To not understand "gender grief"

[PetalMettle]

E.g. Being "devastated" that you're expecting one gender over another? Maybe it's because I had a long wait for what looks like my one and only child or because I've seen people who desperately want children unable to have them, but I actually get quite annoyed that people say they have such strong preferences.
However this does seem to be quite common and universally acknowledged as a thing which the mother should be sympathised with and cosseted for.
Am I weird for feeling like it's very self indulgent unless there's a reason like an inherited disease one gender doesn't get?

Well i don't understand people who go to bed at the same time every night.
There you go, we've both discovered that other people are not the same as us!

I guess I should add where there's not structural reasons for e.g. Preferring a boy so you don't get stuck with massive dowry payments

Yes, you're weird

Of course people welcome the child they get, but being wistful for the not-quite-real one you had hopes for during pregnancy is utterly normal. And best met with understanding, not scorn.

The human mind is strange and turns up things that don't always make sense.

Agree with quickly !

But @quicklydecides that's a bit different isn't it? this is about not being grateful for what you have. I guess a closer equivalent would be someone feeling grief about a free meal they've been treated to as it was Italian and not Chinese

I am currently expecting and desperately hope it is a boy. If it is a girl, yes I will be disappointed. Generally when a person doesn't get something they really want, they become disappointed. I'm sure I will get over it though, as will most parents.

I'm grateful I've never experienced this. It is very real, and very heartbreaking, I imagine.
Just because I haven't experienced it, doesn't mean I can't respect it. It's called empathy

Yanbu to not understand it but yabu to be so judgmental and annoyed about something that, by your own admission, you don't understand.
Or is this just a 'come on everyone let's have a pop at these awful people' threads

Is that really a thing now? It sounds really sad. I just hoped my children would be be born safely and were healthy.

whiskey there's a difference between being 'wistful' and 'devastated' though, surely?
I can't really understand it either, OP. Surely a baby is an individual human being, first and foremost, before being a boy or a girl.

Has 'gender disappointment' now been upgraded to 'gender grief???

And it's sex disappointment/grief, rather than gender, anyway, though the reason no one says that is it sounds like something to do withberectile dysfunction

Yup. Looks like.

It's not let's have a pop, I just genuinely can't understand it. Point taken though that just because I can't understand something doesn't mean I should judge those experiencing it, as a pp said mental health is a funny thing and I wouldn't say "I can't understand why anorexics don't just eat"

Yabu for speaking of dowry payments. Are you from the past?

@knifegrinder "sex grief" has made me giggle somewhat however.

I desperately wanted a little girl, any have a little girl. I'm sure, had I had a boy, that I would have loved him just as much as I love DD and wouldn't have been able to imagine having it any other way, but equally I would still have mourned the girl I didn't have, for a time at least. I think if you have a gender preference which doesn't work out, that's a really normal reaction.

I was talking about structural issues - so at any point in culture/time

There have been some very interesting and informative threads about it in the past. I think advanced search might be a good bet if you're genuinely interested in understanding the subject.

I agree OP. Just awful when the poor dc picks up on it.

I think it's fine to have a slight preference. But if you are so desperate for one sex that having the opposite would cause devastation then you have no business having a baby imo, since there is a 50-50 chance.

Thanks SA. I do appreciate I'm coming at this from a biased viewpoint and should read around the other side.

Personally all I want is a healthy baby (currently pregnant with first child). If I'm being honest, I would like a daughter at some point, purely because I want the relationship me and my 2 sisters have had with our mum. My husband is so uninterested in spending time with his mother and I think that would hurt in future years. Although I do think she could have treated him differently and they would have a different relationship now.
But I get that people can't help they way they feel.

Donaldstott I think dowry payments are still a current thing in some cultures and communities.

"whiskey there's a difference between being 'wistful' and 'devastated' though, surely?"

Yes, but I'm not so much a pedant that I'd want to nitpick over the role of hyperbole on the internet on a thread where the OP sounded upset.