on the same side of the patriarchy divide as I am.

But sure, I am a boring woman who wants to have teaparties with her daughter (not that there would be anything wrong with it if I did!)

Women don't want boys because they grow into shit men?

I thinks if you posted the same question on Dadsnet you would find an overwhelming number of men who hoped they got a son. You know to go to the match, watch therugby, have a round of golf with.

There is no Dadsnet BTW, but you get my point.

I have 4 boys. In general apparently the consensus seems to be that when you get older either they will ditch out or become mammon's boys that will never be able to have a successful relationship because they've mammy complexes! With every pregnancy I was told 'hopefully you'll have a girl this time' more just for conversation I think. I think people just say these things, it doesn't really matter. I'd say people who have girls are fed up of hearing the phrase 'a boy wrecks your house, a girl wrecks your head.' I think that's such an insulting phrase!

out was supposed to be you and mammon was supposed to be mammy!!! Sorry!!!

I must have missed these posts! Always thought I would have girls but ended up with 2 boys and wouldn't have it any other way. I love them as people irrelevent of gender.

Around the time I had my 2nd son, a friend had her 2nd child, a boy, her 1st being a girl. We met up and she kept wittering on about how lucky she was to have had one of each which I found a) a bit odd, and b) quite rude.

You do hear about women with sons who want daughters and end up with four or five sons and no girls. I'm afraid I don't 'get it'.