To feel a little heartbroken about having a boy

[bm2b]

I already have a daughter and recently found out that this baby is a boy. I feel incredibly grateful to be pregnant again, and I know how lucky I am to be carrying a healthy baby. I already love him, and I know I’ll adore him completely when he arrives. But I’ve been caught off guard by this quiet feeling of sadness that I didn’t expect.

I’m very close to my mum. We speak every day, go on little trips together, help each other out, and are part of each other’s daily lives. I’ve started to build something similar with my daughter, even though she’s still young, and I suppose I imagined continuing that dynamic with another girl.

With a boy, I’m not sure what that relationship will look like in the long term. In so many families I’ve seen, sons gradually become more distant from their parents as they get older, especially once they have partners and children of their own. It often ends up being the wife’s parents who are more involved, while his own mum becomes more of an occasional visitor.

Of course there are exceptions. I can think of the odd “friend of a friend’s cousin” whose son stayed close and prioritised both sides of the family equally, or doesn’t automatically side with his partner when she’s being unfair. But in my experience, that feels like the exception rather than the norm.

I also worry about what raising a boy will be like day to day. I know it’s a stereotype, but the boys I’ve been around — nephews, friends’ kids — tend to be more energetic, more physical, and more chaotic. I’m a bit afraid I won’t enjoy that stage as much, or that I won’t know how to connect with him in the same way.

If anyone has felt this way too, I’d love to hear from you. Especially mums of older boys — did the bond end up being just as close, even if it looked a bit different? What parts of having a son surprised you in a good way?

I have three boys. Aged 10, 4 and 3 and we have the closest bond. I love them all dearly and they are mummy’s boys. I appreciate as they get older they may stray further away than a daughter would however, the bond you create with them will allow them to know you’ll always be there. There’s no guarantee a daughter will stay close by. I know of a couple who are desperate for a child and are struggling and have been struggling to get pregnant for almost 4 years. Please just be grateful.🥲

Why do you assume they're making it up or imposing it on the child somehow, rather than describing their experience? I'd say you've got some hangups of your own there... (I don't have boys myself, although I was an au pair for a pair of kids and the boy was very cuddly with his mum and dad, that's just the way he was and I have no ulterior motive for describing him that way!)

OP I think you are getting an incredibly rough time due to people’s inability to empathise or try to understand how someone could be feeling.

You will love your little boy so so much when he arrives, don’t worry all children are different. I was TERRIFIED because of the little boys I knew.

You are pregnant and will not be rationale at the moment, surely those who have had children would understand that. Pregnancy is such a vulnerable and scary time regardless of if it’s your first second or 10th. Give yourself some grace.

It’s easy to let your mind spiral when you are worried or scared. Speaking to a therapist might help you to not feel overwhelmed.

The women here that are belittling and abusing this poor woman over a post - shame on you

I love my boys. I’m biased though as lost many pregnancies so I honestly didn’t care what they were when they were born. My husband and his brother are very close to their mum, so I think it’s more the dynamic your mum and brother have. I hope I’ve treated my boys with love and respect, that they wish to have me in their lives when they are adults, which the older ones very nearly are. My youngest will quite often come running into the room looking like he has something urgent to say “guess what? It’s really important you listen……I love you” and then will run out again, or randomly say “mummy I love you” in the middle of a conversation. I hope he continues as he becomes a teenager 😁
I love my mum, but only see her once or twice a month despite being only 20 minutes away. She doesn’t help with DC at all, and is much closer to my childless sister. It depends on the person and what they are like I guess. We see my in-laws a lot more, and go on holiday with them etc, despite them living over 300 miles away. My MIL is lovely, and I hope she feels I’ve become a part of her family, rather than taking her rather nice son away from her.

My brother and I are in our 50s, we’ve both been extremely close to our Mum and Dad all our lives. Yes I guess I went to my mum a bit more when my kids were young, I live some distance away and before they started school I’d regularly go down for a week or so at a time. My mum looked after both my brothers children though when him and his wife worked during half terms and the summer holidays. My Dad passed away 18 months ago and my brother has gone in at least 5 times a week for a cuppa with her. I go down about once every 6 weeks for about 4 days. My brother is amazing and him and my mum have an amazing bond.
I have 4 children, 3 girls and a boy, my boy is the youngest and an absolute sweetheart. He knows when I’m sad and will always be there with a hug. Sometimes I just come home and he’s here and he just comes right over to me and says something like ‘I haven’t seen you today, I need a hug’ and he’s 14!
I love my girls and I love my boy. You will be so lucky to have both believe me.

THIS THIS THIS. Thank you for saying this.

Focus on wonderful, loving men in your life. Your DS may well end up reminding you of them as they get older. Did you have a good relationship with your father? You might be able to see parts of him in their faces as they age, and in their character.

