Why are woman made to feel guilty for desiring a particular gender?

[Milliegirl25]

My whole life I have wished for a daughter. I know it sounds crazy but since I was a little girl I've felt like I've known her. I've dreamt about her, wrote stories about her, spent years coming up with a beautiful, meaningful name, and once I decided on the name I would write it out over and over, I would paint it, draw it, type it. Just because I was so proud of it and couldn't wait until the day I could proudly give it to my future daughter. I am currently pregnant. Like a lot of woman I have been through a lot to get to this point. I suffer with a severe anxiety disorder that has effected me my whole life, not only mentally but it also causes a host of unexplained physical symptoms. Two years ago I had a miscarriage, following that I got pregnant again. I suffered with such severe anxiety during those first few weeks I couldn't function. Tried to access support but felt under pressure due to the limited amount of time I had to make a decision. In the end my partner and I decided to terminate. I have lived with guilt as a result of my decision everyday since and have never been able to forgive myself. I worked incredibly hard and put in a lot of time, effort and money to ensure my next pregnancy wouldn't be the same. I have been seeing a perinatal psychiatrist for over two years now to support my mental health for the next pregnancy, I take medication, I exercised daily, changed my diet, got all the prenatal testing done, read books, listened to podcasts and did everything in my power to support myself to ensure this pregnancy would be successful. We even started the IVF process as it took us over a year to concieve, but luckily just as we started, we concieved naturally. Anyway despite all the work and preparation I put into this pregnancy, one thing I didn't completely consider is the possibility of not having a daughter. I know it's 50/50 but my entire life I have felt the presence of my "daughter" and just felt in my heart that for once in my life things might actually fall into place, and I might finally get my lifelong dream.
Well that wasn't the case. Two days ago I got my NIPT results back and it said male. The way I have been feeling since this news has completely taken me off guard. I mean this pregnancy has not been easy mentally so far. I'm 12 weeks and have needed a lot of mental health support for my anxiety, and have been working incredibly hard to make it through each day. But when I got the news that I wouldn't be having a daughter the pain has been completely unbearable. I will not be able to have another chance, due to my anxiety disorder. So this means I will never have the daughter that I dreamed of my whole life. I thought to myself as long as the baby if healthy, I would cope, but am shocked at how I have reacted. I know I come across as ungrateful and that's what hurts. Woman sacrifice so much physically and mentally to have a child. But when they express their desires (in this case for a particular gender), they are made to feel selfish, ungrateful or that they shouldn't be a parent if they aren't happy with the gender they are given. Anything else in life (a home, something we save up for, a career etc) we work hard and as a result we desire a particular outcome and if we don't get it, it can be upsetting. This is similar but woman aren't supported if they are upset over not having their dream of a daughter/son fulfilled. There's so much judgement online in this situation.
I just feel so disconnected from this pregnancy now. I have had to work hard for a lot of things in my life (as we all do) but this pregnancy has been something I have worked for 24/7 for over two years, and at the end of it, I will never get my longed for daughter.
I cannot stop crying. I'm grieving for someone that never existed, and feeling like an absolute awful person for not just letting my dream go and being grateful for what I have.
Since I found out every minute has been unbearable. I don't know where to go from here. The thought of living my whole life without filling that empty space in my heart that's been waiting for a daughter since I was a little girl, is absolutely unbearable.

If you have read this far, thankyou. Please no negative judgement. I already feel like an awful person, I don't need anyone else to tell me. Thanks, for reading.

This this this. I know really it is down to biology but I have this belief that we get the baby we are supposed to for whatever reason. That doesn't mean we get the easiest or our direct choice, but means we get the child we are supposed to. You have put so so much emphasis on having a girl, a real girl couldn't possibly live up to your fantasy. It sounds to me like this is partly what ifs and repressed guilt from your termination combined with hormones from your current pregnancy. Please don't suffer alone. You have a beautiful baby coming who will need you on every level. Prenatal depression is a real thing and you need some therapy and to see a doctor if not already to explore further if it's PND. For what it's worth I have two boys. They are the absolute light of my life, I did think second time around might be a girl and there was a brief sadness I would never know what it's like to raise a girl as I knew 2 and done. But now the hormones are gone, I see it for what it is and I love them both so much. They are (mostly!) adorable and inseparable. No way am I about to go for number 3 with some desperate hope to have a girl. My boys have been into horse riding, drama and some other activities you might associate traditionally for girls so you might be surprised. Ask yourself why you have these biases towards girls? Where has it come from?

I didn't say it SHOULD be, but it is.

