Seriously, I do not understand these type of women. It’s like they were never girls themselves, they have such a horror of them–I would really understand a man writing some crap like this much better, because at least one could stretch one’s imagination to encompass the idea that females might seem like a dreaded alien species to a man. It’s really hard to understand why a female might seem like one to another female.
Let the pukefest begin!
Why I didn’t want a girl
by some twit named Amy Wilson
In an elevator, in line at the grocery store, waiting for the bus, it always goes like this: Strangers’ eyes zero in on my belly first. Then they dart furtively to my face, as if to make sure I’m not a mutant, just visibly pregnant.
After this, they ask, “Is this your first?”
“My third,” I answer. “I have two boys at home.”
And for the kicker, they unfailingly give me a sideways grin, and say: “Going for your girl?”
“Nooo, just going for a baby,” I reply, gritting my teeth a little. “Another boy would be fine with us.”
I know these people are just making conversation. But this constant assumption leaves me a little offended. What’s wrong with boys? Why wouldn’t I want another one? It bothers me that people assume I feel incomplete without a daughter, let alone that it’s my motivation for being pregnant with a third child in the first place.
In spite of the ick-inspiring title, you see that the article itself didn’t start out too badly. I have two boys myself, and I’m quite happy with them–as I’ve told them several times in the past, if I could have gone back in time and picked my two babies out of a designer baby catalogue, I’d have picked exactly them, down to the last little detail. (It’s true, I swear. They’re so awesome. Excuse me while I go goo over their pictures for a sec–okay, back on task!) I would be annoyed if people harassed me about one of ‘em not being a girl. (It hasn’t happened, to be honest. But it would be annoying if it ever did.)
But yeah, anybody that whipped up that title can’t possibly continue down such a reasonable path.
To these people, I say, “I actually hope it’s another boy. I like boys better.”
She seriously likes some people better than others based solely on gender, without having any other information about them. She specifically applies this to her own children. Gahhh!
And lest you think she’s exaggerating a wee trifle–oh, no. She’s not, and she’s quite happy to tell you why.
I love what I have, and I have what I love: boys. I understand them. I understand the clothes, the toys, and the Matchbox-car skids on my wallpaper.
Not that having two boys is easy — their physical interaction can be, shall we say, overwhelming. But I love even that, because when I say I am the mother of two boys less than two years apart, I get a respectful nod or even a big thumbs-up for having that much testosterone in my daily life.
The night we found out I was pregnant again, my husband, David, said, “Odds are it’s another boy. How do you feel about that?”
I thought for a moment, and answered honestly, “I feel good about that.” He patted my hand. “That’s how I feel, too,” he replied, and we both drifted off to sleep. It was more than good; we were relieved.
Girls’ clothes–ugh! Clearly wildly different from boys’ clothes, so different that it would take seriously thought and practice to even get the little bitch dressed at all that first time. Girls’ toys–ugh! SO different from boys’ toys that never the twain shall meet, much less overlap in the slightest, especially in babyhood–doesn’t everyone know that’s the case, huh? And baby girls don’t destroy wallpaper and she loves her destroyed wallpap–yeah, I know, at this point I was so weirded out I almost quit reading any further. The question begins to arise…has the author ever been around, on the most casual basis, anything other than a male child? Was the author herself actually a male child…? Given that she is pregnant as an adult, it seems unlikely, but it would help explain her bizarre, fantastic ideas about female children.
Then, two weeks later, I called to schedule my next appointment. “Hi, Amy! Your amnio looked great, and it’s a girl! How nice for you,” the receptionist blurted.
For a moment I didn’t know what she was talking about. Then I realized what she had just revealed and I almost dropped the phone. “Wha-what? ” I said. The receptionist heard the bewilderment in my voice. “You knew, right?” she said. “The doctor told me you knew.”
“I didn’t know,” I said, my head spinning. “I’m sorry…I’ll have to call back.”
I sat there in a daze. This child I was just starting to feel stir inside me was a girl? I waited for the excitement to wash over me. It didn’t come. Not only was I not thrilled — I was disappointed.
Mostly, I just hope her daughter never stumbles across this, and wow, do I already feel sorry for that poor kid. And I only got sorrier–
I could handle boys, with their cut-and-dried needs, but girls were so much more complicated. Girls have elaborate hairstyling requirements. They whine and mope, manipulate and triangulate. How was I going to deal with that?
