To think it's ridiculous how obsessed with a babies gender/sex ppl still seemingly are?

[Socksforxmas]

I have my 20wk scan in a couple of days and will be finding out the sex if they're able to tell. DH and I already have twin boys aged 3 and know this will be our last baby. It might be silly on my end to be surprised by this but a shocking amount of ppl in my life seem to assume that I'm desperate for a girl and would be deeply saddened by another boy.

I know that every now and again some 'gender disappointment' threads pop up but i had assumed that overall ppl had come to the realization that it really doesn't matter much. I'm not going to raise them any differently or push any sort of gendered nonsense on them. I don't really understand what it'd be getting from one and not the other. Ultimately it's a baby. As long as its not a puppy or anything like that I'm happy.

A lot of the comments have been fairly innocent 'bet you want a wee girl this time' but some have been more (paraphrasing here) "oh God I bet you'll just die if they tell you it's another boy! I wouldn't be able to cope with that"

Idk. I just really don't care either way and am surprised by the amount of comments I've received from family and friends about it. Anyone else experience similar?

Equally I don't think men ever get negative comments about getting 2 boys.

My father in law had 2 boys and I know for a fact he felt like he won the lottery with them. Always very proud of 'his boys'. Now he has two granddaughters and they wrap him around their little fingers 😂

I occasionally look after my friends 2 sons who're younger but look older than my DD and I get told all the time when I have all 3 together "Bet you're glad you had a girl last time" it's ridiculous really.

I find the comments about same sex siblings having more in common/ PP feeling sorry for her daughter for having brothers.

I am so close to my brother.

Things we've never shared/bonded over:

• girly shopping trips (did that with mum/friends/MIL/SIL
• spa days (see above)
• giving birth
• having periods

Things we've shared/bonded over:

• countless holidays and memories over the years
• our favourite childhood memories
• countless pub roasts
• me adoring his children/ him adoring mine
• spending ever Xmas or Boxing Day with each other for 60 odd years
• him being my go to person whenever my car breaks down
• him travelling hundreds of miles to fetch my son home from uni when I couldn't get him (see above 😂🙈)
• him planning every annual family holiday for us and us having the most amazing time.
• phoning each other regularly just to chat and ending up being on the phone for ages
• always spending new years together
• that he married my gorgeous SIL and us being brilliant friends too.

Girls with brothers are lucky in my opinion 🥰

I love this post ❤️ As someone with a brother and a sister I can honestly say that not bonding over childbirth and periods didn't make my brother and I any less close. I adore them both so much and would love if my children could grow up to be half as bonded as I am with my siblings.

So what are the shared biological experiences that make men relate to men then?
Pissing standing up?

Seriously though I think most men (and women) bond over shared interests and hobbies and friendship. I bonded with my mum long before I had a baby and we certainly didn't bond over periods! I bonded with my dad equally, but with slightly different interests and conversation. It made no difference if they were male or female.
I certainly didn't bond less with my brother because he didn't give birth! He still had to parent his newborn and wake in the night and bring up his children.

I actually agree that men and women are different and that boys and girls are different, but what I totally disagree with is that it means bonds are weaker between sexes.
I mean the vast majority of people are heterosexual and choose to spend their whole life in the company of the opposite sex! It takes a pretty strong bond for that to work happily long term. Often same sex bonds (such as large groups of female friends) can actually be quite toxic and competitive, a balance of both sexes has always been my preference in groups.

@Satsscores Okay, in that case, why do you think women stay closer to their mothers as they age and men don’t? I am generalising, but most men do not continue to have the same intimate relationships with their mothers as they get older, but women do.

I don’t know many adult men who still meet up with their mothers regularly.

Because of sexism.

Men are called 'wet' if they dare to be close to their mum, they are 'mummy's boys' who need to cut the cord.

Women aren't ridiculed like men are if they are close to their mum.

The thing is we are never going to be able to peel back all the layers of sexism or societal influence and inspect what’s underneath. We can’t assume it’s sexism until there is a population somewhere completely free of gender stereotyping which proves your point, and that doesn’t exist. So we don’t know really do we.

