To want a daughter so very much

[seaotterly]

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

I have boys and a girl. I have no relationship with my mother. She abandoned me for a boyfriend.

I find my boys straight forward and easy. My DD is the middle child and completely different. I have no idea if because she's the middle one, the only girl or just because.

I don't think you ABU for wanting what you want. But if you have another boy you know you will fall in love with him. So I say go for it!

I always wanted a girl. I was devastated when I found out that my second baby was a boy too. I now can't believe I was ever disappointed. After he was born, I desperately wanted another baby, thinking it was another chance for a girl. My husband didn't/doesn't want a third.

My youngest of two boys is now five. I couldn't be happier. They are both very different, and my older boy (now 8) who is more feminine in his ways is harder sometimes for me parent; although I am very close to both of them. I have very different relationships with each; but each is a strong emotional connection .

To the people who have visions of going on weekends away with their daughters, going out shopping, for coffee etc etc.....well, I do nothing like this with my mum. She it just not that interested in doing it; which is fine. I do, however do this with my mum in law. Who has three sons. And now three daughter in laws, who she adores and we adore her!

Expecting a friendship, a mutually supportive relationship etc from a daughter puts pressure on that relationship. If you are lucky that may happen, but for me, I have found friendships that offer this, as well as a wonderful husband. Which means I have sons who are not expected to fulfil a special role for me; they are who they are and can rely on me to try and be what they want from me.

I have 2 wonderful sons. But I'd always imagined being a mother of daughters, i assume because I am one of 3 girls and was therefore simply used to girls.

Now, my 2 DS were the first grandchildren for both sets of grandparents. I noticed that my parents (my dad expecially) had limited patience with their boisterousness. They are not difficult or naughty boys but they are loud. As soon as my younger sister (the favourite) became pregnant, my parents made much comment about hoping it would be a girl. I found that so, so hurtful and felt like I'd disappointed them by only having boys.

As it turned out my younger sister had a boy, and then another. As did my older sister. Not a hint of a granddaughter. I hate myself for it but I felt so much relief because I genuinely believe my boys would have been forgotten about.

It's ok to have a preference for a particular gender. I doubt it can be explained but please, please don't let that preference cloud your relationship with your DS.

I'm going to get flamed but for me having a dd was much better than having a son.
From my experience once sons go onto marry it's all about there partners family and most men just go along with it for an easy life.
And reading some of the MIL threads I'm so glad I won't have my son's wife moaning about me! as I don't have one!

YANBU.

An unpopular opinion but many have it.

I have actually known many women with only boys being desperate for a girl, even trying to find a medical route to having one.

I have seen women sob and sob when their new baby is a boy again. One woman I know could barely look her cousin in the face for many years, as her cousin's first born was a girl, and this woman had had 5 boys over 16 years, and she could never manage to produce that desperately longed for girl. So when her (10 years younger) cousin had a girl, she couldn't stand it, and wouldn't even send a card or gift or anything, and wouldn't send the little girl any birthday card or anything.

Her younger cousin stopped sending her 5 sons anything after that. When the younger cousin's daughter was about 5, the older cousin decided to send a card for her 5th birthday, but the younger one sent the card back then and said she didn't want anything now. Sad. But I don't blame her.

I have also seen women being very bitchy and derogatory towards girls. 'Attention seeking, catty, spiteful little madams all of them' blah blah blah, and when you scratch the surface, they are bitter that they never had a girl. And it's some kind of weird defence mechanism.

I know a few people who have had to tolerate shitty remarks about their girls from people with boys. Completely out of order, and the things they say are always unfounded.

I don't WHY women are so desperate (and it does seem to be women largely that want girls, not so much men,) but it is kind of offensive to their boys I think! I have even heard a woman say 'if it's a boy, it can fucking go back.'

I think there is something about 'a son is a son til he takes a wife, a daughter is a daughter for the whole of her life.' Plus, the grandparents of a girl/daughter seem to end up being closer to the grandkids. Also, girls seem to be more caring with things like remembering birthdays and suchlike, and they are more nurturing.

