To ask for your best responses to ‘gender disappointment’

[notaurewhatusername]

How do you deal with other people's gender disappointment? I recently announced my pregnancy, it's two of the same gender, and some of the comments I've had are wild. "Are you upset you didn't get the other one?" "Oh I was hoping you'd have one of each!" "Are you okay with not having a boy/girl?"

I've only told a handful of people, so for this many to be openly commenting feels really weird to me.

The funny thing is I'm actually happy they're the same gender, it was my preference! But now I'm starting to wonder if there's something I should know that should make me less happy about it?

And what if I actually was struggling with it? Do people really think they're helping by saying this stuff? Why is pregnancy and having kids the one area where people think they can get away with being so rude?

Has anyone got any good replies to basically tell them to f off (politely 😂) when they come out with this?

Why would you want to tell them to fuck off? I imagine people are just making small talk. I think you're taking people's comments a bit too seriously.

I seriously doubt anyone has gender disappointment over someone else's baby.

I've got a clever response; "fuck off"

@ThatLoudCatfair enough maybe I’m being too sensitive maybe it’s hormones 😂

I'm not really seeing the issue. *Are you disappointed?", "No, I'm delighted!". End of conversation, surely?

Honestly though idk why people think they have the right to insert their opinion in matters like this that are none of their business.

Woman tells you she's having whatever gender child, you say "that's wonderful, congratulations!" And thats it. Maybe "are you pleased?" If you really want to push the boat out; creates the opportunity to let the person speak without leading them into an expected answer.

If asked if im disappointed I would probably just say, "why would I be? This is what I was hoping for"

Sorry people are nobs sometimes

I also find it upsetting because the people I’ve told KNOW we went through the worst time to get to this place the journey has been anything but smooth - so I find it odd they wouldn’t just be super happy we got here it’s like they take the shine off things or are trying to

Nah they are just making dull small talk. Others really DGAF about someone else’s baby gender.it might be a talk point after 4 same, but otherwise people know not to say hmmm Idgaf so they say something else instead .

That’s it - it irks me because people don’t say this with anything else. Arguably things that could easily be changed. For example if someone moves into a terrace house I don’t say oh are you upset you didn’t get a semi?!!

😂😂😂😂😂

I had boys. If I had a £1 for everytime I heard "you need a girl to complete your family" I'd be filthy rich. I wanted children. I didn't care what they were. Never bothered me not having a daughter. Sometimes I see cute girlie outfits and wonder what she wouldve looked like but I have 4 lovely, polite and healthy boys (well 3 are men now) and that's all I could ever wish for. Why people get so fixated on gender when health is the main thing is beyond me x

Honestly no one really cares the gender of your babies, I would assume they are simply checking if YOU care or not.

Your reply though; ‘ofcourse! We can’t wait to meet our beautiful baby boys’.

Exactly!! Or like when my exH was poor at performing in bed, I never said "oh are you sad you only got a semi??"

Seriously though I think a lot of people just talk for the sake of talking and don't worry about the quality of conversation

@bettyrubble99 - same!

What pisses me off more than anything is when this kind of shite is IN FRONT of my lot although they’re older now so thankfully happens a lot less.

When they were younger, If people persistently asked me if we were going to “try” for a girl I’d fix them with a look and ask if you had sex differently for each gender. That generally shut them up although my Mum did tell me off for this a couple of times sorrynotsorry.

A few weeks ago, a twat I work with kept going on and on about how I “needed” a girl like she had. She’s generally a lazy, sicknote fuckwit and I couldn’t care less about her opinions but it did worry me that it could upset some people. Unfortunately, she’s the type that if I pulled her up she’d either feel validated or go crying to HR.

Congratulations on your twins!! How exciting!

Once you get that blue line people stick their oar in....

We used to live in a country where one sex was preferred.

A colleague was expecting a 2nd child of the non preferred sex. He took great delight in telling the disappointment people how happy he was that his second child was of that sex.

What else can you do, really?

Dh was told it was their idea of hell by a colleague when he announced our identical twin girls (already had one daughter). Dh replied, my daughter is awesome so two more is great with me!

he was really pissed off and is very much a feminist dad now dc are all teens.

Some people have poor conversational skills and this is the crap they come up with.

I think what’s got me more though is that all of the people that said this I’d consider myself fairly close with and they know they hell of a journey we had to get here, that’s why I think I’ve taken it a bit to heart. You really think people who you know best would know better

In the kindest possible way they don’t really care if you give birth to a puppy. They’re saying something to say something. Congratulations should be enough . Congratulations btw .

I was completely fine with both mine ( boys) and the only person who wasn’t was actually my MIL! She really make a big thing out of it, especially my first. Then SIL got pregnant with a girl and anyone would think she was gonna be pushing out a bar of gold. SIL did a gender reveal and MIL went crazy, screaming and hugging her and jumping up and down. We just had our scan, got told it was a boy and let the family know. She said “ owww I wanted it to be a girl”. I felt extremely sad at her response

In the kindest way possible, it’s a fucking rude thing to say and as a mum of 3 girls, it’s insulting and should be called out.

My cousin’s wife told me that when she had given birth to her third boy someone said
“what a shame”. She was shocked. It’s offensive and rude imo. Her boys have individual personalities, as do all babies. They are not all the same !

My MIL never got over having three boys. She had wanted a girl, mainly to put to rest the dysfunctional relationship she had with her own mother. I’m glad she didn’t have a girl because the pressure on the girl would have been massive. MIL used to say that her second and third babies should have been girls ( my DH was allowed to be a boy, being the first born) in front of them, as adults ! It was beyond strange.

What about a grandma who actually got mad at her daughter for having a boy, and said she needed to try again? I heard the conversation and it wasn't a joke.

Sadly there are people like this. OP, I'd just say thankfully we can be happy with either sex now, aren't we lucky we live in a time when girls can have education/jobs etc, and that we don't have to be like Mrs Bennett and worry about marriage.

No, I get this. With my second pregnancy I was actually a bit worried about announcing another boy because I knew I’d get stupid comments and they do needle. As it turned out no2 was a girl anyway (no1 was a boy) but that was one thing I was fretting about!

I guess preempting it might be best ‘it’s another girl, isn’t that BRILLIANT?’

@notaurewhatusername not the thread, but I really don’t like being told the gender of the baby before it’s born. I don’t understand why parents want to know. The surprise is exciting!