to say don't get pregnant if you are going to be disappointed re. gender?

[Mintyy]

I'm not am I?

I have no girls. I would have liked one. There are some obvious explanations for that but the bottom line is that I would have liked a girl and I can't change the way I feel about that. Regardless, I love my children more than the world. I feel quite sad that anyone would think that my desire for a girl disqualifies me from being a mother. Everyone has feelings they wish they didn't - we are all human! So long as they are not acted upon in a way which damages others and don't effect the way you parent, I don't see why those of us who had a gender preference or disappointment should be judged or feel we should not be parents.

I was terrified when I learned that DC2 and DC3 were girls. I was sad for the babies, not for myself. I don't have a very good relationship with my own mother and I had always imagined myself with 3 boys. I think I believed that I could not be a good mother to a girl.
I couldn't love my DDs more but I still doubt my ability to take care of them sometimes.

My dd has two amazing boys and wouldn't swap them for a regiment of girls and nor would I. But...I (and I think she), am a bit sad that she will never know the mother/daughter relationship as well as the mother/son. In adulthood they are very different (I had one of each).

I have two boys, and am constantly asked "are you trying for a girl? Were you disappointed the second one was a boy? When are you having a girl?" From the minute I conceived both I knew they were boys. Don't think I ever envisaged having a DD. I'd have loved them just as much if they were girls but in my heart I just felt right having boys. If we had another, I'd bet my arm it'd be another boy, and I'd never be disappointed because I don't crave a DD.

Perhaps it helps that I was very tomboyish as a child and am a very outdoorsy adult, so my default is almost set as mother of boys. It fits, and I've never really given it much thought.

I can understand a moment of "oh, the baby isn't what I'd assumed it would be" type disappointment, but when society tells parents they must be upset for having a second male child, that's when it gets ridiculous. Why on earth would anyone be upset with a second (or, god forbid, third) son? I'm simply thrilled my body co-operated well enough to give me two wonderful DCs. It's ungrateful expecting to get your own way with gender.

I think the reality of the actual DD may be far more of the disappointment than the gender at birth. The days of dressing them and doing their hair exactly as you wish are very few and the fond view that they will grow up to be mother's best friend is purely down to luck.
It is more as NurseRoscoe says.Boys can share your interests, be on the same wave length etc.

Odd that MN,in general, is very against stereotyping and yet the majority are disappointed to have boys purely because of the stereotyping and rubbish rhymes like 'a daughter is your daughter all your life, your son is a son until he gets a wife'. Takes no account of the fact that your son may live around the corner and you see the grandchildren several times a week and your daughter may be in Australia and you have to save up for trips and make do with seeing your grandchildren on Skype.

I think it's a bit harsh op.

My aunt has 3 boys and was disappointed when it was revealed her third was another boy. We all were really a little in the family, no girls were born for over 15 years.

However she quickly got over it and everyone adores her youngest son. He is her baby and probably the closest to his mum. Certainly does not know of the disappointment his mum felt.

I do not judge people when they talk of being disappointed of gender because it passes and many get over it quickly and love their child.

Because MIL problems loom large on MN it rather hides the fact that a massive amount of posters have very difficult relationships with their own mothers. (Probably down to them being 'the wrong sort of daughter')
I also find it odd that women haven't worked out that children do not get their genes purely from them and the DD can be more like MIL than them!
I look, and am more like in character, my paternal grandmother than anyone else so it is just as well my mother liked her!
If your DH is nothing like his mother it has probably jumped a generation!

We really don't have responsibility for our thoughts or feelings, it's not about blaming social conditioning, it's just the nature of the human mind. There's extensive psychological research on this.

We can control our actions, and we can also choose to notice our thoughts and not let them guide what we do or prevent us from doing things that matter. For women with serious and longstanding GD they might need therapy to help them do that, but for most of us, it just happens like any life adjustment.

You can't delete your learning unless you have major brain trauma or surgery, so it would be very unrealistic in a world where women are constantly given messages about the value of each gender that FAR outstrip bloody pink clothing to expect that no woman who wants to be a mother would ever feel x or y or z about anything to do with gender, or even sex.

Yes, I had two DS......and then nine years after DS1 I had a gasp DD. I couldn't have cared less had she been another boy.....I love my boys, they are wonderful. DS1 is 13 and we have so much in common, we both love music....DS2 is just like me and makes me laugh everyday. DD is four and so far isn't that much different that her brothers.

Boys, just like girls are wonderful.

The loss of a baby and abuse aside, people who don't want boys come across as being a bit dull to me.