Don't mean to generalise, and there are plenty of men who are caring and remember stuff, and are close to their mother (and father,) but I do find that it's moreso women who the nurturers and who are closer to their parents.

Also, I know many women (who have good relationships with their daughters,) who go shopping, and out for coffees and lunchtime meals and spa afternoons, and have long chats, and trips to the cinema and suchlike, but women who have equally decent relationships with their sons don't socialise with them as much; if at all. I am not 'pushing any bullshit,' this is how it is for many people I know.

So I can understand women wanting at least ONE daughter to be honest. I'm not gonna lie, I never cared if I had 3 or 4 boys, as long as I had at least one daughter.

But yeah, some women can get obsessed with having a girl, and it's not nice to see. And as some people have said here, there is no guarantee that the mother and daughter will get on. But it is a rich and precious and beautiful relationship if you do.

I have to say though that yeah girls ARE easier to handle than boys and do occupy themselves more, and that is true in the main. I used to know half a dozen childminders who said they would rather look after girls any day than boys. And 2 of them had boys themselves!

However, I think BOYS are easier past the age of 10-12-ish. Girls are a bit of a nightmare then!

I mean, not all of them, but you are more likely to have problems with teen girls than teen boys. And women are generally much bitchier in the workplace than men are. Again, not all, but you are more likely to have bitchiness involving women, than men.

So it's six of one and half a dozen of the other really. Boys and girls are equally amazing when it comes down to it, and equally capable of being a pain in the arse.

But for some reason, many women want that one daughter. In the western world anyway!

I was faced with the very real possibility of not being able to have any children.
Any ideal I had of having 1 boy and 1 girl went out of the window.
I'm so grateful for my children. So happy I got to be a mum and experience the highs and lows of parenting.
You need to ask yourself if the want to have a girl outweighs the want to have another child and a sibling for your ds.
You can't help how you feel but IMO YABU

I'm going to get flamed but for me having a dd was much better than having a son

If you don't have a son you can't possibly say that. You might have enjoyed your son equally or more.

I think there is something about 'a son is a son til he takes a wife, a daughter is a daughter for the whole of her life.' Plus, the grandparents of a girl/daughter seem to end up being closer to the grandkids. Also, girls seem to be more caring with things like remembering birthdays and suchlike, and they are more nurturing.

But this is just patriarchal social pressure, not some kind of innate difference. Women are expected to be more 'nurturing', and are raised to be more 'nurturing'. They are also far too often socialised to expect that 'it's natural' that their career will be the one to take a back seat if they have children, and that (because they're not in the workplace? Because they have a vagina?) they will be the ones who do the 'emotional work' of the relationship, arranging family get-togethers, remembering birthday cards etc, that they will take on the lion's share of caring for elderly or ill family members.

A poster on Mn on one of these threads was very invested in the whole 'a daughter's a daughter for all of her life' stuff as literally true, because she worked in an old people's home and saw daughters visiting far more than sons -- without acknowledging that this is because of the patriarchal expectation that a woman's career becomes option the second she gets pregnant. Suddenly she 'can't afford' to work, or 'it makes sense for me to stay at home', which means it's' natural' for her to be more available to take a parent to a medical appointment at 11 am or dropping in to a care home on the way back from the school run than the spouse who would have to take a day off.

I don't agree with posters saying if OP had a second boy she would fall in love etc, because I don't think he relationship with her current ds is what it should be (based on all the posts not just the original post). Whether this is some kind of personality clash, or more likely PND or some other issue I do not know. I know the reality of having a child after infertility can be very difficult and not all that you have dreamed of.

Yanbu

I have a 15 month old DD and I adore her so much, if I had another baby I would want a boy because

A. We don't have a boy and I would love a son.

B. I know this wouldn't happen.. but I love my DD so much that I feel another DD would not be the same as what I have with her.

But I would be happy with a girl if that's what it was.

@playingsardines It might be "patriarchal social pressure," but that is how it is, in the main.

4 out of 5 of the women I know who have daughters, are closer to their grandchildren, than the paternal grandparents (the parents of the father of the children,) are.

