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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask for a healthy debate whilst my dd naps. What are your thoughts on Gender selection?

86 replies

Forevertired19 · 25/03/2018 16:13

Being as though it's becoming a common topic I've seen an various celebrities opting for it. What do you think?
I'm 22 and due my second this coming week. I have one of each which I've always wanted so I'm done for life now. But I find it interesting as my DP's cousin is ttc and struggling, she has been for years but isn't allowed IVF free due to her partner fathering a child in a previous relationship.

Shes desperate for a boy for when she does conceive and doesn't really want a girl (which I'm baffled by. I know people have their preferences but surely a healthy baby is best?) but dp mentioned it to her and mentioned it can cost around the same? (I'm on about the Cyprus clinic) as she has to go private in the UK. Plus the additional costs on top of it which she will probably take as well, surely its best to go abroad? But she isn't interested and wants to chance for a boy. Mind blown.

What are your thoughts? I'm just happy for a healthy baby regardless. I'm done mainly as my ovaries aren't in good health and I'm not in the best health but If I could have another, I'd be really happy regardless.

OP posts:
Original poster
Forevertired19 · 25/03/2018 21:33

@really

Sorry but I think that's bang on! Why should we force it on our children? "that's for girls" I don't see why this is still a stereotype. Just let kids be kids and do what they want.

OP posts:
LaurieMarlow · 25/03/2018 21:33

I'm not sure why people think it's the moral high ground to have no gender preference.

It doesn't mean that they'll feel any less about their baby if it's not the sex they had a preference for.

If I was having IVF anyway and I had an option to choose the sex I would. But that's as far as it goes.

OverTheMountain42 · 25/03/2018 21:38

Reallyanotherone

They are absolutely doing the unhealthy route and insisting that the child has or plays with the opposite toys. The child's face lights up when they are given something more gender stereotypical. It is incredibly sad to see.

reallyanotherone · 25/03/2018 21:45

Just thinking though, to get a bit deeper...

You can select for sex, ok. But you don’t know what other characteristics that child will have.

What if you pick the girl embryo, and she turns out to be a psychopathic murderer. When the boy embryo would have brought about world peace?

Or slightly less extreme- you select a boy embryo who’s personality you just don’t understand, when the girl embryo would have developed into a child that shared your passions.

I dunno. Embryo selection for any characteristic just seems wrong to me. I kind of think it should be left up to fate to decide the child you get. If i had had gender selection for my second child, in order to get that “one of each”, i wouldn't have my amazing, funny, beautiful and talented dd. It would be a different child.

The only circumstance where it should be allowed is for sex linked diseases where the childs quality of life would be severely compromised.

Bodicea · 25/03/2018 22:01

I am against it as it could lead to gender imbalance. In the uk and other western countries think more people would opt for a girl. The poor girls of the future would find it even more difficult to find a decent fella!

Original poster
Forevertired19 · 25/03/2018 22:10

I remember my mom saying in the mid 90s where we are, apparently people were aborting girls (all my friends who I went to school with say the same thing) so the hospitals either didn't disclose the gender to stop the abortion rates or they lied and said they were having boys.

My mom was told I was a boy.
My best friends mom was told she was having a boy.

My mom had to race to tesco to pick me up some other clothes

OP posts:
sockunicorn · 26/03/2018 00:04

I wouldnt have IVF purely for this procedure but if it can be added in as a "free perk" then why not?! I have 2 DDs and would have liked a son. However I would never go through it just to secure gender.

BakedBeans47 · 26/03/2018 00:12

Two boys would be dreadful

Not as dreadful as ending up with someone as horrible as you for a mother, I’d guess.

ReggaetonLente · 26/03/2018 00:21

No, those who are missing out are those who can’t have children at all or those who have children with disabilities

It’s different parenting a child with disabilities, but it’s not lacking. I haven’t missed out. I agree with the spirit of your post but I just wanted to point that out.

ArcheryAnnie · 26/03/2018 00:26

I think if you aren't prepared to love whatever child you end up with, you shouldn't set out to have a child at all.

Absofrigginlootly · 26/03/2018 01:33

I think if you aren't prepared to love whatever child you end up with, you shouldn't set out to have a child at all.

^^spot on.

My DM had 2 DDs - which is what she said she always wanted. However I wasn't the daughter she wanted clearly and it made me miserable growing up.

I think sex selection is hideous and immoral (aside from sex-related genetic conditions) and those people considering it should get some therapy to understand why they have such a bias - before they ever have children.