I think it's ok to feel wistful that you will never experience a son/ daughter relationship . That's different to being disappointed in the child you are having/had.
But I think to have a baby just to have a particular sex is daft.
I've had so many comments whilst pregnant with ds4 and since. I've found myself telling people I hardly know that he wasn't planned ( he wasn't) because I'd rather he few up knowing he wasn't planned but was wanted, rather than him thinking I was trying for a girl. I wasn't trying for anything! Anyway he's the best thing that happened to our family:).

People are aware that the reason many areas of the UK won't tell expectant parent the sex of the baby is because of selective abortions carried out on female foetus's aren't they? That this is an issue across the world?

Mumsnet is an odd place which provides a skewed perception of reality where gender disappointment is concerned.

I was disappointed for a nano second at being told I was having a girl. Not because I was having a girl, but because I was convinced pregnancy had given me a greater awareness of things and that I was convinced I was carrying a boy.
So when I was told I was having a girl I was actually being told I didn't have any special psychic powers and I'd never get to hang out with wolverine.

Then I went home and knitted a load of little blankets.

Pregnancy made me a bit weird.

I had DD and then DS. I wasn't at all disappointed I was having a boy 2nd time around, just a little worried that after having mothered a girl, I'd not be up to mothering a boy.

Needn't have worried, DS is so lovely (although can be seriously daft at times ).

But because I had 2, and in that order, there were definitely people who'd say Well Done, as if I'd arranged it all that way and even people telling me I didn't need to have any more (like it was ever their decision).

We started our family late, so we had only ever planned on two, and I didn't care what sex they were.

But the saddest thing I remember was being in the hospital after DD's birth. I was talking with one of the other mothers who told me the previous occupant of my bed had serious GD about her son, to the point that if someone cooed over the baby she was grumbling about him being a boy, she avoided picking him up unless she absolutely had to and wasn't interested. I think the midwives had had to talk to her in the end, and I hope she got the help she needed.

I find it hard to understand gender disappointment, tbh. At one point I was faced with the prospect of having 3 boys and not once did I feel disappointed. However, I wonder if you're perhaps less likely to feel disappointment if you've been through fertility issues/pregnancy loss?

It's not skewed Alisvolat.
Yes in Asian communities and countries there is bias towards boys but not in this country. I believe the vast majority of people seeking gender selection in the us want a girl.
I know a private sonographer who had a lady going in weekly for scans. She wanted to find our asap the sex. She admitted to friend that if was another boy she would terminate the pregnancy. So sad.

Yes it is, certainty - births of male babies out number births of female babies in both the UK and the USA.

If there were a true bias towards females this would not be the case.

Boys outnumber girls in nature anyway as they are les likely to survive.
I'm certain in white British society girls are more favoured. If I'd had a pound for every negative comment I've had about having 4 boys I would be very rich.

My mum cried for two days when I was born, I was her second girl. She wanted a boy in hope that my dad would be happier to stop at two if he had one of each, she didn't want another. I don't remember her crying and it's always been a joke between us, I have never felt anything than 100% loved and cherished. I'm 48 now and I'm very close to my mum.

How she felt at the start is not a issue, it's how she has treated me for the past 48 years that count. I'm glad she didn't decide not to have me.

Incidentally, they stopped at two anyway.

I had a miscarriage between DD and DS. I found out the sex at DS's 20 week anomaly scan because middle child (I was certain) was a boy. I found out DS' sex because if he was a boy, I knew that I would have some feelings to work through. And I did. I found it very hard to accept that DS lived while Bean did not. It would have been easier should DS have been a girl, because I wouldn't have felt like DS was replacing my lost baby.
I did work through it, and upon holding DS, I just fell right in love with my beautiful boy.

I don't understand why on MN it is ok to be so anti-dd though. I have found out the dc2 is dd2 and I'm delighted. I couldn't imagine myself with a ds. And l don't want a ds. But l can say that as we aren't having any more dc so there will be no 'disappointment'.

If you have dd and are happy your a smug parent. What is so bloody wrong with everyone being delighted in what sex their dc are?!

I don't think mn is anti dd at all. Quite the opposite.

I don't mind people having a preference but I find it odd when people hate the idea of one sex boy or girl.

Yes exactly, in nature. If the gender bias was anything more than a few disappointed women sharing their feelings on the Internet then natural gender ratios would start to change. Fewer boys would be being born due to either sex selective ferility treatment or abortions. But they're not.

I don't understand why on MN it is ok to be so anti-dd though.

Do you see the irony in dating this, and in the same breath saying 'I don't want a son'?

I haven't noticed any anti-daughter sentiment on MN - often the opposite, as in your post.

• saying, not 'dating'.