Boys and Girls

Now that it's become undeniably obvious that Claire is pregnant, we get a whole new set of comments from virtual strangers. First, they tend to ask when she's due. Then they almost always ask "what are you having?". I still haven't decided how to react to that question. Usually, I just spit out "boy", when what I really want to say is "it's probably a baby, but we can't be totally sure".

Then almost without exception, the asker looks at me and says "well YOU must be REALLY happy!" This is the one that kills me. Why? Because I have a penis, and my offspring will too? Because I won't have to deal with my child having a period? The question kind of offends me and feels like a throwback to an era in which I'd be looking for a male heir to whom I would pass along my legacy.

There's a great and enlightening article in the new Atlantic by Hanna Rosin (READ IT HERE). It begins by talking about the controversial science of gender-selection. The fear, as this process was developed, was that parents would overwhelmingly choose to have male children. The reality in this day and age is that a majority of parents, if given the choice, would choose females. Why? The article concludes that our society is moving towards a full-on embrace of traditionally "feminine" qualities such as social aptitude and the ability to pay attention (that one cracked me up... I can't be on a sales call for more than 3 minutes before I start pacing or checking my email...).

So what's to be drawn? Should I, for some reason, prefer male offspring? I would have been overjoyed with a girl. Before we found out, I was convinced that we were having a girl and I was thrilled. When the penis showed up on the ultrasound, I was, it goes without saying, unable to contain my smile but it wasn't because I was having a boy. It was because I suddenly had a real person to bond with. A little person who just so happened to have male genitals.