Children are a privilege and a blessing and deserved to be loved unconditionally, whoever and whatever sex they are.

emmyrose2000 · 26/03/2018 05:12

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

lljkk · 26/03/2018 08:33

"I think if you aren't prepared to love whatever child you end up with, you shouldn't set out to have a child at all."

That doesn't conflict with gender preference or selection, so I don't know why say it. Confused

I wanted DC to be brainy, confident, energetic, considerate, handsome, healthy, loving.

They don't always live up to those ideals but I love them anyway. Sex selection is no different.

SerenDippitty · 26/03/2018 09:23

I don't agree with Robert Winston on this though I agree with his other views about the fertility business. WTAF is "family balancing? Is he suggesting that children are disadvantaged if they don't grow up with an opposite sex sibling?

Jenijena · 26/03/2018 09:28

I’m (surprise) pregnant with a third after two boys. The ‘going for a girl this time?’ comments have already started...

Aethelthryth · 26/03/2018 09:28

It's treating human beings as a consumer commodity; and on that basis alone it is morally questionable.

QueenofmyPrinces · 26/03/2018 09:29

The only thing thats important is that the baby is fit and healthy

And if it’s not?
That baby isn’t as much as a blessing as a healthy one?

emmyrose2000 · 26/03/2018 09:37

Two boys would be dreadful

Disgusting thing to say.

BakedBeans47 · 26/03/2018 09:40

I think having a preference is fine - most people can’t or won’t do anything about it anyway, it is just that, a preference, and they’ll love their baby regardless. Sex selection is taking it too far though IMO. As for abortion, I’m pro abortion, and while i might find abortion for sex reasons personally morally reprehensible, being pro abortion means I have to accept that people are free to make choices I might not agree with.

drspouse · 26/03/2018 09:40

If a parent would be so disappointed in a child just for not being born the right gender how are they going to react when the child doesn't live up to the rest of their expectations.
Or what if they are the "right" sex but don't behave how the parent thinks a boy/girl should behave? What then?

Mammyloveswine · 26/03/2018 09:50

I have 2 sons, my mil had 3 sons and has only had grandsons... i cried when i found out ds2 was a boy. However, if i could wave a magic wand and go back to 16 weeks and be told he was a girl i wouldn't at all. I adore him just as much as my loving older son!

We have discussed having a third and even though im convinced I'd have another boy i would choose not to find out so that there was no "thats a shame" comments!

I think its easy for people to say they "genuinely aren't bothered" when they have one of each. I have an amazing bond with my sisters and my mum so i do think I'll miss that as i get older. However, i hate tje whole "a sons a son until he takes a wife, a daughters a daughter for all her life" bullshit that friends who have daughters spout to me.. as if my bond with my children isn't as strong as theirs.

QueenofmyPrinces · 26/03/2018 09:54

Two boys would be dreadful

I have two boys and it’s wonderful, I love them beyond words and I love seeing them play together. If I got the chance to go back in time and change my second one to a girl there’s no way I would.

masktaster · 26/03/2018 09:56

If you can't deal with the child you end up with, I don't know how you'll be as a parent.

Since I was a child, I always imagined my first born to be a daughter. My mother (single parent) was a first born daughter, my grandmother only had sisters. When I was pregnant, I was sure I was expecting a girl. Opted not to find out, we were happy with either, really, and liked the idea of a surprise. Still spent the second half of my pregnancy convinced the baby was a girl. That was what I'd wanted, for 20+ years, after all. No reason to believe otherwise.

And then my baby was born. And he was unmistakably a boy. I had a bit of a moment when he was about a week old of mourning that he wasn't a girl, but I think that was hormones and lack of sleep, because I already loved him more than I could ever have imagined.

Having a preference, I understand. Going to extremes to try and influence that, I don't. My DS is being raised exactly as he would if he was a DD - to be his own person. His genitals don't change that.

user1471426142 · 26/03/2018 10:11

My sister initially struggled when she was pregnant with the idea of having a boy. It was more that she couldn’t imagine what to do as she’d always been around girls growing up. Once he was here it didn’t matter and she then went on to have a tom-boy girl. They are both very different but that was their personality not their sex. I think sex disappointment is greater during pregnancy than people think but once babies are here most people fall in love with the child they have regardless of sex and life with a baby is similar whatever you have.

lynmilne65 · 26/03/2018 10:20

When I worked in the field 30 years ago there were mothers who refused to take home a baby of 'wrong sex'