This isn't my experience at all. I know plenty of adult men who see their mothers regularly, my own dad rang his mum every day until she died.

The huge influencing factor is upbringing in my experience, you get out what you put in. How often do you see mums doing girly days with their daughters and then the dad goes and does a boys day with the son? It's like the gender divide is being cemented from birth! A mum takes her daughter for hot chocolate in a cafe whilst the dad takes the son to footie!

If you have no common interest with your sons whilst they are growing up then it's not going to come naturally for them to want to meet up once they've moved out.
Men and women tend to bond differently too. Women tend to enjoy meeting primarily to chat, whereas men tend to socialise over a hobby or shared interest, so having a shared interest helps with a son will help, whether that's music, or enjoying a certain type of food, or a sport or books or politics.

I'm not saying it always works out, but there are also plenty of mother daughter relationships that don't work out well either, a lot of it is down to personality and expectations set from childhood.

Bloody hell, what kind of network do you have around you? Every man I know is close to their Mum, and why the hell would they be ridiculed for that? I'm not taking weirdly close, just decent men having a nice relationship with their Mum. You've got some shite men around you I'm afraid , that ain't normal

Shit I'm sorry , I'm drunk! My message doesn't make sense , but you get my drift 😂

I assume you meant to respond to me.

I'm not talking about personal experience but society as a whole and the attitudes are absolutely different.

It's common within society due to sexism just as no one would clarify that a mother and daughter aren't 'weirdly close', just have a nice relationship.

@SouthLondonMum22 honestly don't know who I was replying to, apologies, too much red wine with me roast pork 🤪

😂

You make this comment as if it is a fact. It's just not true. I know plenty of women who aren't that close to their mums. I know plenty of men who are!
My middle aged DH is extremely close to his mum. He calls her often, spends a lot of time with her takes her away. She's staying with us now.
My brothers who are also middle aged are very close to my mum. One brother is staying with her now.
My dad and his brothers remained close to their mum until she died. My uncle would visit her (his mum) every day after work.
Why are you saying men drift away from their mums? Because a small sample of men you know have?

I agree. It's like if a mum came round once a week to her adult daughters house to help with washing or cleaning or generally just helping out with family life, it would be seen as a reflection of a lovely mother daughter bond/'takes a village' and all that jazz.
If a mum does it with a son he would be seen as a mummy's boy/manchild who needs to grow up.

So thread is pretty inactive at this point but for anyone who still cares we've had the scan now and can confirm we've got a girl on the way this time 😊(my so-called mother's intuition is in the bin)

Thanks for all the lovely posts and discussions!

Ahh that's lovely. Like I said before, girls with brothers are very lucky so she is going to be doubly lucky ❤️

^I agree. It's like if a mum came round once a week to her adult daughters house to help with washing or cleaning or generally just helping out with family life, it would be seen as a reflection of a lovely mother daughter bond/'takes a village' and all that jazz.
If a mum does it with a son he would be seen as a mummy's boy/manchild who needs to grow up^

But it's so obvious that the old tropes of 'mummy's boys' and 'daddy's princesses' are based on sexist assumptions of what men and women's roles should be.

The reason we feel uncomfortable with the idea of a mother going to help a grown man with housework is because of the (deeply ingrained) assumption that she is doing it FOR him not WITH him. That he doesn't know how to do housework and she will do it all. It's therefore an infantilising act, in a way that a mother helping out her adult daughter isn't, because it's assumed that the daughter knows perfectly well how to run a home and her mother is simply there to support her.

Likewise if a woman says that her dad is going to help with her car, you might assume he is going to fix it FOR her not with her, again infantilising her. If a man said his dad is helping with the car you might assume his dad will merely be HELPING him and therefore again it's a relationship of equals.

So it's all based on sexist stereotypes of what jobs are for women/men. I think we are slowly moving away from this but it's so clear that they are very ingrained still.

I think that most men DO actually spend plenty of time with their mothers, but that there are some who wouldn't volunteer that information as they would be AFRAID of being called a mummy's boy. Conversely it's seen as fine for men to hang out with their dads so they are much more likely to mention that in the pub with their mates.