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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To want a daughter so very much

471 replies

seaotterly · 30/06/2017 16:14

I have a DS, who is 18 months.

I am desperate for a girl.

It is putting me off TTC another as I would feel so awful as secretly I don't want another son.

I know im being unreasonable

OP posts:
NotYoda · 02/07/2017 10:22

X post

I mean, what is your relationship like with him?

Original poster
seaotterly · 02/07/2017 10:23

Well, no one is making you post.

I should not have returned to the thread. It annoys ME when people ask questions, you tear your heart out trying to give an answer and then are "annoyed" with you.

It was not easy typing the above.

As I have already said, I know I am a shit of a person for feeling as I do. I'm not choosing it.

OP posts:
Original poster
seaotterly · 02/07/2017 10:23

I don't want to "annoy" you further Yoda

Let's just wrap it up.

OP posts:
NotYoda · 02/07/2017 10:24

I have to go now . I think your annoyance and the effect it's creating in others isn't necessarily helpful. This is why a psychotherapist, who could 'hear' you without getting emotionally involved, would be helpful. Think about it for everyone's sake

NotYoda · 02/07/2017 10:24

X post again

You need support

Original poster
seaotterly · 02/07/2017 10:25

Like I say I have tried.

OP posts:
Writerwannabe83 · 02/07/2017 10:25

Oh OP - reading about your opinions of men was so sad.

Does your DH know that in the event of your death you think he'll remarry and stop loving your son therefore you don't want him inheriting anything?

I do agree with some things you say though. Men generally do move on quicker after bereavement and some men do find it easy to walk away from their children.

But it's all so dependent on the individual too.

My parents have been divorced for about 28 years, my dad has never re-married or had other children, he continued to have very regular contact with me and my sister and we are all still really close.

My friend on the other hand fell pregnant with her partner, he wanted nothing to do with it and so walked away. Their son is now 17 months old and the dad hadn't even met him. It also transpires he has 6 other children he has nothing to do with which she didn't find out about until after her son was born.

If a man is an arsehole then that's just because he is one and not because a 'Y' chromosome causes it.

Original poster
seaotterly · 02/07/2017 10:26

Yoda do you not think I have tried ... Do you not think I want support?

It doesn't exist. It's hardly the most awful situation in any case. I have a son who is loved, has his needs met and hopefully will have a happy and stable childhood. As long as I don't die.

The fact I have a sadness inside of me that won't go away doesn't matter to anyone but me.

OP posts:
Original poster
seaotterly · 02/07/2017 10:27

I'm sure there are exceptions Writer but it's unwise (I feel) to ignore the huge trends and what they indicate.

OP posts:
PlayingSardines · 02/07/2017 10:31

Sea, you're ignoring the other examples I gave, of a mother who wasn't a good mother to her children. How would you deal with a daughter who was a bad parent, one who regularly imported new and abusive partners into her children's lives? Yoda is right that you're trying to be the mother you never had to a daughter who is a version of your child self, and that you are short-changing the son you have while fantasising about an imaginary daughter. The child you have, regardless of gender, is the important thing here.

Writerwannabe83 · 02/07/2017 10:34

So if you think so badly of men and they just abandon families and children do you look at your son and think he's gong to grow up to be just like that too?

If so I find it incredibly sad that you have such low expectations of him already.

Original poster
seaotterly · 02/07/2017 10:38

Sorry Sardines I just think it's a bit futile to go through every single possibility of what my daughter could be like and justify myself for every single one.

What you want is for me to say "oh yeah actually that wouldn't be great."

Then you can thunder in triumph that I don't want a daughter at all.

Writer not quite.

I think statistically in terms of abandonment of children it is a thousand times more likely to be a male parent who does so.

But that does not mean all males will abandon their children.

It's like any other statistic: men are more likely to be the instigator in domestic abuse, it doesn't mean every man is going to grow up to be a domestic abuser!

OP posts:
AndTakeYourHorseWithYou · 02/07/2017 10:43

as I know if I died DH would remarry and probably stop loving DS and any other children we had

You really shouldn't have had children with a man you think isn't able to love them. Does your husband know you have such a low opinion of him, and don't rate him as a parent at all?
It really doesnt bode well for your marriage.

Writerwannabe83 · 02/07/2017 10:44

So you feel that if you have a daughter you are statistically more likely to get a child who doesn't disappoint you in terms of the kind of person they will turn out to be?

Does your DH know that you think he'll stop loving your son and subsequent children if you were to die? How does he feel about you not wanting him to have your share of the house for this reason?

ShoesHaveSouls · 02/07/2017 10:47

OP, I'm so sorry for what you've been through - you have a deep-rooted trauma and that is understandable. But having a daughter is not going to be a fix for this - it can't be - our children are not fixes for things. They are independent souls, who will all fly the nest one day.

The only advice I can give you is to love and nurture the family you have, not the one you 'want' - and to try to find a way to stop obsessing over the biological sex of your children.