I think it's probably something you should talk about with people you are close to and know their circumstances.

Someone who has been through a decade of gruelling fertility treatment and is now trying to accept they will never be a parent doesn't need to hear a coworker talking about how it's unbearably painful to find out they are having a boy.

A child who felt rejected or felt like a disappointment doesn't need to hear that a Mum is disappointed in her child before they are even born.

That doesn't apply to an innocent little baby. Most men who have a good upbringing live as decent human beings.

Are you seriously trying to say that women don't want sons because 98% of crimes are committed by men? That's quite some reach!!

Yes exactly ! Id had two losses as well before my daughter and so I just hated it whenever someone said how I’d be finished now because I’d got the girl as if that was the goal.

Not at all @Lookingatthesunset

I was responding to @ChessorBuckaroo post which is why I tagged her.

That may be but it's how your comment reads.

98% of physical violence (if that percentage is correct or course)

What about emotional? Where is the male equivalent of a bitch? Or "the Karen ?

How White Women Use Themselves as Instruments of Terror

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/opinion/racism-white-women.html

"We often like to make white supremacy a testosterone-fueled masculine expression, but it is just as likely to wear heels as a hood. Indeed, untold numbers of lynchings were executed because white women had claimed that a black man raped, assaulted, talked to or glanced at them. The Tulsa race massacre, the destruction of Black Wall Street, was spurred by an incident between a white female elevator operator and a black man. As the Oklahoma Historical Society points out, the most common explanation is that he stepped on her toe. As many as 300 people were killed because of it. The torture and murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955, a lynching actually, occurred because a white woman said that he "grabbed her and was menacing and sexually crude toward her". This practice, this exercise in racial extremism has been dragged into the modern era through the weaponizing of 9-1-1, often by white women, to invoke the power and force of the police who they are fully aware are hostile to black men. This was again evident when a white woman in New York's Central Park told a black man, a bird-watcher, that she was going to call the police and tell them that he was threatening her life."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Eckford

Where is the male equivalent of "permit patty"?

My worst teacher at school (by a country mile) was a woman. A bloody witch is what she was (what is the male equivalent for witch?). And we were first year students which made it even more traumatising.

Either way, you cannot throw an entire sex under the bus (ie. have an unfavourable view of them) due to a minority.

I don’t know anybody who had their mum at their baby’s birth! I didn’t even consider it. I know it happens sometimes but it’s definitely not common.

I had a budget wedding and ordered my dress online. So many of my female friends/cousins also in their 30s aren’t married anyway- some have settled and had kids with no marriage, others just don’t have it on their radar and will either not wed or have kids at all or do it all in their 40s.

Norms have shifted at lot in past decades- a lot of these stereotypes/expectations of daughters seem to rely on them staying close to home, getting married and starting a family young whilst you yourself are young enough to be an active involved grandparent. Its quite old-fashioned.

Also women can’t even have a baby without some level of male participation.

I completely understand your disappointment. I always saw myself as a mother of boys (boys by the way are just amazing) and my first was a boy. I found out my second was a girl via a NIPT and I was SO disappointed, I didn’t understand how a girl would fit into my life. But, one of my friends said to me that maybe it’s what my son and I need and I think this is correct. You will have a little boy who you will love unconditionally (trust me) and the bond between a mother and a son is amazing. It might not be what you imagined but you will love him more than anything else in the world.

In my experience finding out the gender via NIPT was awful. There’s nothing to see… just a word on some paper. I think if you had found out on a scan it might have felt different as there would be something to see. Give yourself time, ignore the negative comments on this post, and allow yourself to feel what you’re feeling - loads of my friends admitted gender disappointment when I spoke to them but now wouldn’t change them for the world. You’ll be fine!

I agree with this, and with your other posts in the thread. Thank you for your common sense and insights!

What a lot of PP seem to be missing or ignoring is that the OP didn't come here saying something like 'isn't it awful that I feel like this about my poor little boy, does anyone have advice or suggestions about how I might come to feel differently?' or whatever. She came here complaining that she's been criticised (in real life, presumably, or on another forum) for what she calls 'desiring a particular gender' and seeking support that it's OK for women to feel the way she does. The thread title alone, 'Why are women made to feel guilty for desiring a particular gender?' reveals that she feels defensive on the matter, not that she's interested in having her opinion changed. It's all very well for PP to claim that the OP's been 'driven off the forum' and that everyone should have just been kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind to her, but to me it seems more likely that she hasn't posted again because she was hoping that more people would agree that it's totally fine for her to find it 'unbearable' (her word, used three times) to be pregnant with a boy.