I have 2 boys and 2 girls, but still young. As it happens, my boys are more boisterous and always have been. They remind me of puppies at times. They are no more loving than my girls, but not less either. One suggested this morning that perhaps we should all stay at home and cuddle in bed with books instead of going to school. They are a bit more rough with each other than I'd really like, but they remember to be gentle with their little sister.

You are mourning an ideal you had pictured. That ideal may not have hapenned anyway, your hypothetical baby girl might not have been at all girly. Your boy may well be just as loving and connect with you like your eldest. Let go of that picture you were holding onto. You will love your son when he is here. He will be wonderful in his own way.

On the note about long term relationship with you. I know lots of families where the MIL does childcare or spends lots of time with grand children. They are the ones that cultivated a good relationship with their DIL before children were in the picture. That's something I'll be bearing in mind when my sons are older.

I was once you too with an older girl first, wondering how I’d feel about it but oh my goodness, the love from little boys is unreal! He’s so gorgeous and cuddly, he has this lovely cheeky grin and giggle. Honestly I don’t know if I’ll ever be a good ‘boy mum’ standing at the side of a football pitch in the rain but I’d do anything for him. He absolutely has my heart. I promise you’ll love it even more this time round. We aren’t having any more but I’d genuinely want another boy if we did!

My son is 14 and we have a wonderful relationship. I still get a couple of daily hugs and he comes to me about everything! It's all about the relationship...as he grows, he is pulling away a little more (in terms of independence) but reassured in that my love and support is consistent, and forever. Having a boy is incredibly rewarding, and building a loving, empathetic, and warm relationship with them is key.

I'm Irish and find threads like this fascinating, because in Irish culture traditionally the mother-son relationship is assumed to be the close one. We all joke about sons who are stilled glued to their mammies well into adulthood. So I guess I vaguely assumed I'd be close to my sons (now preteen / teen) and we are. I think in the UK it often ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Also I'll be shot for this, but many of my friends have girls only and it sounds like too much drama. Boys are much more uncomplicated.

There’s a lot of generalisation! Of my DS and DD our DD is far more energetic and chaotic.

I know, it's tedious isn't it? 🙄 You always get a certain type of boy mum, (or mums with both son(s) and daughter(s) who prefer their sons,) flying like the wind to threads like this - to tell everyone how lovely, cuddly, and warm, and affectionate their son is, compared to the cold hearted and miserable cold fuckers that girls are (or their daughters if they have them.)

And they always have to say how much more hard work girls are They aren't by the way! Why people can't praise boys without shitting all over girls just eludes me. Seems like they are over egging the pudding to me, and trying to convince themselves of something.

I just feel sorry for any girl in these scenarios who have a mother who clearly prefers boys. And the ones who have boys only - who seem full of desperation to say how much they really don't like girls, and how much BETTER boys are, are laughable. Methinks the ladies doth protest too much.

As I said earlier, not only do I feel sorry for the daughters of mothers who are obsessed with 'their boy' but I feel sorry for 'the boy' too, because he absolutely MUST always be cuddly, and affectionate, and 'snuggly,' and obsessed with his mommy. 🙄

Most of all though, I feel sorry for any future daughter in law of certain boy mums!

I think all the desperation and obession over boys (from some mums) is a desperate attempt to keep them close, because they know that boys are more likely to wander into their wife's family's life moreso than his own, the grandchildren will see more of the daughter in law's mum (and family,) and she is terriied of being pushed out. THAT is why some boy mums are hostile towards their daughter in laws. It's desperation and jealousy. Manifests itself in a disliking for girls! Sad really. As I said,, not all boy mums but some. (Some are appearing on this thread...)

*terrified of being pushed out, not terriied!

Read this back in five years time and you’d be ashamed you even considered posting this.

Poor kid.

I know. I really do think MN is a parallel universe sometimes. A grown woman saying little boys "give me the creeps" is just disturbing. If anything, she's the creepy one. If a man said "little girls give me the creeps" he would be considered a red flag on legs.

What makes me laugh (as a boy and girl mum) is that all these hysterical girl mums who deflect their own issues and sensitivities onto everyone else about .. creepy boys… will want their precious DDs to marry a well adjusted, considerate, kind, well educated man who can’t possibly exist because… boys. Honestly yous lot can get your girls together, they can make happy love and do the good thing themselves while the decent boys all find girls from level headed families, probably the ones with brothers.

Go see a shrink if this continues. I hope for the sake of your child you never get to truly find out that the ONLY thing that matters is that they are healthy and well.