And as I said, women who are close to their daughters socialise with them (shopping, lunches, cinema, weekends away etc,) but women with equally decent relationships with sons, get on well with them, but don't do hardly ANY of that stuff; if anything at all.

My mum has two of each. Both dds have moved to other countries, both dss stayed at home.
My own dh is devoted to his dm.

If it's for a practical reason YANBU. I sort of want a girl. It would be lots easier in terms of initial outlay, my two best friends, sil and my aunt have all had DDs in the last eighteen months and have offered me almost everything I could ever need, in varying shades of pink and purple, and as we've just had a boiler emergency totalling an eye watering £3470 it would really help if we didn't have to buy clothes, bedding, travel systems, Moses baskets, car seats, grobags, changing bags cloth nappies and everything else (likely we can make use of that stuff even with a son, I mean they don't care if they're in a pink buggy?) I sort of think I'm having a boy and I'm so excited? I just want a happy healthy baby! Did anyone else get a gut feeling on gender or am I a weirdo?
Sorry for the excitement/tangent
I don't know what to suggest I'm sure you'd love a DS anyway and you'd be an awesome mum. Fwiw I think it's really normal to have a preference and it's not really talked about at all

I'm going to get flamed but for me having a dd was much better than having a son.

How do you think this comment helps the OP?

Whenever these sorts of threads crop up you will get hundreds of posters giving anecdotes about how close their son/husband/brother/postman is to his mother in an attempt to prove the OP 'wrong' in some way - this is not going to change how the OP feels. Also, as someone else said there always seems to to be a common theme of putting girls down which really pisses me off.

I have three daughters and they're bloody brilliant.

Has anyone ever thought that the whole 'son is a son till he gets a wife' has more to do with the horrible possessive nature of women (mother and wife) than the son himself. There have been some truly horrendous threads on here aimed at perfectly acceptable requests from MIL which wouldn't raise an eyebrow if coming from the wife's mother. In my experience little girls are lovely - to everyone but their mum - so from the outside they seem more kind and affectionate, I think boys are more loyal to their family and so can seem prickly and disinterested to other people.

I don't know where to start with that post.

Margot, do you mean Jelly's post, if so, I laughed. That's someone who has never got over gender disappointment

OP- I've just rtft and apologies if I've missed this, but is there a problem with your current relationship with your son, or is the problem more that you are already predicting a future where you can't be truly close to him because he's male?

Regardless, I do wonder if you have some sort of pnd? Your DS is only 18 months old. Chances are, his interests include scaling flights of stairs, rubbing food into crevices and watching Thomas the Tank. That doesn't mean that later on he won't like medieval literature or tennis or whatever floats your boat and that you won't develop a fantastic bond. Or, that you turn out to be chalk and cheese but you still find yourself caring about whatever his passions are because he's your son and you love him, and that he always knows you're there for him as his rock and biggest fan. If he was 18 and you had never bonded then that would be different but your DS is still a baby, his personality is only just emerging- please don't write him off!

I have 2 sons and a daughter.
My daughter (14 years old) is loving and brilliant but unlike her brothers, is much braver and more likely to end up travelling and living abroad. I grew up an expat and lived abroad so maybe it's in the genes-lol.

You can't predict your relationship with your child based on sex. Many people with gender preference seem to want to recreate or avoid the same relationship with their mum. Guess what - you and your child are individuals so the relationship with your mum isn't necessarily going to be repeated.

That's the one GraceFlorrick.

It's not politically correct OP and it is a sentiment that is, for want of a better word, a bit inpleaaant

BUT

I have a son and daughter. I love both equally but I absolutely bloody love having a daughter. As I say, the love is equal but I prefer spending time with my daughter. And I think she prefers time with me whereas my boy prefers time with his dad. They wrestle, they play football - neither of which appeal to me. My daughter wants to talk (and talk and talk and talk) and for me to read to her, paint her nails. Personally, I prefer doing this kind of think than wrestling for two hours on the floor. So shoot me!

And I'm sorry, but there aren't many 7 year old girls out there who want to play three hours of football after school and also have very full on wrestling matches. There just aren't.

Unpleasant!