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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To really not want daughters?

300 replies

AngeloMysterioso · 20/11/2017 20:09

DH and I will be starting TTC soon, and have been talking about how we’d raise our children. And as we’ve discussed it, I’ve begun to realise that I really don’t want to have any girls.

Don’t get me wrong, I think having a daughter is in itself a wonderful thing. It’s more an issue of the world I would be raising a daughter in.

You’ve got trans rights activists erasing women everywhere you turn- women’s spaces being opened to anyone who calls themselves a woman, a 19 year old male is now a CLP Women’s officer, guidance in Scotland being issued saying if a student isn’t comfortable sharing a changing room with a trans pupil they should change somewhere else (obviously I know that would apply to boys too).

Sexual harassment and assault fucking everywhere. I’ve genuinely lost count of the number of times I’ve been grabbed, groped or catcalled. I know more women who’ve had some sort of encounter of that kind than haven’t. And of course, the victim blaming and slut shaming that occurs around it.

Those are just a few examples.

The more I think about it, the less I feel like I’d happy to bring a girl up in such a deeply misogynistic society. I just don’t see it getting any better. If anything, it’s getting worse.

AIBU?

OP posts:
P0ndLife · 20/11/2017 20:51

Having a boy doesn't insulate you from Parenting Against the Patriarchy though...
I worry about counteracting a culture that would teach my DS that misogyny is normal

Nyx1 · 20/11/2017 20:51

Tombstone - yes and the 80s and 90s progress seems to have gone.

Beautiful girls being used to advertise things? That never changed.

As for toys - it's recently that toys have gone backwards into pink glitter for girls and the bloody shops were putting science toys in boys' sections!

P0ndLife · 20/11/2017 20:52

How do I do make sure he doesn't become a harraser/chauvinist etc??

Dionysus78 · 20/11/2017 20:52

Surely to fear having a girl because of all the sexual harassment stories that are coming out at the moment is a nonsense? The very fact that people are standing up to their abusers proves that things are changing for women, I hope. I can certainly tell from my own standpoint that there is far less casual belittling/demeaning/catcalling/inappropriateness towards me on the street in my home town than there was 10 years ago. And I can tell you right now that nobody will dare to give my daughter (now 3) any shit when she grows up.

millsbynight · 20/11/2017 20:52

Considering the biggest killer of men under 45 is suicide, I'm quite worried about bringing up my DS(7). I'm pregnant with a girl and I'm sure I'll worry about her too but for different reasons but I'd never dismiss my DS's problems over my DD's.

Topseyt · 20/11/2017 20:53

Any d bollocks! I've no idea where those bullocks may have come from!! Grin

Graceflorrick · 20/11/2017 20:53

Having a DD is the joy of my lifetime.

Nyx1 · 20/11/2017 20:54

Dionysus "And I can tell you right now that nobody will dare to give my daughter (now 3) any shit when she grows up."

how do you know that? You can teach her to deal with the shit but where is the magic wand that stops anyone trying it in the first place?

notangelinajolie · 20/11/2017 20:55

Well obvs you don't get much choice but you are being perfectly logical and reasonable in why you don't want a girl and I totally understand why. I didn't want boys for different reasons and my wishes were granted and I had three girls. Wishing you well and good furtune that you have the boy you wish for Flowers

boysarebackintown2 · 20/11/2017 20:57

Whatever gender you have you’ll worry. I never wanted girls for similar reasons and got my wish with two boys. All I do is worry about them and their future.
We live in London and it seems every other day a teenage boy is stabbed. A boy died recently in the park I’ve taken my kids to 100 times- 5 minutes from the eldest School.

The worries you’ll have will come no matter what the gender. Worrying is part of being a parent and you won’t know worry like it until your kids come along!

PerspicaciaTick · 20/11/2017 20:57

Boys are a worry too - the high rates of suicide, the fact that they are more likely to be be stabbed or suffer violent assault.
I have a girl and a boy and I worry about them both, but I don't believe that they would be better off not existing.

MrsOverTheRoad · 20/11/2017 20:58

The parents of boys have just as many worries...just different ones. Boys are entering a very confusing world right now. Girls are too...it's all change.

