Friday, January 20, 2012

Gender Wars

I read a couple of articles about "gender disappointment" before I got pregnant and thought it was pretty far-fetched.
{The sociologist in me has to make a disclaimer that this really should be called SEX disappointment, because it's the sex of the baby that is being discussed, not technically gender. But I guess that would make for a really weird title of an article}
I came across another article today. It meant something completely different to me now, having a child of my own, and especially having a boy. Now I realize that it's absolutely absurd. Apparently moms who are disappointed most often are those who found out they were having boys instead of girls.
Read it here if you like:
http://www.babyzone.com/pregnancy/fetal_development/genetics_gender/article/overcoming-gender-disappointment

Seriously....you get pregnant {miracle}, you have a perfect, beautiful little baby {miracle}. And you're going to act disappointed that you can't dress it the way you imagined? Or you can't buy the toys you always pictured? Or because you swore it was supposed to be a girl and how did this mix up happen?

Am I opposed to having a girl? Absolutely not. I love the relationship I have with my mom and would love to have that someday if we have a daughter.
But will I actually go through depression if we continue to have boys?
I certainly hope I will have a little more perspective than that.
Maybe I'm way off base and tons of people feel this way. It really just never crossed my mind to have a true and honest preference to the point of being worried that I wouldn't get what I had pictured.

People always asked us before we found out the sex of the baby what we "wanted".
Well, we wanted a baby.
That's why we got pregnant.
And thank the heavens, the ultrasound confirmed that it was just what we always wanted.
A sweet, darling baby.

Who would be disappointed in this?

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