Gender disappointment

[mumofhreegirls]

I know this is a very real thing and I've been lucky not to experience it. I absolutely adore having 3 daughters. However, my partner is seriously grieving for not having a boy.

It's never been any secret that he'd love a boy, with every pregnancy he hoped and prayed for a boy yet we got girls. It has always bothered him.

His sister has just found out she's expecting her first baby and low and behold it's a boy. He's so jealous, has had a face on him for a few days since she found out and it's obvious it's about that. The way he speaks to our girls sometimes it's like he resents them for not being boys. He hates that they like girly things. He never, ever, ever wants to play with them because they're all into barbie like dolls at the moment and he can't bear it.

I know he's being unreasonable and it's absolutely driving me insane. Has anyone else or their partners experienced anything of the same and please tell me it passes?

An actual father is so disappointed in his 3 children that he refuses to play with them!!!
I didn't realise babies could pick their own biological sex in the womb just to piss a parent off and manage to coordinate their efforts three times
Your dp needs to cop on to himself now as a third time parent and get on with loving the dc he has.

Anne Boleyn, is that you?

Your DH needs to get over it!

Your husband is a bell end.

Is he Henry the eighth?

Maybe if he spent more time with them they might enjoy what he does. One of my dh’s friends only has girls but they are all tomboys who love everything he does because he decided he was going to raise them to be the sons he always wanted and it all went a bit overboard. The hilarious thing now is that his ds is more of a mummy’s boy and wants dolls and to play house etc!

I would struggle to stay in a relationship with someone who won’t play with his children because they’re the wrong sex, to be honest.

Honestly, he sounds like a shit "D"H and an even more shit father.

He needs to get over himself before he damages his daughters/they pick up on this. He needs accept with good grace that he's been given daughters (which his sperm determined, no less) and... frankly, grow up.

It's fine to be disappointed, he can't help how he feels, but it is utterly unacceptable that he's demonstrating it to everyone (including DDs) so selfishly.

p.s. aside from the gender aspect, not playing with your offspring because they're interested in something he doesn't find interesting (whatever that might be)... what on earth did he think parenting was going to look like? Even if he had a son, that son might have been genuinely into unicorns and sparklers, and not remotely interested in anything your DH would find interesting.

It is not your child's job to entertain your DH. I'm astounded at that bit, aside from anything relating to gender, OP.

My lovely father was devestated I, his first born, wasnt a boy. He never hid it and it has damaged our relationship to this day. He has four children and blatently favours the one son he did get.

Your DH needs to realise this is actually very damaging behaviour. I feel awful for your girls.

He doesn't sound great. I can understand gender disappointment, I suppose, but not being a crap father because of it.

OP-I am sorry but this is dreadful. If your DH is so stupid not to appreciate that he has three beautiful children, and love them as individuals, he doesn't deserve to be a father. Your DDs deserve a lot better from their parent than that and you should tell him so.

It's thinking of the people who would have given anything for a child, and the parents who are watching a child suffering from illness and would give anything to see them healthy, does throw his nastiness and idiocy into pretty sharp focus.

I met my partner whilst alone and pregnant with my second child. I already had a girl, and as I was going to be a single parent, I really wanted this baby to be another girl so that my other daughter had a friend. I never got on with my brothers, so didn't want that for my eldest, particularly as it had always just been me and her. Yes I know...I don't make myself sound good but accidents do happen!!

So, although I wasn't serious with the guy I had met while pregnant, he did say he hoped that the baby would be a boy. I always maintained I hoped it would be a girl. Low and behold it was a girl. But you know what, she's not a Tom boy exactly, but is into manly things. She loves a good garage and car set even though she's almost 8 now. She loves all things mechanical, is absolutely over the moon if the AA have to come as she can see in the cars. Everywhere he goes, she wants to go. It's lovely to watch. Perhaps one, or even more of his daughters, will do the same. They won't always want to play with dollies!

This isn't going to make me popular but I'm going to say it regardless.
I think he is a disgrace. Oh don't get me wrong. There is nothing at all wrong with preference, prior to the birth. However he has 2 healthy girls there. He should be with happy it.

I wanted and was convinced I was having a boy with dd. I could always visualise my self with a boy.
However the split second they put her in my arms all that "I want a boy was a distant memory.

I get that he is disappointed...