Vicky1990 · 20/11/2017 20:59

If you have boys you will find them blamed for all the problems in society, discriminated against by woman's hour and feminist, left penniless and childless by money grabbing spiteful ex wife's, ganged up against by the courts and carcass, Hounded to mental torture by child support agency, denied access to there children, accused of rape by fantasist, sexually abused by female teachers, and more likely to commit suicide than girls. And all of this covered up by the feminist sisterhood.

MrsOverTheRoad · 20/11/2017 21:00

Oh do fuck off Vicky you're full of shite.

Dionysus78 · 20/11/2017 21:00

Nyx1

Ok, I worded that badly. I should have said nobody would dare give her any shit more than once. It's a big difference, you're right. But all human beings have to take crap off others from time to time, be they male or female.

LipstickHandbagCoffee · 20/11/2017 21:02

Do point me in the direction of the feminist sisterhood Vicks,that’s a cabal I’d like to join

Hoppinggreen · 20/11/2017 21:02

I'm very glad I've got a daughter ( and a lovely son) but it makes me sad that at some point she WILL be sexually assaulted to some degree.

freelancedolly · 20/11/2017 21:03

What you give birth to is a PERSON. A whole, actual, proper person. You have no idea who or what they will be, what their sensitivities will be, whether they'll be a warrior in the face of adversity or someone who needs lots and lots of support. I have twin girls who are stridently chalk and cheese; they couldn't be more different. Almost since birth I have been aware of their existence as separate PEOPLE. They could have been very delicate and fragile, they could have been boisterous and rowdy. It feels like a privilege to know them and to see them develop, and I am surprised how little who they are has to do with me!

MaidenMotherCrone · 20/11/2017 21:03

I have 3 DS. I've raised them to be men who respectfully treat everyone, regardless of sex/gender/age/colour etc as human beings because that's all we are. Just people who all need to coexist.

SandyY2K · 20/11/2017 21:03

YABU

I love being female and I love having DDs.

Maybe you need to go abroad and do a gender selection.

Vicky1990 · 20/11/2017 21:05

Just to clarify, all of the above has happened to my brother.

Ttbb · 20/11/2017 21:05

Just think of the kind of world you would bring a son into. If he happens to be white and straight it's nothing less than a witch hunt and he has a bullseye on his back. Everything is may say beyond a remark on the weather would be shot so woth cries of you've no right to say that, anything he does could potentially be misconstrued as an act of aggression, sexual assault or misogyny or a racial microagression. If certain elements of our society had their way (which I fear they may if none steps in to stop them) no one will be free to think or to live as they please. This world is not kind to anyone, the best you can do is to raise children who are kind to themselves and to others and hope for the best.

YoloSwaggins · 20/11/2017 21:06

at some point she WILL be sexually assaulted to some degree.8

Rubbish. Me, all of my family and the vast majority of my friends have never had it happen. I've never even had a cheeky grope in a nightclub or a single whistle by a builder.

mouseistrapped · 20/11/2017 21:07

Thing is OP there is an awful
Lot of pressure to bring up a man that can respect women, and not mess up when he is a teenager. I have a son and that terrifies me. Also having boys there is an extra concern about teaching them to positively process their emotions :

" Men in the UK aged 20 to 49 are more likely to die from suicide than any other cause of death"

It's not a walk in the park having boys either. Men can be under enormous pressure too and also be unhappy. It's great we as a society are beginning to talk about how women are treated , but maybe men will have the same 'moment' in the future.

Puremince · 20/11/2017 21:07

My two are late teens. I have a boy and a girl. They are both awesome. One of them is geeky, doesn't care about clothes, and rocks steel-capped boots and hi-viz on field trips at University. The other is creative, loves long gossipy chats over coffee and goes clothes shopping with me.

I do worry more about my daughter than my son, but that's because my daughter is the one who climbs mountains, scrambles down rock faces and does dangerous sounding things with axes and drills.

Most of my daughters contemporaries are kick-ass young women, geeky at school and now studying engineering, sciences or medicine at University. Under-achieving at school seemed to be more of a male thing at their (state) school. More of the parents at my kids school were worrying about their sons than their daughters.