Hello! I’m 25 weeks (first pregnancy, I’m over 40) and we found out 2 months ago we’re having a boy. I know it sounds ridiculous but I was shocked. Literally all the women I know who are like me in personality and interests have girls, and I always believed mums naturally get what they’re best suited to. But I’m just stereotypically female in every way. I hated maths/science, terrible with technology, useless and disinterested in sport, very cautious and terrified of risk-taking behaviour (I was that child who wouldn’t go underwater, rollerskate or climb anything), have no sense of competition, I never get angry so struggle to ‘get’ male emotions, I’m not a physical person at all, I like to verbalise everything, find action films and video games mind-numbingly boring, walk out of the room when Formula 1 is on as the car noise grates on me, no spatial awareness, I don’t have male friends and prefer to gravitate to women at work events etc.
On top of this, everyone keeps telling me I’ll ‘obviously’ have a girl as they can’t ever imagine me with a boy, which puts me off telling people. We did tell my siblings but they instantly said ‘it will be nice for [various male members] of the family’ rather than saying why a boy would be nice for me. I’m assuming they couldn’t come up with any reasons and that made me sad, for my baby as well as myself!
Both sides of our families are all nephews- I love them but despite trying hard I find their boisterous behaviour/violent superhero talk frustrating. I’m sad I can’t find things in common with them. By contrast, I get such joy from chatting to/playing with friends’ girls and they love spending time with me, we just ‘click’, but sadly I don’t see them often. I really crave a chance to play with dolls, read girly books, decorate pretty things, style hair and share all the things I adored as a child. The usual advice is to do these thing with a niece but I don’t have one.
In honesty I cried for weeks (judge away!) but I’ve now adjusted, realised I need to be grateful. I don’t think I’m a bad person, I just think I had a lot of particular skills to offer a girl and was far too over-excited to be the mummy my little girl would dream of. I will love this baby because he’s ours, I’m excited about the baby stage and it will be fine, but I feel a bit ‘wrong’ and like I need to change my nature to be any good at bringing up a boy, which is scary. I just don’t know any women as extremely girly as me with boys (the boy mums I know like at least some ‘boy’ things, even if it’s Star Wars or Lego; or they’re the no nonsense alpha female type) so I wonder how I’ll manage when he’s older or if he’ll find me annoying/boring.
Online I find hundreds of lists of ‘reasons to love having boys’ that are just catalogues of things I can’t relate to, like getting dirty/the outdoors, the joys of ‘more interesting’ mechanical toys, ‘hilarious’ fart jokes or ‘cheaper clothes’ (if you don’t care….but I’m seriously into fashion and I’m finding nice boys’ clothes hard to find and cost twice as much).
My DH was happy with either and will be the great male role model our little one needs, but after we found out he did say he’d secretly felt a girl might suit us better as a couple (he is the ‘protective daddy’ type, he’s fanatically hygiene/clean-conscious and we live in a tiny flat with no garden- all the boy mums I know say they need a lot of outdoor time), so that didn’t help.
Are there any ultra- girly mums out there who can relate to my experience? I really need some advice and help.