I know lots of families with sons, who are very close. My own mother is very close to my brother. My BIL still holidays with his parents, and takes my dsis along.

NotYoda · 02/07/2017 10:47

You have a son here right now and it's your responsibility and privilege to raise him to be a good man. Get your head straight and start living in the moment so that when he looks back he won't see the relationship with the most important woman in his life to be one of low expectations and mistrust.

That's how you mitigate against all the societal tendencies for men to be this or that. Your son isn't a statistic, he's an individual.

PlayingSardines · 02/07/2017 10:54

I don't want 'thunder in triumph' about anything at all, Sea. Your fantasy loving daughter who will be a lifelong friend to you is as imaginary as my abusive/uninterested parent daughter, after all. All people are trying to get you to see is that you have allowed your traumatic early life to give you very entrenched and counterproductive ideas about gender, which can't but have a negative impact on your baby son as he grows up with a parent who believes men are bad, and that her own husband would stop loving their son if she died. It is perfectly possible to remarry if widowed without stopping loving your children.

Summerswallow · 02/07/2017 10:56

OP you are trying to reason something that is fundamentally emotionally driven. You will never 'win' the argument on here and you don't need to. Plenty of people do have gender disappointment. That doesn't make it right or ok and it's very sad that you feel you wouldn't want another son.

I can relate to it though, I am a daughter who is very close to her mum, and my mum in turn is very close to her mother. I see the women around me doing the bulk of the emotional support and the caring of elderly relatives and so on. I also have a lot of good female friends and over the years my male friends have drifted off to be with their own nuclear families, still friendly, but they aren't there for me emotionally in the way that my women friends still are (even though I don't 'call' on them that much). This doesn't mean I think my daughters have to be close to me or live near me or have an intrusively emotionally dependent relationship, I hope I am sensitive enough to let them live their own lives. But I have to be honest, the thought of continuing a relatively close relationship with them into adulthood is a lovely thought, even if it doesn't work out that way in practice for some reason.

This isn't rational stuff, and if I had a lovely son, then I might see the potential there too. I would have liked to have had a son, if I'm honest, and so would my husband, but it wasn't to be. I don't even know why, not because I have some notion of what a son would definitely be like, but now I will never know, will I?

We all have our ideal family in our heads, if you have seen four counsellors it sounds like nothing is going to shift inside, so it's a question of living with it, and not having more children you are going to resent.

ssd · 02/07/2017 11:00

I get what the op means

My ds's are older teens and I love them totally

But we have different interests

I see my friends with teenage dd's going for girly days out...spa's, cocktails, shopping, coffee's...and it makes me sad, knowing my boys don't want to do that with me

its just looks nice, having someone in your family you have something in common with, a common bond

I know there will be loads of 18 year old boys who love to go shopping and for coffee with their mum, but I've certainly never met any, although mn will be full of them...

Meeep · 02/07/2017 11:11

You know, if you got another boy, you could celebrate the fact that they'll be brothers, which stereotypically ('though not necessarily true of course) means they'll have a closer bond than a brother sister sibling pair.

It's ok to be sad at missing out on something you'll never experience in life - it doesn't make you a bad person, but then you just have to make the most of what you do have and put regrets behind you.
And the would be so much to celebrate with another boy baby, because boys are amazing and new babies are wonderful. :)

BertrandRussell · 02/07/2017 11:14

I wanted a daughter so strongly it scared me when I was first pregnant. I think there's a sort of atavistic longing in some women for a girl child.

ssd · 02/07/2017 11:18

op, part of my problem, like yours, is what I learned growing up....I had a brother who left home and literally never came back, and to me thats what boys do, leave home and then dont care about you and move onto their wife's family...that's what happened in our case

I also had an older sister who left home and was too wrapped up in herself to notice anything

so after my dad died I cared for my old mum by myself

in my head, boys are really close to their mums then when they become teens they drift away until they leave home then they are gone.....I cant see any other way

and now my boys are teens they do their own thing and I see my friends constantly with their teenage dd's and what I feel in my heart is all coming true

I love my boys and would love to spend days shopping, chatting, going to nice coffee shops with them, but they arent interested so I dont really ask anymore as I get the eyeroll...and my friends tell me their dd's beg to get taken out by their mums....

its just lonely, sometimes. I dont have any other family apart from dh and the ds's.

and before everyone tells me to do something with my boys they enjoy, I dont play ps4 or xbox and I've stood at the side of football pitches for over ten years , went to games, did stadium tours etc etc,so by god I've tried

GreenTulips · 02/07/2017 11:23

ssd

Your boys may well have wives and daughters - you can look forward to that?

ssd · 02/07/2017 11:27

I know, but they won't be mine

and again, I really dont know anyone who is really close to their MIL's, not like I was close to my mum

its just a different relationship but its not the same

beingsunny · 02/07/2017 11:28

As one of three daughters, I was terrrifiwd a the thought of having a girl, my son is absolutely amazing, we love each other so completely, he is funny and smart and adores the bones of me.

I think daughters are much harder