Go spend time time with life limited pre-schoolers and/or severely disabled DC then tell him to get a grip! However much you love a DC you wish you had a magic wand to make their lives "normal" not to mention the horrific UK stillbirth rate

If it is bothering him so much get him to go to counselling to come to terms with it.

I've read your op again, and I'm actually horrified at the tone of it.
You've gone with 'my poor dh, how can I help him handle this disappointment' rather than 'my husband isn't mature enough to be a father, he is unable to give our children the unconditional love they need and deserve, help.'
Why did you decide to put not one but three girls through the torture of their father being disappointed in them?
Urgh.

I agree with most.
He seriously needs to grow up.
I have no issue with secretly yearning for one or the other when you are expecting, but once you are a parent, you 'parent' the child you have. Most parents wouldn't swap their dc for the world.
The very concept that he won't play with them because 'they are too girl' has left me speechless.
Has it crossed his tiny little mind that they won't learn to play what they aren't exposed to ? Has he thought about doing things with his dc that don't involve Barbies? Has he tried taking them tree climbing..... mud pie making.... rugby tots..... or whatever he thinks he is missing out on ????

I think having a preference isn’t unusual. Diminishing them as people because of their gender is. Their range and capacity for play is much greater than playing with dolls.

Why can’t he read, draw, take them swimming, bike riding, looking for insects, teach them about the planets, bake with them?

I have daughters, they play in all sorts of different ways. As does my son.

I’ve even said if he wants a son he's going to have to go elsewhere because I can't give him one!

Actually it’s the other way around, he can’t give you a son. It’s sperm that determines the gender, not the egg, so he can blame himself.

My ex-boss is pregnant. She's a fairly horrible person anyway and my spies tell me that she has announced that she is only interested in having a girl and "won't bother" if it's a boy! I'm pretty sure she would do this, too.

I can't imagine how great an impact this would have on a child and on a family. Ask your husband how he'd feel if he'd been treated that way by parents who only wanted a girl.

I really wanted daughters and so was very pleased to have two of them. However I have no doubts that I would have still been chuffed to bits of they had been boys. I can’t believe you’re entertaining this nonsense. He’s not fit to be a father if he won’t even play with his kids.

I think you need to talk to him about it. Where you both tell each other how you’re feeling. I don’t want to bash your husband. He’s probably pictured himself with a son for a long time and needs time to process the fact that that might / probably won’t happen. Speak to each other. Good luck 💐

I really wanted a girl. I don’t know why, I was very tomboyish myself, but growing up with all sisters I couldn’t imagine having a little boy. DH felt similarly, he grew up with sisters and gets on very well with women and non-macho men compared to “lads”.

At my 20 week scan with DS1, we were told part of his brain was abnormal, which was then confirmed by an Ob/Gyn who they sent me to the same day.

His words were “well we don’t have to start thinking about late-term abortion yet”. Then a week later I was flown out to the mainland on the red-eye to have a scan by another ob/gyn and “discuss our options”.

Second ob/gyn scanned DS1 and compared it to the other scan photos. “Did they not tell you that the strange way he was positioned probably distorted the measurements? He’s moved now and his brain appears totally normal”.

So yeah, false alarm. But it taught me a lesson TBH. And with both my subsequent pregnancies (DS3 due in Dec) when people have asked if I wanted a girl this time I am being 100% honest when I say I want the baby to be healthy. I don’t even mean “no disability/SEN” (DS2 has SEN), I mean that I don’t want to hear “late term abortion” leave an ob/gyn’s lips again.

There are tons of gender neutral toys and things to do out there. Whoever keeps buying the Barbies needs to stop! (Should be stopped anyway, regardless of DH's attitude.)

Boys will come his way in time. He already has a nephew on the way to indulge in, and there may be sons in law, grandsons, etc.

Failing all that, he could get a dog.

but I've even said if he wants a son he's going to have to go elsewhere because I can't give him one!

Is he Henry VIII by per chance? .

I know a woman who literally risked her life having five caesareans against medical advice purely to ‘give her husband a son’. Finally got there with #5 and she was sterilised.

I don’t understand the obsession with having one sex or the other really. Some women are the same when they only have sons, they endlessly long for a daughter. But why? Isn’t the most important thing having healthy and content children as sentimental and twee as that sounds?