These threads always just assume things about the future too. How do you know your son is going to ‘have a wife’? He might not marry or he might have a husband. 1 in 5 women don’t ever have children (and the number is increasing) so at least a fifth of mums with baby girls are never going to have any grandkids from their DD anyway. Drop all the expectations and there’s less room for disappointment 🤷‍♀️

I have sons and all grandsons. Yes I was disappointed every time it wasn’t a girl. But I try and do my best not over step the mark ask before I do things and am I feel close to both DILs . However they are both super close with their mums and I do feel second at times.
but one son is very close to me and reminds his wife that there are two sides to every family, the other sadly is more distant. I think as people say it’s the personality of the child not the sex.
its also how much we put into the relationship as well I think ☺️

I get some ‘boy mums’ are weird about their sons but I think this is more a thing in the previous generation (ie MILs). I think mothers of boys today are much more conscientious about raising children without patriarchal nonsense.

However, in its stead I’ve seen the rise of the toxic ‘girl mom’ ie women who openly say they’d hate having a little boy, only want girls, or are deeply disappointed about finding out their unborn child is male. I see this so often and feels like a lot of women normalise it, baby girls are more precious, and say gender disappointment is real etc etc. We accept this opinion but then publicly shame mothers who say ‘there’s nothing like having a boy’. Both are equally gross.

The whole thing is absolutely bonkers and honestly people need to give their head a rattle. Babies are babies, why do we care so much about which genitalia they have? I have two nieces - one is a girly girl, quiet, likes colouring and playing dress up. The other loves shouting, play fighting, playing in mud, monster trucks. They are sisters born 18 months apart. It’s down to personality, not gender.

In my mind if you cannot stand the idea of having a boy then maybe don’t have kids at all because it’s a 50/50 chance that you have no choice over. With infertility rates in this country higher than ever, people should be grateful if they’ve managed to conceive two beautiful healthy children and leave the gender concerns in the bin where they belong.

I’m not a fan of the whole defining yourself as a “boy mum” thing, and the shitting on girls to defend boys is horrible.

But I don’t think it’s a case of “protesting too much” and actually wishing they had girls. I suspect it’s because mums of boys are routinely shat on and made to feel that their experience is second rate, and bigging up boys makes them feel better about it. It gets pretty tiresome being offered sympathy when you have a (delicious) healthy baby because it’s a second boy, or being told that I’ll never truly experience motherhood as I don’t have a daughter. The list goes on sadly. You end up feeling pretty defensive about the children you love with all your heart, and other people seem to think are the consolation heart.

I entirely agree with you though on damage done by some of the stereotypes offered on these threads. To boys and girls. I wish someone would tell my deeply complicated DS that boys are meant to be “simple”. Would have saved me £1000s on the therapy he’s had.
And maybe they could also have a word with the friend who ended up bullying DS2, as he didn’t get the memo that boy friendships aren’t complex and it’s all so straightforward.

I have two sons so I have no experience of a mother/daughter relationship, but every human being has their own personality and how you raise them can influence how they behave.

Having boys has been a wonderful experience for me. DS1 is 26 and gets married next year, he messages and rings almost daily, I see him regularly but he is not so physically affectionate. I am very close to his fiance, which is lovely. He is very caring and visits his grandparents every week to check on them, he is also very outgoing.

DS2 is 24, fiercely independent and more quiet and studious. He always greets me with a massive hug but I see and speak to him less often, he lives further away. We tend to have more deep and meaningful chats when we meet. Both boys also have a great relationship with their Dad.

Both my sons are in my hearts and deeply loved, but they are adults living their own lives which is how it should be. I have lots of happy memories of their childhood and wouldn't change a thing.

I mean what would happen if threads like these were closed down by mumsnet telling the OP to seek psychological help.

Couldn’t agree more! I don’t indulge in all the stupid stereotypes about girls and how crap it would have been to have had a daughter because they’re bullshit. I would have loved to have had a daughter as much as I love having my sons - no preference it just would have been different (I have a terrible relationship with my mum so under no illusion about all the “best friend” bollocks).

However I heartily agree that sometimes we can get defensive because we get so fucking sick of the offensive nonsense we have to put up with, the head tilts, the sympathetic looks, the “oh well at least they’re healthy” twattish comments. I have two boys who couldn’t be more different and I get very very angry at the “boys will be boys” shite.

I agree that the generalisations about what boys are like (affectionate, straightforward) and what girls are like (colder, trickier) are annoying. I also absolutely see that my own post seemed to fall into that category. I genuinely saw it as a description of the personaities of my own children and not intended to be about boys and girls in general. It was offered up as a counter-example to the OP's belief that she would necessarily have a better relationship with a daughter than a son, which is what she asked for. I kind of wish I had read all the other posts first and avoided using the same language that others used to generalise about boys and girls. Also, you need to bear in mind that the OP invited those examples, so there is a selection bias. If she had been worrying about having a less close relationship with her daughter than with her son and asked for counter examples, then I would just have kept quiet, and there would presumably have been lots of posts from people who are indeed "best friends" with their gorgeous daughters!