Its very common in my circle. Ever since a second birth partner has been permitted people have done this. Obviously there will be people who don't. But that's not really my point. Whatever example, I'm sure people would come on to say "I didn't do that! My brother is closer to our mum" or whatever. My point is about likelihood and patterns. Also about living in a society where we are encouraged/discouraged towards relationship norms based on sex and which with the best will in the world its hard to swim against the tide.
Have you never seen the threads where men who are extremely close to their mums, confide in them, spend time alone with them are sneered at as 'mummy's boys'? There is no 'mummys girl' for the same behaviour. Or the mother herself, accused of unhealthy behaviour/jealousy for wanting to do things with her adult son that would barely warrant a mention if he were her daughter. These attitudes are wrong and need to change, but they persist and they are the backdrop against which we raise our sons and daughters.

Yes these attitudes persist but I personally don't feel they have any influence in my own family circle. We're all aware of the gender stereotypes but none of us live up to them. We're individuals. My brothers visit my parents more than I do. My DH is very close to his mum. He calls her twice a week and takes her away for the weekend now and then (just the two of them). He really couldn't less if "society" sees him as a mummy's boy. My dad and his brothers all looked after their elderly mum while his sister couldn't care less.
Each family creates their own dynamic and shouldn't be distracted by the background noise of old fashioned stereotypes.

It’s very common in my circle. Ever since a second birth partner has been permitted people have done this. Obviously there will be people who don't.

Id say that most women don’t have their mum as a birth partner though. So if you have a daughter it’s still very unlikely this is something you will get to experience. Any mumsnet thread on birth partners and 99% of replies are just wanting their DH there. I get your point about likeliness of experiences but I think this is one thing that even the majority of mums of daughters won’t get to experience as it’s not a social norm.

"Anything else in life (a home, something we save up for, a career etc) we work hard and as a result we desire a particular outcome and if we don't get it, it can be upsetting. This is similar but woman aren't supported if they are upset over not having their dream of a daughter/son fulfilled."

But a home or a new car or a dream job are not sentient beings, and that's where the judgement lies. Of course people are scornful. Yes, some of us understand the desire to have a particular sex, but not to the extent of devastation. How can it be right on any level to feel devastation at giving birth to a healthy child that you have deliberately chosen to create? It would be better to buy a doll and dress it in pink. Creating a human life is not about fulfilling a fantasy.

Unbearable? The poor kid. That’s really not good.

You are grieving an idea of something, something that never and would never have existed, even if you got your daughter, she could grow up completely opposite of everything you imagined or dreamt. Instead of being sad over something that never was, celebrate what is - you have a son.

I think you need to address why you have pinned so much value and meaning in your life on what this imaginary daughter was going to provide you; it feels like a coping mechanism for something. I think opposed to therapy related to pregnancy you should seek other forms of therapy, to address where this obsession with this perfect imaginary daughter which you have held onto from childhood has come from.

Hi, sadly yes - her first and only post says 'But when I got the news that I wouldn't be having a daughter the pain has been completely unbearable' and 'Since I found out every minute has been unbearable.' She also describes being pregnant but not with a daughter as 'absolutely unbearable.'

No-one is saying people should just have been kind. Some posters went beyond awful with some horrible and unwarranted comments. At least two or three posters on the thread said that at some point they had had similar feelings. As offensive as you obviously find it, in the context of some clearly severe and ongoing mental health problems, in which gender disappointment is playing a part, it is totally fine to voice her feelings about finding it unbearable. Or would you prefer that these issues are simply swept under the carpet ? OP’s biggest mistake was thinking that MN, as a predominantly female forum, would be a safe space in which to admit her feelings and get some constructive advice. How wrong she was. That’s why she hasn’t posted again.

I've seen and heard that all these gender wars are making women scared and disgusted at the thought of raising small men. And if you think about it, if you believe some of what people say just on this site alone about men, why would you want to raise one?

What we have to remember is that all these terrible, dangerous men out there are far more likely to have had close contact with a female caregiver who raised them and then maybe a father figure was on the scene, too. Women raised these monsterous men. Sometimes in a complete vacuum away from anyone else.

Midwife friend has said more than once that the most common birth partners are the partner and mother of the pregnant woman

Do you say this on here though?

As I said upthread it's no surprise that mumsnet is known as a nest of vipers. There are some real snakes on here it's disgusting the things some women write to other women on here just because they can hide behind a screen.

Her feelings shouldn't be validated. Nor should purposely conceiving with such poor mental health. Making her think these were good, fair ideas by a responsible parent is dangerous.