Girls don’t have hairstyle requirements any more than boys do, not for more than a decade really, unless you deliberately choose to inject them into your girl’s life and you don’t even get the option to do that til they’ve actually grown some hair to style, which takes a couple of years after birth. And I’m sorry, I can’t swallow the notion that her sons did not regularly whine, mope, and manipulate as babies, toddlers and small children. Whining, moping and manipulating are what babies and kids do, regardless of gender. Let me repeat–I am the mother of two of that glorious Y-marked gender–and I had a sister who was younger than me–and I’ve babysat enough kids to fill up a small school–yes, all kids, even the Sacred Male brand! whine. And mope. And manipulate. All the time. Is she even raising her own current kids..? Are they drugged to the gills or something?
My sons sneer at all things princess, and so do I. We love to pore over the Birthday Express catalog so the boys can plan the themes of their parties through 2013. My role in this is to gasp, “Oh, I think you should have a pink-poodle party!” “YUCK!! That’s for GIRLS!!” they shriek, and I laugh along with them. What will I do when I have someone who wants a pink-poodle party?
…having already had two children, I’ve learned that you can’t control their hardwiring. If she wants to be a princess, that’s what she’ll be.
Was your misogyny hardwired, lady? Was your sons’ misogyny hardwired, or have you spent years gleefully teaching it to them? What a way to bond with your sons–to put down your own gender! Or have you made it clear that MAMA is special, not like all those other disgusting, creepy females? And yes, I agree–what will you do when your daughter is born, since you’ve taught your sons so thoroughly to despise girls..? God, your poor, poor, poor daughter.
I was hoping that my husband’s reaction to the news would make me feel better about all of this. When I got him alone, I told him that the receptionist had screwed up, and that I knew. He hid his face in his hands. “Well, don’t tell me!” he said. “I don’t want to know!”
That was four months ago. I’ve got three weeks left, and two of my closest friends know I’m having a girl, but my husband still doesn’t.
“Will you be happy either way?” I ask David. “Of course, honey,” he says, and I can tell by his voice he thinks I’m carrying the third boy he wants more anyway. “Three sons would be amazing.”
It’s enough to make you want to cry for that poor little girl. That poor, despised, unwanted little girl–already.
My best friend took her father out to dinner for Father’s Day a few years ago. She’s the fourth of four girls, and of five children–her parents had her brother about five years after she was born. Her father was reminiscing about the past with her, and mentioned in passing that he and my friend’s mother had never really intended to have five children–they had originally meant to only have two. My friend knew this already–it was a long-standing family joke. However, she wasn’t too prepared for what followed:
“Yeah, but we didn’t,” her father commented. “If I could go back and only pick two of you–well, I’d pick my son, of course–I don’t know which of you girls I’d choose.”
My friend was in her early thirties when she got to hear this, but it still made her cry after she got home. But who cares–? She was probably just using her tears to whine, mope and manipulate–! Or at least practice those feminine techniques, since her father wasn’t around to see her tears.
One of my friends who knows the secret thinks a girl will be great for me. “You deserve a girl!” she said, after watching me separate my two fighting boys. “Just think, she’ll be quiet. Calm. Easy.” It’s true: Even inside me, she’s different. When my boys would kick, I’d press against their little feet, and they’d kick back, harder. This baby? If she kicks and I press back, she goes completely still.
Oh, well, that’s all there is to it then! The fact that my older son, as a fetus, was quiet and lazy in utero must have meant that he was really a female fetus. And when my sister and I used to regularly duke it out? Clearly we were really boys! That goes double for my best friend and her three sisters, who spent a large portion of their childhood in intersibling brawls complete with screaming, limbs and handy objects flying. How we all magically managed to change gender once these behaviors ended has got to be the medical mystery of the century.
Maybe this broad is just so stupid that her daughter won’t take her mother’s inanity and senseless cruelty to heart, realizing early on that one must always consider the source. Unfortunately, that isn’t usually how it works out with kids. I wish she’d been sterilized after kid no. 2, and I’m really sorry that she’s even raising the boys she has–they’re either going to grow up to be flaming sexist assholes or they’re going to have a rough row to hoe weeding that bullshit out of themselves as adults. Most of all, I’m sorry I ever stumbled across this article at all.
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